DEEPER THAN THE FICTIONAL MODEL

Abstract

The critical perception that literary journalism owes the concept of plot to prose fiction has nurtured enduring allegations of generic inferiority. This study proposes an earlier provenance, tracing the structure of literary journalism to Greek tragic drama. In ancient Greece, the adaptation of mythology-as-history from oral tradition to drama necessitated structural changes, a process called “displacement” by Northrop Frye. The first critic of mythology's displacement into drama was Aristotle, who identified eight essential conventions of plot. This study documents the inherency of those eight conventions within modern nonfiction narratives and concludes that, far from being derivative and inferior, literary journalism returns to the origins of literature by displacing fact into art. Like the first literary myths, therefore, modern nonfiction narratives may be revelations of important cultural standards and beliefs.