IRINA RAJEWSKY

Theories of Fictionality and Their Real Other

This contribution will deal with how current theories of fictionality con-
ceive of fictionality’s ‘other(s),’ focusing on the controversial term factuality
as fictionality’s other or foil. An introductory section on factual narrative in
Genettian terms will be followed by a survey of the terminological quanda-
ries observable in literature-centered fiction/ality discourse, based on a
comparison between the anglophone and German-language debates. In
view of current socio-cultural and academic shifts in paradigm, my closing
remarks will address a broader, transmedial perspective on the issues at
hand.

1. The invention of factual narrative

In his 1990 “Fictional Narrative, Factual Narrative” (and in Fiction et dic-

tion / Fiction and Diction 1991 / 1993 with even greater impact) Gérard
Genette surprised his readership with extensive criticism of his own theo-
retical perspectives in narrative theory, anticipating an “expansion of re-
search agendas” (Pier 2010, 11). Such an expansion manifested itself over
the following years in the shift from so-called classical to postclassical
narratology. While maintaining classical narratology’s focus on verbal
forms of narrative, Genette recognizes its quasi exclusive focus on fictional
narrative texts as an intrinsic shortcoming. “[N]arratology,” Genette states,
“ought to be concerned with all sorts of narratives, fictional or not. It is
quite clear, however, that [it] has concentrated almost exclusively up to
now on the features and objects of fictional narrative alone” (1993 [1991],
54). Genette thus detects a fundamental restrictedness of narratology
(cf. 56), which has “proceeded as if by virtue of an implicit privilege that
hypostatizes fictional narrative into narrative par excellence, or into a
model for all narratives” (54–55).1 He now maintained that narratological

1 For remarks on previous research into nonfictional forms of narrative (e.g. by Paul
Ricœur, Hayden White, and Paul Veyne) cf. Genette (1993 [1991], 55); see also Fluder-
nik (2013).

https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110486278-002

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30 Irina Rajewsky

considerations must necessarily include nonfictional narrative and he intro-

duced the concept of factual narrative (le récit factuel ).
From a present-day perspective Genette’s diagnosis certainly still falls
short of the mark. For instance, from the viewpoint of transgeneric and
transmedial approaches classical narratology’s restrictedness is not merely
evident in its focus on fictional narrative, but in fact applies to the limited
conception of narrative itself. In this context, it is important to recall that
there are currently two basic types of approach in both the narratological
debate and the debate on fiction/ality: a) established language- and (more
specifically) literary fiction-based approaches, and b) transmedially-oriented
approaches concerned with the study of narrative and/or fictionality/fac-
tuality across the arts or media. Hence, we are confronted with two funda-
mentally different conceptions of narrative: a) Genette’s and, more generally
speaking, classical narratology’s narrowly conceived concept and b) more
broadly conceived conceptions, which have become commonplace in post-
classical narratology (see, e.g., Ryan 2005; Wolf 2011; 2017).
With regard to Genette’s notion of narrative, one must bear in mind that
classical narratology applies the term following the Platonic-Aristotelian
distinction between epic and drama. More precisely, the use of the term is
derived from Plato’s (Politeia III, 394b–c) and Aristotle’s (Poetics, Ch. 3)
famous distinction between the two basic modes of conveying a story: re-
counting vs. showing, i.e., mimetically enacting. Yet, in contrast to Plato’s
superordinate broadly conceived notion of diegesis, classical narratology
does not treat ‘recounting’ and ‘enacting’ as two modes of diegesis, i.e. of
narrative, but has placed narrative (as well as diegesis) as a term and concept
on one side of the dichotomy: narrative versus drama, diegetic storytelling
versus mimetic (re)presentation.2 When Genette argues in favor of a “strict”
use of the term narrative – “one referring to mode” (1988 [1983], 17) – he
thus only addresses the diegetic mode, which is, in fact, further restricted
and equated with fictional, narrator-transmitted storytelling.3 Mimetic forms
of conveying a story are regarded as ‘extra-’ or ‘non-narrative,’ which is
why Genette does not consider them part of the field of (modal) narratolo-
gy (cf. 15–18). To sum up, we can identify four conditions that determine
Genette’s and classical narratology’s understanding of narrative as well as

2 This is to say that classical narratology has equated Plato’s understanding of diegesis
with what Politeia III, 392d, regards “as one particular species of that genus, i.e. ‘plain’
or ‘single-voiced’ diêgêsis” (Halliwell 2009, 18). In Plato’s view both ‘plain’ diegesis (haple
diegesis) and mimesis are forms of diegesis.
3 Cf. also Chatman: “In the narrower, traditional sense, Narrative is a text entailing […]
the diegetic condition: that is, that the text must be told by a […] narrator” (1990,
114; emphasis deleted).

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 Theories of Fictionality and Their Real Other 31

of narration / to narrate: (1.) narrative is a matter of diegetic forms of storytell-

ing; which is to say, (2.) that they are verbal; and (3.) (in general) fictional
narratives; moreover, (4.) academic research and debates are almost exclu-
sively restricted to the analysis of written texts.
Genette’s remarks in Fiction and Diction need to be read in this light.
When he claims that narratology “ought to be concerned with all sorts of
narrative” (1993 [1991], 54; my emphasis), he does not refer to narrative in
a broader sense, including drama, theater, film, etc. His understanding
remains restricted to the narrow sense (i.e. verbal, diegetic storytelling),
except that it now includes both fictional and factual narratives.
A global debate of the matter must take such conceptual restrictions
into account. However, even if Genette’s (self-)critique falls short of the
mark from a present-day perspective, at the time it did raise an awareness
of a crucial shortcoming and a ‘blind spot’ in conventional narrative theory;
namely that of the exclusive focus on fictional narrative texts. As recent
research has shown, this has far-reaching implications for the entire theo-
retical framework of narratology – and particularly for transgeneric and
transmedial approaches (cf., e.g., Ryan 2005; Rajewsky 2013). For the
present contribution it is, moreover, relevant that Genette introduced the
term factual narrative (albeit with certain reservations concerning its termino-
logical aptness) in precisely this context. His declared goal was to put
forward a positive term to designate fictionality’s ‘other’:
For want of a better term, I use the adjective factual [ factuel ] here, […] so as to avoid
depending systematically on negative expressions (nonfiction, nonfictional ) which reflect
and perpetuate the very privilege that I want to call into question. (Genette 1993
[1991], 55 fn. 3)

While Genette’s focus is clearly on narrative texts, he also implies a more

general distinction between fictionality and factuality (cf. 1993 [1991], 79).
This paved the way for the semantic opposition of fictional/fictionality and
factual/factuality in the wider context of postclassical narratology and theo-
ries of fictionality.
Yet, despite the apparent plausibility of the fictional/factual dichotomy,
contrasting the two terms or notions has not defused the complex termi-
nological situation in fiction/ality research. Two aspects are particularly
relevant in this context:
Firstly, if factuality is defined as the counterpart of fictionality, a more
precise definition of factuality evidently depends on one’s related under-
standing of fictionality. This is as much as to say that factuality is rooted
within the fiction/ality debate and has been conceptualized in relation to
fictionality. This is striking since nonfictional discourse is generally seen as
the default mode of communication. Consequently, the main section of

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32 Irina Rajewsky

this contribution will outline the extent to which different conceptions of

fiction/ality have affected the notion and understanding of factuality.
Secondly, there is no consensus regarding the advantages of Genette’s
dichotomy: some theoreticians consider fictionality vs. factuality a self-evident
and heuristically useful opposition, while others (such as J. Alexander
Bareis; see below) reject factuality in favor of adhering to the term nonfiction-
ality. However, there are also voices that raise concerns on another point:
namely that factuality can only ever partially convey the notion of the non-
fictional. Klaus W. Hempfer, for instance, emphasizes that the debate pays
too little heed to the context in which Genette introduced the term
(cf. 2018, 100–101). He points out that Genette does not distinguish “be-
tween ‘fictionality’ and ‘factuality’ tout court ” 4 (101), but applies factual to
narrative practices and, hence, to a specific kind of referential representa-
tion. Hempfer makes it clear that the aptness of the fictional-factual oppo-
sition is limited: “[F]actual discourses or texts [are] only those [...] which
can in principle be traced back to assertions, for which it is possible to
assign a truth value and thus a reference” (101). This does not imply that
statements in factual discourses are necessarily ‘true.’ Just as assertions may
be true, false, or undecidable, statements in factual discourses can also be
false or undecidable (cf. 101). Fictional and factual utterances should thus
be distinguished in the context of referential semantics in its broadest
sense (i.e. one which also problematizes reference; cf. 101). Further,
Hempfer points out that the fictional-factual opposition fails to include
“utterances that cannot be referenced, such as orders, regulations, obliga-
tions, permissions, etc.” (101). He thus distinguishes the fictional vs. factu-
al opposition from the fictional vs. nonfictional one, since nonfictionality
covers a broader range of types of utterances and discourses: “[T]he realm
of the nonfictional [must] be separated out into different categories [...],
ranging from the normative to the hypothetical to the counterfactual [...]”
(101) (/ I.4 Packard).
Jean-Marie Schaeffer delineates factuality’s area of validity and scope of
application in a comparable way (though he also opens up the discussion
to a consideration of non-literary and non-narrative practices). In his semi-
nal 2014 article on “Fictional vs. Factual Narration,” he highlights the
importance of placing “the problem of the distinction between factual and
fictional narrative [...] in its wider context” (181). Schaeffer provides the
following specification of the fictional/ity vs. factual/ity opposition:

4 Unless otherwise indicated, here and in all further quotations from German criticism,
the translation is mine.

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 Theories of Fictionality and Their Real Other 33

First, not every verbal utterance is narrative, nor is every referential utterance narrative.
Thus discursive reference cannot be reduced to narrative reference. More generally,
reference is not necessarily verbal: it can also be visual (e.g. a photograph makes
reference claims without being of a discursive nature). The same holds for fiction. Not
every fiction is verbal (paintings can be, and very often are, fictional), and not every
fiction, or even every verbal fiction, is narrative: both a painted portrait […] and a
verbal description of a unicorn are fictions without being narrations. Factual narrative
is a species of referential representation, just as fictional narrative is a species of non-
factual representation. And of course not every verbal utterance without factual content
is a fiction: erroneous assertions and plain lies are also utterances without factual
content. Indeed, fiction, and its species narrative fiction, are best understood as a
specific way of producing and using mental representations and semiotic devices, be
they verbal or not. This means that narrative and fiction are intersecting categories and
must be studied as such […]. (181)

Hence, like Hempfer, Schaeffer restricts factuality to referential forms of

representation – and at the same time makes it clear that the factual/
fictional divide points beyond fictionality research’s traditional focus on
language and literature as well as beyond the equally traditional proximity
between fictionality-related questions and narrative practices. Narrative and
factuality (just like narrative and fictionality) must, therefore, be under-
stood and studied as intersecting categories. Moreover, both narrative and
fictionality/factuality classify as transgeneric and transmedial phenomena,
i.e. as phenomena that are observable across a variety of different genres,
arts, and media.

2. Fictionality and factuality from the perspective of literary studies

The international fiction/ality debate is characterized by heterogeneous

concepts of fiction/ality, its derivatives and counter-concepts. In this con-
text, differences in the understanding and use of terms in individual lan-
guages must be given due attention. Even though this has repeatedly been
noted (see, e.g., Hempfer 2004 [1990]; Zipfel 2001, Ch. 1.1), the wider-
reaching implications have so far largely remained disregarded. In what
follows, I will outline the differences between terminological approaches
in English and in German as a case study.5
In the anglophone debate the term fictional generally serves as the adjective
corresponding to the noun fiction. Fictionality as the nominalized form of
fictional thus primarily denotes the property of ‘being’ fiction/al. In the
anglophone context, then, fictional/ity is a rather vague term that covers,

5 This analysis excludes a consideration of the notions of fiction sensu ‘genre’ and sensu
‘construct’ as in panfictionalism (Konrad 2014; / I.6 Zipfel).

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34 Irina Rajewsky

or may cover, fiction in all its possible meanings and as a multidimensional

term (see below).
In recent years, the extensive impact of Kendall L. Walton’s Mimesis as
Make-Believe (1990) – and of the use of fiction/fictional/fictionality linked to
this specific approach – has further complicated terminological issues. One
should note that Walton’s primary concern is not the theoretical (and/or
terminological) fiction/ality debate, but rather the attempt to establish a
general theory of representation. To that end, his ‘game of make-believe’
concept treats representation and (works of ) fiction as ultimately interchange-
able terms:
We thus find ourselves with a way of distinguishing fiction from nonfiction. Works of
fiction are simply representations in our special sense, works whose function is to serve
as props in a game of make-believe. Except for the fact that representations need not
be works [i.e. human artifacts], we could use ‘representation’ and ‘work of fiction’
interchangeably. (1990, 72)

From the perspective of a theory of fiction/ality, this renders the term

fiction rather nebulous,6 and this has significant terminological implications.
In accordance with general anglophone practice, Walton uses fictional/ity
to denote the property of ‘being’ fiction; however in this case fiction is to
be understood as representation and, more precisely, as representation in
Walton’s “special sense.” Among other things, this leads to his conclusion
that images, even press images, “are fiction by definition” (1990, 351).
Walton’s notion of fiction, fictional and fictionality (and thus also of ‘fictional
truth’) is hence out of line with the received use of the terms. This often
leads to terminological and conceptual confusion, especially when Walton’s
use of the terms fictional and fictionality is adopted in the German-language
context (see Rajewsky 2018).
Let us then turn to the German-speaking scholarly community. Since the
early 1990s, German criticism has increasingly highlighted the distinction
between Fiktivität (fictivity) and Fiktionalität (fictionality), which is generally
regarded as fundamental.7 Andreas Kablitz considers this dichotomy “the
core [Kernstück] of all theories of literary fiction” (2008, 18). There exists
a broad consensus in German criticism that fiktiv/Fiktivität denotes a qual-
ity of what is represented (i.e. it refers to fictive entities, characters or places),

6 It has, moreover, been pointed out that Walton quite paradoxically considers all visual
artifacts as fictions (see below), while he distinguishes between fictional and nonfiction-
al narrative texts. For critical discussions of Walton’s approach see Schaeffer (2010
[1999]); Zipfel (2001, esp. 23); Bunia (2007, esp. 30); Thon (2014); Wenninger (2014,
469); Hempfer (2018, esp. 86–87). See also Bareis (2008, 2014, 2016).
7 See Hempfer (2004 [1990]), Gabriel (1991), Rühling (1996), Zipfel (2001) and numer-
ous current contributions.

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 Theories of Fictionality and Their Real Other 35

Fiktion (fiction)

fiktiv (fictive)  Fiktivität (fictivity) fiktional (fictional)  Fiktionalität (fictionality)

quality of what is represented quality/mode of representation

Narnia as a fictive country The Chronicles of Narnia as fictional texts (novels)

Lara Croft as a fictive character Lara Croft: Tomb Raider as a fictional film

Fig. 1: Terminological differentiations of Fiktion in the German-language context

while fiktional/Fiktionalität is perceived to denote a quality or mode of repre-

sentation (fictional discourse, utterances, texts, films, etc.) (see Fig. 1). Con-
sequently, in the German-language debate neither fiktiv/Fiktivität nor fik-
tional/Fiktionalität are taken to be synonymous with Fiktion (fiction). Rather,
Fiktion is understood as a superordinate, semantically ambivalent term
whose ambivalence becomes apparent in its having two corresponding ad-
jectives (fiktiv and fiktional ), each of which refers to different aspects or
dimensions of Fiktion (cf. Kablitz 2008, 17–18).
However, despite this broad consensus on a distinction between Fikti-
vität and Fiktionalität, the specification of how to conceptualize and apply
these terms is open to debate. In fact, views on the matter differ consider-
ably, which also affects the use and conception of the respective counter-
concepts. For a start, the term fiktiv is subject to different conceptions: it
is sometimes used in the sense of ‘invented’ and sometimes in the sense
of ‘possible’ or ‘fictive’ worlds. This prompts different applications of the
term: the first one distinguishes between fictive and real entities (e.g., be-
tween invented and historically authentic characters in a novel; see Zipfel
2001, 102); the second defines all entities within a fictional text as fictive,
since they form part of a ‘closed,’ ‘fictive’ world, irrespective of their po-
tential similarities to entities that exist in ontological reality (see Schmid
2010, 31). Some of these latter approaches, moreover, introduce an addi-
tional differentiation between fiktiv and erfunden (‘fictive’ and ‘invented’; see
Bunia 2007; Kuhn 2018). In the following, fiktiv/fictive will be used in the
sense of ‘invented.’
One of the (international) debate’s central points of dispute is the issue
whether Faktualität (factuality) – or rather Nicht-Fiktionalität (nonfictionality) –

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36 Irina Rajewsky

can be considered commensurable as counter-concepts of Fiktionalität. For

instance, Bareis has repeatedly spoken out against Faktualität/factuality as
the antonym of Fiktionalität/fictionality. In taking up Walton’s approach
(and oriented along the lines of the anglophone debate) he states:
Fiction sensu Walton is not defined in opposition to actuality/reality and/or truth.
The opposite of fiction is nonfiction. Consequently, the opposite of fictional narrative
is not factual narrative but nonfictional narrative. ‘Reality can be the subject of fantasy,’
as Walton says, but conversely fictive entities can be the subject of nonfictional narra-
tion. (2014, 61)

Regarding narrative, Bareis therefore does not simply conceive of factuality

as a synonym of nonfictionality, but as a term that also inherently implies
‘actuality/reality and/or truth’ and which is thus perforce linked to factici-
ty. From Bareis’s point of view this association with truth and facticity is
all the more problematic as it analogously suggests that fictionality is intrinsi-
cally related to fictivity (i.e. inventedness), or that fictionality presupposes
at least a “minimal dimension of fictivity” (“ein Mindestmaß an Fiktivität”;
2008, 106). This is a conclusion that pragmatic approaches such as Bareis’s
reject.
Discarding factual/ity as a counter-concept of fictional/ity on these very
grounds shows up a certain lopsidedness in how the terms are used. From
the perspective of most current theories of fictionality it is not only necessary
to clearly disengage fictionality from questions pertaining to fictivity or
nonfictivity; but this also appears unproblematic, despite the fact that
“[i]nvented entities and actions are [generally considered] the common
stuff of fiction” (Schaeffer 2014, 186). However, at least the anglophone
(and francophone) debates seem to approach the term and concept of
factuality against the background of a different kind of intrinsic logic, one
which does not suggest decoupling factuality from facticity.
Such a view is also advocated by Schaeffer. In presenting pragmatic
(vs. semantic and syntactic) definitions of fiction/ality he states:
In conclusion, the pragmatic definition claims that the syntactic status of fiction de-
pends on its formal make-up, its semantic status on its relationship to reality, but that
its status as fiction (or not) depends on the way the representations implemented by
the text are processed or used. (191)

For Schaeffer this also poses a problem, for it

would imply that the pair fact/fiction is logically heterogeneous. The conditions for
satisfying the criteria of factual narrative are semantic: a factual narrative is either true
or false. Even if it is willfully false (as is the case if it is a lie), what determines its truth
or its untruth is not its (hidden) pragmatic intention, but that which is in fact the case.
The conditions for satisfying the criteria of fictional narrative are pragmatic: the truth
claims a text would make if it (the same text, from the syntactic point of view) were a
factual text (be these claims true or false) must be bracketed out. (191)

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 Theories of Fictionality and Their Real Other 37

Thus Schaeffer highlights the very same issue that Bareis tries to solve
by rejecting factual/ity and reinstating nonfictional/ity as fictional/ity’s counter
term.
However, the fictionality/factuality divide can also be approached from
a different angle. It is no coincidence that the notion of factual/ity has
come to prevail in the German-language debate. In contrast to French
(where factuel means “qui s’en tient aux faits” [Larousse] / “qui est de l’ordre
du fait” [Le Petit Robert] – ‘that which accords with the facts’ / ‘that which
is of the order of facts’) and English (where factual means “relating to or
concerned with facts or reality; of the nature of fact, consisting of facts”
[OED]), the German language, according to Duden, has the adjective fak-
tisch (meaning “in Wirklichkeit, tatsächlich, wirklich” – ‘in reality, factually,
really’) but does not have the word faktual. Thus, the neologism faktual (as
opposed to faktisch) can be used to supplement the traditional conceptual
pair fiktiv vs. faktisch and fiktional vs. nicht-fiktional to yield conceptually
complementary ones: fiktiv vs. faktisch and fiktional vs. faktual (see Fig. 2).8

FACT / FICTION

quality of what is quality/mode

represented of representation

faktisch/real (‘factual’) fiktiv (fictive) faktual (‘factual’) fiktional (fictional)

Faktizität ( facticity) Fiktivität ( fictivity) Faktualität ( factuality) Fiktionalität ( fictionality)

Fig. 2: ‘Fact/fiction’ – overview of the terminological oppositions in the German-

language context

As Figure 2 demonstrates, in English factual refers to both the mode of

representation and the quality of what is represented (‘factual narrative’
and ‘factual content,’ see Schaeffer above); i.e. factual also means ‘based on
facts.’ However, the German-language context differentiates between fak-
tual and faktisch. Genette’s introduction of a positive term to supplement
the already established notion of nonfictionality has thus proven particu-
larly productive here. After all, it was this additional term (faktual ) which

8 In the francophone context, Genette applies factuel (in the sense of non-fictionnel ) despite
the common denotation, which he himself recognizes as a terminological ‘blemish.’ –
Interestingly, the problem poses itself to him in a different way than it does, e.g., to
Bareis: “[…] I use the adjective factual here, though it is not an ideal choice (for fiction,
too, consists in sequences of facts)” (Genette 1993 [1991], 55 fn. 3).

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38 Irina Rajewsky

produced a terminological frame, homogeneous in itself, in the German-

language context. This frame has, in fact, brought to the fore the analogy
and conceptual complementarity of the distinction between fiktiv vs. fiktio-
nal on the one hand and faktisch vs. faktual on the other. To juxtapose
factual and fictional narrative along these conceptual lines qualifies the
notion that they are based on inherently heterogeneous criteria (semantic
ones in the case of factual narrative and pragmatic ones in the case of
fictional narrative, see Schaeffer above).
It should be noted that, with regard to Faktualität as a term and con-
cept, the German-language debate nonetheless features two conflicting po-
sitions (both of which employ the term Faktualität as synonymous with
Nicht-Fiktionalität):
– The first one indeed links Fiktionalität/Faktualität to Fiktivität/Faktizi-
tät. For instance, Frank Zipfel takes the position that Fiktionalität is
always determined by Fiktivität (cf. 2001, 165). Conversely, this implies
that factual narratives are linked to facticity. (For a modified approach
with reference to prototype theory by Zipfel himself see 2016.)
– The second and prevalent position disengages the concepts from one
another and thus also explicitly detaches the concept of Faktualität
from Faktizität or Nicht-Faktizität.9 This position therefore considers
Fiktionalität and Fiktivität as well as Faktualität and Faktizität as logically
independent notions (cf. Rühling 1996, 30).

A case in point for the latter position is Kablitz’s approach. In his eyes
the differentia specifica of fictional (as compared to factual) narratives is the
absence of the obligation to state ontological facts and be ‘truthful’
(cf. 2014, 95). He coins the term Vergleichgültigung (‘indifferentiation’) for
this ‘license’ (2008, 16 and 2014, 95). (For a critical stance see Hempfer
2018; Kuhn 2018.) The crucial point is that it is admissible to make false
statements in fictional utterances. That is, they need not but can also be
true. According to Kablitz, it is perfectly possible for a fictional text not
to contain any kind of invention (cf. 2008, 16) – just as “fictivity [i.e.
inventedness] is not a privilege of fictional texts” (2014, 96; see also Dan-
neberg 2006). From this Kablitz deduces that Fiktivität is scalable (e.g.
historical novels vs. fantasy novels), whereas Fiktionalität/Faktualität is not

9 Against this backdrop, it is significant that in 2009 Klein and Martínez considered it
necessary to introduce yet another term, viz. Wirklichkeitserzählung (literally: ‘narrative
of reality’), into the German-speaking debate, evidently with the objective of coining
an additional term which emphasizes the respective narratives’ dimension of facticity
or reality.

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 Theories of Fictionality and Their Real Other 39

(cf. Kablitz 2014, 96). A narrative text can either be fictional or factual: it
is either exempted from the obligation to relate to facts or it is not
(cf. 2014, 96 and 2008, 17). What is represented can, however, be “more
or less fictive” (17), a possibility which according to Kablitz exists for
fictional as well as for factual narratives (cf. 17).
Approaches such as Kablitz’s hence are neither in line with the notion
that Faktualität aims at something other than Nicht-Fiktionalität, nor are
they consonant with Schaeffer’s assessment that factuality and fictionality
constitute a logically heterogeneous pair. But they are in complete align-
ment with the pragmatic orientation that prevails in current fictionality
research, applying Faktualität in conceptual analogy to Fiktionalität (i.e.,
disengaged from questions of fictivity/facticity/truth value).10 Certainly,
“what determines [a factual narrative’s] truth or […] untruth is not its
(hidden) pragmatic intention, but that which is in fact the case” (Schaeffer
2014, 191). A reader’s evaluation of whether the statements a factual narra-
tive makes are ‘true’ or ‘untrue’ (or undecidable) is indeed necessarily based
on knowledge of the world. This, however, is likewise the case for fictional
narratives and does not exempt the reader from having to decide whether
to approach the respective text as a factual or fictional one in the first
place.11 As a consequence one cannot conclude that “[t]he conditions for
satisfying the criteria of factual narrative” (191) are only semantic; one
also needs to take into account pragmatic conditions and a corresponding
“pragmatic attitude” (191) that determine how a reader approaches and
deals with a given text.
This becomes apparent from the implications arising from pragmatic
approaches to fictional narratives. Whenever one assumes a fictional ‘con-
tract’ between author and reader12 or conceives of fictionality as an ‘insti-
tution’ (see Lamarque and Olsen 1994; Köppe 2014) or as a ‘convention’
(“Fiktionalitätskonvention”; Hempfer 2018, 47), one also presupposes a
nonfictional contract, an institution or a convention of nonfictionality
(cf. 47).13 Just as in the case of fictional narratives, an appropriate recep-

10 See also Klauk and Köppe (2014b) who specify that “[i]n differentiating between fic-
tional and nonfictional texts, the latter are sometimes referred to as ‘factual.’ This,
however, means merely that the text in question is nonfictional; and it does not mean
that the text describes or states facts” (5–6).
11 Note, however, that some textual features may indicate (or signal) a narrative’s fiction-
ality and thus prompt the reader’s assumption that what is represented is fictive (see
also Hempfer 2018, 64–65).
12 Cf., e.g., Searle (1975, 331); Warning (1983, 194); Eco (1994, 75).
13 Hempfer defines fictionality as a “set of discursive conventions” (2018, 53, 55) and
argues against conceptions of fictionality based on notions of ‘contract’ or ‘institution.’
On how a systematic theory of fictionality compares to historically variable fictionality

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40 Irina Rajewsky

tion of factual narratives requires the reader to assume an appropriate

attitude or disposition, approaching a given narrative as fictional or factual.
The relevance of pragmatic conditions becomes particularly apparent if
one considers borderline cases, such as fictional texts that obscure their
fictional status or factual narratives featuring strategies usually associated
with fiction. In these cases semantic (as well as syntactic) approaches face
certain problems, as is already evident in Genette. Genette derives his
distinction between fictional and factual narrative from a given story’s
different semantic – or, as Hempfer puts it more convincingly, “epistemic”
(2018, 102) – status: the “story is in one case (supposed to be) ‘true’ and in
the other fictitious, that is, invented” (Genette 1993 [1991], 57). However,
Genette also notes that it is necessary to “attenuate considerably” his initial
“hypothesis that there is an a priori difference of narrative regime between
fiction and nonfiction” (82). He points to “the interaction” (80) and to
“reciprocal exchanges” (82) between these two regimes:
[T]o a large extent the heterodiegetic fictional narrative is a mimesis of factual forms
[…] – a simulation in which the markers of fictionality are only optional licenses that
it can just as well do without [as, e.g., in Wolfgang Hildesheimer’s Marbot].14 […]
[C]onversely, […] techniques of ‘fictionalization’ […] have been extended over the last
several decades to certain forms of factual narrative, such as newspaper reporting or
journalistic investigation (the so-called new journalism), and other derivative genres
such as the ‘nonfiction novel.’ (81)
These observations lead Genette to the conclusion that
there is no such thing as pure fiction and no such thing as history so rigorous that it
abjures any ‘emplotting’ and any use of novelistic techniques; we have to admit, then,
that the two regimes are not as far apart […] as might be supposed from a distance.
(82)
However, from the viewpoint of pragmatic approaches, this conclusion
misses the point, since none of the narrative strategies cited by Genette
actually affects the respective text’s fictional or factual status: the fact that
Hildesheimer’s fake biography Marbot. Eine Biographie (1981) “quite spectac-
ularly” (Genette 1993 [1991], 82) feigns to be what its title claims, a bi-
ography, does not make it a factual text; just as historiographical texts do
not become fictional when they resort to emplotment or use certain ‘novel-
istic’ techniques.15

conventions cf. Hempfer (2018, esp. 56–57, 103–104); see also Fludernik (2018) and
Kuhn (2018).
14 For an extensive discussion of Hildesheimer’s Marbot (1981) see Schaeffer (2010 [1999])
and / IV.8 Lavocat.
15 Concerning the fervent and ‘lopsided’ discussion of Hayden White’s arguments for a
‘fictional’ status of historical narratives see Fludernik (2001, 2013) and / III.4 Jaeger.

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 Theories of Fictionality and Their Real Other 41

Another recent example is Roberto Saviano’s internationally highly suc-

cessful Gomorrah. Italy’s Other Mafia (2006); a nonfiction investigative book
on criminal activities of the Italian Camorra. Due to the application of
narrative methods that are conventionally associated with literary fiction,
Gomorrah has provoked extensive discussions as to its factual or fictional
status. Some readers have indeed interpreted the text as fictional or hybrid.
Without doubt, both Hildesheimer’s Marbot and Saviano’s Gomorrah are
somewhat atypical examples of fictional and factual narrative respectively.
Yet, this does not call into question the basic classificatory distinction
between fictionality and factuality. In this respect it is telling that despite
Gomorrah’s ‘novelistic dimension’ Saviano received Camorra-related death
threats following the book’s publication.16
The reciprocal exchanges between the “fictional and factual regimes of
narrative” (Genette 1993 [1991], 80) should therefore not be perceived as
an index of alleged shortcomings of the fictionality/factuality divide but
as illustrating the fact that both fictional and factual narratives pertain to
the superordinate narrative (as well as textual/medial) regime. They must
thus always be treated in terms of their narrative (and medial) constructed-
ness. Moreover, the fact that some texts (like Marbot or Gomorrah) can be
misinterpreted regarding their respective fictional or factual status indicates
that the fictivity/facticity of what is represented does not automatically
result in a text’s classification as fictional or factual.17 Such misreadings
hinge on (para)textual and/or contextual markers and on narrative conven-
tions. If missing or potentially misleading, such clues may lead the reader
to process fictive ‘facts’ as actual facts (Marbot) or a factual narrative as
fiction (Gomorrah) (/ IV.7 see Korthals Altes).
These considerations do not just highlight the relevance of pragmatic
conditions for satisfying the criteria of both fictional and factual narrative.
They also foreground the decisive role of (para-)textual strategies in signal-
ing a text’s factual or fictional status. To a certain extent, such strategies are
“optional licenses” (Genette 1993 [1991], 82). This has proven of particular
relevance for fiction from a historical point of view.18 Yet, both fictional

16 The extent to which the publication of Gomorrah provoked the death threats against
Saviano remains disputable. Public appearances by the author during which he verbally
denounced individual Camorra members no doubt played a role. Saviano has been
under police protection since 13 October 2006. See Del Porto (2006); Donadio (2007).
17 Nor is the author’s ‘intention’ decisive, as claimed by several pragmatically oriented
theories of fictionality. See, e.g., Searle (1975), Lamarque and Olsen (1994), Köppe
(2014); with respect to Marbot see Schaeffer (2010 [1999], Ch. 3); see also / IV.8Lavo-
cat.
18 It goes without saying that fictional narratives may obscure their fictional status, e.g.,
by signaling precisely the opposite. For the historically variable and often highly ambiv-

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42 Irina Rajewsky

and factual narratives may (and usually do) employ such practices, struc-
tures, paratexts, or contextual indicators to serve as ‘signals’ or “signposts”
(Cohn 1990) for their fictional or factual status (/ IV.8Lavocat). While
the term signpost or signal of fictionality can be considered a standard one in
the international debate (in German: Fiktions- or Fiktionalitätssignal ), the
term signal of factuality (Faktualitätssignal ) has recently gained popularity par-
ticularly in the German-language debate (see, e.g., Schaefer 2008; Zipfel
2014a; Franzen 2018, esp. 124). In conceptual analogy to Fiktionalitätssignal,
Faktualitätssignal serves to denote textual as well as para- or contextual
strategies that indicate a given narrative’s factual status, thus triggering a
‘factual reading’ of the respective text.
This heightened interest in signals of factuality (as well as in various
kinds of ‘factualization strategies’ [Faktualisierungsstrategien]) must, of course,
also be seen in the wider context of current socio-cultural developments
(digital transformation processes, the impact of social and mobile media,
etc.). In particular, it seems to have been stimulated by the growing hybrid-
ization of fictional and factual forms of representation. In the literary field
this development has been evident since the 1960s/70s.19 However, since
the turn of the millennium factual-fictional hybrids have proliferated across
all media. Cases in point are ‘mockumentaries’ or films whose status as
either documentary, pseudo-documentary or mockumentary remains un-
decidable (such as Exit Through the Gift Shop. A Banksy Film, UK 2010).20
One can also observe a remarkable boom in literary autofiction and auto-
fictional formats which has been taking place in other arts/media over the
last few decades, i.e. in openly hybrid forms which blur and call into ques-
tion the conventionalized demarcations between fictional and factual nar-
rative or other forms of (self)representation (/ IV.6 Iversen). These de-
velopments have triggered wide-ranging discussions on the historical
dynamics of the factuality/fictionality divide and on new ways of challeng-
ing the respective boundaries and conventions (see Fludernik, Falkenhay-

alent status of paratexts in this context see Kuhn (2018). Yet, such texts often also
feature certain (narrative) strategies which indicate their fictional status in a rather
unequivocal manner (see also Kablitz 2008, 17 fn. 8). Significantly, ‘pseudofactual’ nar-
ratives or hoaxes (such as Marbot; cf. / IV.8 Lavocat) also adopt and, in fact, need
to adopt, certain strategies that indicate their pseudofactual status (/ IV.9 Paige); other-
wise their simulation of factuality would risk going unnoticed.
19 Cf., e.g., Truman Capote’s ‘nonfiction novel’ In Cold Blood (1966), Serge Doubrovsky’s
early autofictional novel Fils (1977), or so-called Nouvelle Autobiographie, i.e. autofictional
texts of the 1980s/90s by Alain Robbe-Grillet, Nathalie Sarraute, and others. See also
/ IV.6 Iversen.
20 See also Korte (2015) and / III.13 Mundhenke.

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 Theories of Fictionality and Their Real Other 43

ner, and Steiner 2015). In fact, on account of these and other (socio-
cultural and socio-political) current trends, it may be that we are witnessing
a phase of renegotiating the boundaries between fact/uality and fiction/
ality.
The fact that these boundaries are permeable constructs and can thus
be undermined does not suggest that one should question their existence.
On the contrary; it is only when one conventionally recognizes a demarca-
tion that one can play with the boundaries concerned, challenge them or
even cross and renegotiate them.21 This also applies to autofictional for-
mats, which unfold their specific potential on the very basis of convention-
alized demarcations between fictionality and factuality (in the case of liter-
ary autofiction, notably challenging the established disjunction between
author and narrator). The conventionality of these demarcations also em-
phasizes the crucial relevance of genre- and media-related issues in this
overall context. Thus, a further dimension of current debates on fictionality
and its ‘other’ has emerged, namely the fact that over the past years these
questions have increasingly been looked at from a broader, transmedial
perspective with both traditional and digital formats being taken into account.

3. Fictionality and factuality from a transmedial perspective: An outlook

Recent developments in the field of fictionality research show a clear ten-

dency towards the inclusion of transdisciplinary approaches. This goes
hand in hand with the attempt to emancipate fictionality theory from the
traditional focus on literature and to study fiction/ality across genres, arts,
media, and academic disciplines.22 However, research on the implications
for theories of fiction/ality and its ‘other’ is still at an early stage. It also
remains to be seen what consequences this extension of research agendas
may have for existing theories (esp. for literary approaches). It is worth

21 At the same time, such practices make it possible to detect a specific awareness of the
existence of respective conventions and demarcations at given points in history. In this
context, it should be emphasized that the interplay between factuality and fictionality
is by no means a new phenomenon, but was, in fact, already inherent in the emergence
of the respective (historically variable) boundaries and conventions. On historical trans-
formations of the concept of fictionality see / V.1 Finkelberg, / V.2 von Contzen
and / V.3 Detering and Meierhofer.
22 See, e.g., Klauk and Köppe (2014a); Bareis and Nordrum (2015); Enderwitz and Rajew-
sky (2016); / I.3 Ryan. Walton’s Mimesis as Make-Believe forms a cornerstone of this
approach and has given rise to a decisive shift in focus towards a transmedial concept
of fictionality (see, e.g., Thon 2014; Wenninger 2014).

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44 Irina Rajewsky

noting that the growing interest in transmedial research perspectives is not

restricted to an expansion of subject matter, i.e. to a media-comprehensive
orientation. There is also an increased interest in media-comparative ques-
tions and a heightened media-awareness within the arts and humanities
(including literary studies). A transmedially-oriented fictionality debate is
therefore not just concerned with “[t]he theoretical question of whether
and how the concept of fictionality can be applied to nonliterary art forms”
(Zipfel 2014b, 103); it also affects established approaches in literary studies
and thus in the traditional subject area of fictionality research itself.
In this context, the intrinsic ‘double logic’ of transmedially relevant
phenomena is of particular relevance, i.e. the fact that such phenomena
can be observed across a variety of different media, while their actual
manifestations are perforce medium-specific.23 Thus, they may effectively
sharpen our understanding and appreciation of media specificities and dif-
ferences. They may also heighten our awareness that the vast majority of
established theoretical concepts in fictionality/factuality research, narratol-
ogy, and related fields, is contingent upon literary fiction and is hence tied
to, and determined by, the specific medial qualities of fiction, namely its
verbal and textual form.24 Moreover, they may foreground the relationship
between genre and medium, namely that genre conventions are always
linked to the affordances and limitations of a given medium, and vice
versa: that the ‘mediality’ (Medialität) of a given subject, i.e. its medium-
determined disposition, plays a crucial role in the emergence of genre con-

23 That is to say, they are necessarily tied to and contingent upon their respective medial
dispositions (e.g., as text, film, performance, painting, etc.). Hence, when talking of
transmedially relevant phenomena or categories, we must bear in mind the non-exis-
tence of a ‘medium-free’ (cf. Ryan 2005, 11) form of aisthesis: from the recipient’s point
of view such phenomena materialize in similar ways across media (cf. Wolf 2005, 253),
while their actual realizations nevertheless – and necessarily – remain specific to the
respective medium.
24 A case in point is the debate about fictionality’s systematically defined ‘characteristics’
or ‘properties’ (in German: Fiktions- or Fiktionalitätsmerkmale; for a distinction between
‘characteristics’/‘properties’ vs. ‘signals’ of fiction/ality see Hempfer 2004 [1990] and
2018; Zetterberg Gjerlevsen 2016; Fludernik 2018). Such characteristics or properties
of fictionality have been discussed primarily with regard to literary fiction, though
usually without raising the question to what extent the assumptions are contingent on
the subject matter’s medial disposition (e.g., the systematic disjunction between author
and narrator which literary studies consider a defining feature ‘of fictionality,’ thus
overlooking or marginalizing the medium-specificity of the issue at hand). This be-
comes particularly problematic as soon as non-literary fields of research come into play
(e.g., when the author-narrator disjunction is taken up in theater or film narratology;
see Rajewsky 2013).

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 Theories of Fictionality and Their Real Other 45

ventions, also in the context of fictionality and factuality.25 The dynamics

of changing relations between individual genres and individual media must
likewise be taken into account, given that arts/media never operate in
isolation from each other. This means that the emergence and (re-)negotia-
tion of fictionality- or factuality-related conventions in individual genres/
arts/media have to be contextualized within their respective historical and
socio-cultural dimensions.
A transmedial perspective on fiction/ality is, of course, also concerned
with the media-comprehensive significance of the phenomenon and thus with
the question of “what fictionality [is] in general” (Walton 1990, 75). In this
context, current transmedial approaches additionally invite us to revisit
certain basic assumptions, categories and concepts that have dominated
the literature-centered debate for decades.
A particularly telling example is the concept of aesthetic illusion (sensu
Wolf ) as well as the question of how aesthetic illusion relates to (concepts
of ) fictionality. In this connection, it is noteworthy that there are signifi-
cant overlaps between the conception of aesthetic illusion on the one hand
and of fictionality on the other – at least if one considers pragmatically
oriented approaches to fictionality that regard fictionality as tied to a spe-
cific disposition of the audience. Ultimately, all of these approaches agree
that the central property of fictional representations is that they trigger a
“willing suspension of disbelief,” which, following Coleridge, “constitutes
poetic faith” (1965 [1817], 169). Coleridge famously captures what has
been expressed with regard to theater and literature since antiquity (see
Rösler 2014, Pape and Burwick 1990); namely, that fictional representa-
tions call for a “willing disposition of the spectator [or reader]” (Pape and
Burwick 1990, 2) to engage in the ‘game’ of fiction.26 In the reception

25 From a transmedial perspective, e.g., signals of fictionality (or factuality) and (narrative)
representational conventions must clearly be considered within the context of every
individual medium and genre to which they pertain. Moreover, a transgeneric and
transmedial research perspective raises the question of how relevant such signals indeed
are, since the extent to which signaling fictionality and/or factuality is necessary varies
in different genres/media. (With regard to narrative texts vs. drama/theater, cf. Hemp-
fer (2004 [1990], 311); with regard to literature vs. painting: Kablitz (2014, 99). With
regard to digital media, questions of this kind will certainly have to be discussed in
more detail in the future.) In her contribution to the present volume, Marie-Laure
Ryan takes this issue one step further, when she argues “that the distinction between
fact and fiction is not equally applicable to all media” (77).
26 The emphasis is on willing suspension of disbelief. The question is not whether the
recipient believes a representation to be ‘true’ (as is often stated in make-believe theo-
ries, cf., e.g., Currie 1990, 18). It is a matter of their engaging in the representation
despite (or precisely because) knowing that it is fiction/al.

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46 Irina Rajewsky

process of a work of fiction there is always a latent awareness of the

work’s fictional status, which places the recipient in a pleasurable state of
oscillation between immersion in a fictional representation and distancing
themselves from it (see Wolf 2013). And yet, both the recipients’ ‘willing
disposition’ and their related oscillation between immersion and distance
are central not only to the concept of fictionality but also to that of aesthet-
ic illusion. Coleridge’s dictum is invoked in both contexts, as “one of the
most felicitous definitions of ‘fiction(ality)’” (Hempfer 2018, 83), and as a
“famous definition of illusion” (Pape and Burwick 1990, 2).
This recourse to Coleridge is especially interesting in the context of
(narrative) factuality. Even though the concept of aesthetic illusion is root-
ed in the investigation of fictional narrative texts, and despite a marked
tendency in research on aesthetic illusion “to exclusively focus on fictional
works” (Wolf 2013, 32), in practice, aesthetic illusion cannot be restricted
either to narrative or to fiction/ality. This has become apparent in light of
transgeneric and transmedial research (cf. Schaeffer 2010 [1999], 262; Wolf
2013, Ch. 4.1), highlighting the heuristic potential of broader research per-
spectives, i.e. of transdisciplinary, genre- and media-comparative approa-
ches.27
Applying a transmedial perspective to the topic of factuality prompts a
number of further questions that call for clarification but cannot be an-
swered within the scope of this contribution. It is clear that the issues that
the current handbook is concerned with have thus far primarily been
viewed and discussed from a literary point of view, with a focus on fiction-
al narrative texts and their ‘other.’ Despite recent developments, transmedi-
al approaches are still in their infancy and remain informed by literary,
language-based concepts, categories and positions that have dominated the
prevalent debates. This becomes especially apparent in current conver-
gence culture, but has, indeed, always been the wider backdrop against
which individual phenomena and theories need to be viewed.

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27 Interestingly, recent research on aesthetic illusion has also shown that Walton’s game-
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within literary studies and beyond), “in many respects appears to be synonymous with
aesthetic illusion” (Wolf 2013, 32; see also Rajewsky 2018). This raises questions as to
the pertinency of some of Walton’s categories and assumptions for conceptualizing

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