"This is a true story": Fiction disguised as fact in the prefaces of late seventeenth and eighteenth century French and English prose works.
Item
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Title
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"This is a true story": Fiction disguised as fact in the prefaces of late seventeenth and eighteenth century French and English prose works.
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Identifier
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AAI8914750
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identifier
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8914750
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Creator
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Georgulis, Christine.
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Contributor
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Adviser: Robert A. Day
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Date
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1988
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Literature, Comparative | Literature, English | Literature, Romance
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Abstract
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Prefatory assertions of literal truth introduce many late seventeenth and early eighteenth-century French and English works of literary invention. These claims indeed sufficed to capture the attention and the conviction of most readers. "This is a true story" by its very declaration influences the way a reader reads a text even if he simultaneously entertains doubts as to its veracity. The word "true" often is what triggers reader interest in the first place; it supplies the impetus for a potential reader to become an actual one. Perceiving the work as "true," the reader approaches the text with a conscious or unconscious bias: an initial disposition to believe the content. Whether the reader's expectations of factual material are fulfilled within the main text is another question. This dissertation examines and compares these prefaces, which pretend to present authentic histories, biographies, memoirs, and letter collections. Three pertinent questions are addressed. First, why did authors disguise their fiction as fact? Secondly, what devices, techniques, or methods are used in these prefaces to execute this pretense? Lastly, how did these prefaces function as the fictional beginning of their works?;This dissertation evolved from the observation that the label "true" still possesses a magnetic effect on both modern readers and viewers. The popularity of nonfiction, the "nonfiction novel," and the New Journalism has risen significantly. Recent bestseller lists feature biographies, autobiographies, and memoirs; magazine racks display People, Us, True Stories, True Confessions, and True Romances; newsstands sell as "news" The National Enquirer, The Star, and The Globe. All tantalize by promising the truth about the famous and the infamous, as well as the sensational or extraordinary in ordinary lives. Likewise, the fascination for "docudrama"--the dramatization of a true story--commands a massive share of television audiences. Regardless whether these works or programs are adequately or realistically documented, the stamp of truth by its very inherent attractiveness suffices at least initially to instill belief. Similar popular reader reaction prevailed with the majority of late seventeenth and early eighteenth-century readers who were offered "true" accounts.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
