Origin, development and genres of fiction, help readers to choose what they want to read

Many avid readers of imaginative literature (that completely excludes non-fiction) don’t realize how lucky they are to have a choice of what they want to read today. A few thousand years ago, there was little choice, and if you go back a bit, there was no choice at all.

In the beginning, there were no novels, no printed poems, plays or short stories. However, there have always been stories, told by word of mouth. This is called oral tradition. But no one knows how the narratives or imaginative stories began. Was it from someone telling someone about a dream they had? Or was it by sharing a thought, an imagination? Or relay to another an event that we have witnessed? Or could it be that the elders have started making up stories to scare and make young people behave? It’s a pity that no one can tell us.

Long ago, historians said as early as the third millennium BCE or thereabouts, ancient Sumerian (Mesopotamia) scribes went beyond marking symbols on cuneiforms and started copying real written as essays, hymns, poetry and myths. The two most notable are: Instructions from Shuruppak (2500 BCE) and the Temple Hymn of Kesh.

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In the first instance, the Sumerian king named Shuruppak laid down some wise proverbs/advice for his son, Ziusudra, urging him among other things, “not to be judgmental when drunk” and that “a loving heart nurtures a family while a hateful heart destroys it.

While these two may represent the world’s first (non-fiction) literature, the world’s first imaginative literature is The Epic of Gilgameshcomposed of poems and stories.

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It is recorded that this mythical imaginative work first appeared around the third millennium and tells the story of a half-man, half-god man named Gilgamesh who travels the then-known world in search of the key to the immortality. His quest brings him into contact with the gods as he exterminates the monsters in his path; all ending in tragedy.

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However, the oldest depiction of storytelling known to mankind today is the 36,000-year-old Chauvet Cave paintings in France that tell the story of volcanic eruptions. Perhaps best known are the fourth century pictorial images or visuals of Egyptian hieroglyphs which show us certain ancient Egyptian activities in pictorial forms.

Some schools of thought believe that these forms of storytelling were used in ancient times because language had not developed, but I disagree. I believe that language is as old as man. I will cite the Bible as the book with the oldest history in the world, the story of creation. In it, the first woman (Eve) has a real conversation with a serpent, or “the serpent”, as Christians believe it is Satan himself. Then there is Eve’s conversation with her natural husband, Adam, after her conversation with the snake. Therefore, I believe that language is as old as man.

Thus, from the age of symbolic signs and designs in the tale, we come to the first recorded stories. Below we have the Epic of Gilgamesh and others. Then in the 6^e century BC, the world received the Greek slave fabulist, Aesop’s 725 Fables which include: The tortoise and the hare; The swallow and the crow.

With the advent of the printing press, the collection of Aesop’s Fables was published in 1461 in Germany and in 1481 in English by William Caxton. Going down to the 8th century BCE, we have Homer Iliad focusing on the last 52 days of the 10-year Trojan War.

From the Bible, we glean insight into how these stories came to be. Yahweh instructs the Israelites on what to do with the events that have occurred. He asks them to share their stories with their offspring who will also share them with their offspring. But as the development continued, later in the same Bible it tells the ancient prophet Habakkuk, “to write down the vision and make it clear.” Thus, the ancient Greek slave fabulist, Aesop, was considered an itinerant storyteller. Although his themes are didactic, they were primarily intended for entertainment.

Now, looking at both the images and the recorded stories, they seem to depict either real-life events or stories of lesser gods, royals, nobles, and heroic characters. However, over the centuries, distinguished storytellers began to emerge. They gradually turned away from myths, fables and fairy tales and made storytelling an art with identifiable human characters.

From the first century of our era, at the time of Jesus Christ, we find in the books called the Gospels, the oral parables told by Jesus Christ himself. These parables are imaginary or fabricated stories. Their goals have never been to entertain, but to teach and expose the complex nature of humanity, including motivations, choices and dispositions.

Thus, the genesis of fiction is made up of ancient myths, folk tales, fables and later parables. They are quite engaging; mainly epics of heroic characters and gods.

It was only at the end of the 12^e century that a few notable writers like the English resident and French native, Marie de France, wrote something worthy of being called “fine art”. Over the years, other writers like Giovanni Boccace (Italian, 1313-1375); Geoffrey Chaucer (English, 1340-1440); William Shakespeare (English, 1564-1616); Christopher Marlowe (English, 1564-1593) Ben Jonson (English, 1572-1637) began to emerge.

It should be noted that the word fiction entered the English vocabulary in 1599. What we now call fiction began to flourish in the late 17^e century slash early 18^e century with the advent of the Roman. The Duchess of Newcastle, science fiction by Margaret Cavendish, The blazing world, pioneered the track in 1666 with Julian of Norwich’s Revelation of Divine Love (inspired fiction written at the 14^e century and published in 1670) and that of Daniel Defoe Robinson Crusoe ((adventure fiction) 1719) and Jonathan Swift Gulliver’s Travels ((adventure fiction) 1726) among many others.

Thus, The Novel which evolves from ancient myths, fables, folk tales and heroic tales gradually continued and overtook other genres of literature in readers’ preferences when with the invention of the printing press in 1436, the writings became accessible to the world’s few literates.

Objectives of the novel

The novel is centered on life and its activities. When we talk about goals, its main focus is entertainment. And second, its purposes are to teach important lessons for different purposes such as religious, political, economic, etc. A third objective is to expose and explain human nature.

We all agree that human nature is quite complex. As we read about different characters and their choices, actions, and motivations, we begin to understand how to handle the lives and complexities of those we meet.

The novel as we know it today is a powerful tool that transports the reader to places previously unknown, and may never be known to the reader experientially except through the pages of a novel.

Literature, especially fiction, is an important tool in acquiring knowledge about human nature.

Writers used different viewpoints known as POV to expose human nature. Perhaps most telling of this characteristic or element is the third person point of view (which has three variants: objective/dramatic (used in writing plays); limited omniscient in which we see the things through the eyes and mind of the main character, and the omniscient who is like the eye-of-God, all-seeing-all-knowing variant).

Today’s readers, as we said from the start, have dozens of choices of different story forms to choose from.

Different genres of fiction

Adventure Fiction Autobiography

Youth Literature Comedy

Contemporary fiction Mystery novel

Drama or Action Fiction Epic Poetry

spy fable

Fantasy fairy tales

Historical Fiction Horror

Inspired Fiction Literary Fiction

Dissertation on Magical Realism

Crime fiction Romance novel

science fiction satire

Space Opera short story

western steam punk fiction

21^st Literary genres of the century

Fictional Self Fiction Doodle, e.g., The Diary of a Wimpy Kid

Creation of experimental fiction games

Hypertext speculative fiction

This list presents us with a wide variety of choices. So read on and expand the scope of your knowledge. You can never say you can find a solution to this thorny problem in a book; this business idea can be locked up in a book; that relationship problem, or the solution to your character flaw: it can all be solved on the pages of the books you read.

Above all, reading puts you above your peers (refines you) giving you an edge because a reader is a leader.

Reveal

We have three (3) different novels to give away to five people who will correctly answer the questions below. The novels are: Beautiful boys by Eghosa Imasuen, Fisherman by Chigozie Obioma and Segu by Maryse Conde. (For Nigerian cities only).

The winners have the choice of the particular novel they want.

1. What is the setting of Anote Ajeluorou’s village Igho goes to the farm? And what is the lesson of history?
2. At Jude Idada boom boomwho is “Unsmiling Face” and who farted twice at Ikoyi’s door?
3. What is the initial setting (mood) of Akachi Ezeigbo my cousin samy? And what nickname does Ene’s father call him?

Send your answers to [email protected] with subject: Inside literature.