A Short History of Nonlinearity in Literature

Nonlinearity is a narrative technique in which the story is out of order, deconstructed, or rearranged in time and space. Although the nonlinear narrative is often associated with film plots, fundamentally ancient epics are the source of it. I Ching (Book of Changes) by Fu Hsi is recognized as the oldest nonlinear text and the first source of symbol of Yin and Yang dated to BC 2000. I Ching  also might be the driving force to hypertexts- the newest nonlinear form- as it’s made up of sixty-four symbols which are the binary combination of six whole or broken 'changing' lines.



Visualizing I-Ching, ©Peiyuan Tang; Han-wei Shen

 

By applying in medias res (into the middle of things) technique, which employs flashbacks, other stories in parallel, and dream immersions in narratives, some of the tales of Arabian Nights use nonlinearity inspired by Indian epic fables (Mahabharata and Panchatantra) circa 5th-century eastern tradition comes first in nonlinear literature. In media res only occurs around the 8th century in western literature with Homer's epic poems. In Odyssey, the reader first learns about Odysseus’s journey when he is held captive on Calypso's island then finds out starting from Book 9 that the greater part of Odysseus's journey precedes that moment in the narrative. 

 

Another reflection of nonlinearity in tragedy can be found in Shakespeare's Hamlet where characters refer to King Hamlet's death without the plot's first establishment of said fact. Not only using in medias res, but also verging the reader on a new event throughout, Laurence Sterne introduces infinite possibilities of writing over the exigencies of the plot, the logic of cause and effect, and the desire for closure.1 In Tristram Shandy (1759–67), Sterne makes a reader think that they are about to pick up the thread of a previous storyline, text suddenly veers off on yet another tangent.2 In the 19th and 20th century, modernists also embrace nonlinearity with notable examples from James Joyce, Julio Cortazar, and William S. Burrough. The aesthetic distortion in arts and the motivation of focusing on fragments are seemingly the impetus of the late nonlinear examples in the 21st century. 

Word Count: 344

Work Cited:

1 http://www2.iath.virginia.edu/elab/hfl0259.html
2 ibid
https://complit.utoronto.ca/wp-content/uploads/COL1000_Aarseth-1994_Bai.pdf"
https://www.informationisbeautifulawards.com/showcase/3481-visualizing-i-ching

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