Plotlessness
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Plotlessness refers to fiction lacking plots. Plotlessness was uncommon before the 20th century, but in modernist literature, plot was secondary to philosophical introspection. Taking this to the extreme, the anti-novel was an evolution of the mid twentieth century.
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Plotless literature
18th century
- Tristram Shandy (1759), Laurence Sterne
- A Journey Around My Room (1794) by Xavier de Maistre
19th century
- Notes from the Underground (1864) by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
- Bouvard et Pécuchet (1881) by Flaubert
- À rebours (1884) by Huysmans
- Elbow-Room; A Novel Without a Plot (1876) is a novel by Charles Heber Clark
20th century
In modernist literature, plot is secondary to philosophical introspection, and the prose can be winding and hard to follow. Taking this to the extreme, we come to the anti-novel of the mid twentieth century.
Examples
- Naked Lunch by William Burroughs
- In Search of Lost Time (1913 - 1927 ) by Proust
- Raymond Carver’s short stories
- Nicholson Baker's novels
Plot-driven literature
See also
- Boredom
- Digression
- Narratology
- Psychological novel
- Stream of consciousness
- Sketch story
- Non-narrative film
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