On the Distinction between the Literary and the Fictional
On the Distinction between the Literary and the Fictional

Summary/Abstract: Although related terms, the referential divide between literariness - in the sense given to the term by the Russian Formalists as the (essentially stylistic) core of non-pragmatic communication – and fictionality as the defining feature of all fiction is less straightforward and more complex than commonly believed. Speech act theory and the philosophy of literature have contributed significantly to rendering this distinction clear by defining the domains of literature, narrative and fiction, commonly presumed to overlap, as separated by peculiar elements that bring into play notions such as truth versus lying and imagination, belief versus make-belief, as well as the notion of possible worlds.

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