Fictional contract and fictional signals, viewed historically [Fiktionsvertrag und fiktionsanzeigen, historisch betrachtet]

Abstract

The article analyzes the concepts of contract and convention in fictionality. Fictionally is recognized by contract or convention through signals and symptoms that are embedded in an institutional setting. Whereas signals are paratextual in general, symptoms appear on an intratextual level. In the context of oral story-telling, fictionality first comes into being via the unbelievability of narrative content. Although Antiquity did not develop a generalized concept of fictionality, the Hellen-istic romance shows a variety of symptoms which reveal a developed consciousness of fictionality. Classical rhetoric presents another source of fictionality, which is transmitted to the Middle Ages by Latin poetics. However, vernacular narrative literature falls behind this achievement and does not show clear signals or symptoms of fictionality. In early modern times, a consciousness of fictionality also emerges in vernacular literature. At the same time, writers begin strategically to blur the fictionality of their texts by employing misleading signals.