Fiction and fiction are fiction. This is opposed to scientific and non-fictional texts. According to this, all works belonging to the literature of literature fall into the category of fiction. This applies to writings in prose, such as romances, novellas and short stories, but also dramas as well as lyrical products or comics.
The term is derived from the French belles lettres, which can be translated with beautiful sciences or beautiful literature. This term goes back to the French book market of the 17th century. Here the literary writings were divided into scientific and literary writings, with the addition of a section of simple, low-level literature.
For this simple literature the term Volksbuch was already proposed in the 18th century by Joseph Görres and Johann Gottfried von Herder. Among these were tales, popular legends, fairy tales, knight seals, and minnelieders. In contrast, the belles lettres, the beautiful literature, was characterized by the fact that it tried to distinguish itself from the simple.
Overview: Features of fiction
Overview: The essential characteristics of fiction
This beautiful literature, which was distinguished from popular poetry and scholarly works, was usually more complex, more elaborate, and partly cost the triple. Fiction was thus directed at the educated class of readers.
Belletristic writings were often characterized by allusions, allegorical condensations, and an artistic style of writing. Furthermore, the contents of the fiction were clearly fictional, whereas the national books mixed the personal with the fictional.
This subdivision in the literary and literary literature finds a clear correspondence in the English book industry, which distinguishes between fiction and nonfiction.
The low market of the early print was also characterized by a constant repetition of the content. Substances that functioned over the decades have often simply been reissued, while the elegant literature usually presented new content.
However, there are overlaps. For example, Robinson Crusoe (1719), a novel by Daniel Defoe, was unequivocally placed in the fiction category and moved accordingly. However, there was soon a shortened, simpler edition that promised the reader to be simpler and more comprehensible than the elegant edition.
Consequently, the difference did not arise in the aftermath, but was partly communicated openly. The lower literature, therefore, is deliberately addressed to readers who were aware of their simpler conceptual skills and were specifically looking for them.
Nowadays, all the writings are treated as non-scientific or non-fictional. Consequently, trivial literature is also fiction, which is why the term is used as a synonym for entertainment literature.