Editing Fourth wall (section)

===Literature===
[[File:Little Nemo 1907-12-01 panel 3.jpg|thumb|right|alt=|Flip, Nemo, and Impie breaking the fourth wall by breaking apart the panel's outlines and detaching the letters of the title within their comic book [[Little Nemo]]]]

The method of breaking the fourth wall in literature is a [[metalepsis]] (the transgression of narrative levels), which is a technique often used in [[metafiction]]. The metafiction genre occurs when a character within a literary work acknowledges the reality that they are in fact a fictitious being.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/metafiction |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190727010818/https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/metafiction |url-status=dead |archive-date=27 July 2019 |title=Definition of Metafiction |website=Lexico Dictionaries &#124; English}}</ref> The use of the fourth wall in literature can be traced back as far as ''[[The Canterbury Tales]]'' and ''[[Don Quixote]]''. ''[[Northanger Abbey]]'' is a late modern era example.<ref>{{cite web|publisher = Brigham Young University|date = 2017|first = Jason|last = Godfrey|title = Perceived Preceptor: Narrator's role in Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey|url = https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3695&context=facpub|access-date = 25 August 2021|archive-date = 20 February 2022|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20220220011542/https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3695&context=facpub|url-status = live}}</ref>

It was popularized in the early 20th century during the [[Postmodern literature|Post-Modern literary movement]].<ref>{{Cite book |title=Metafiction – The Theory and Practice of Self-Conscious Fiction |last=Waugh |first=Patricia |publisher=Routledge |year=1984 }}</ref> Artists like [[Virginia Woolf]] in ''[[To the Lighthouse]]'' and [[Kurt Vonnegut]] in ''[[Breakfast of Champions]]'' used the genre to question the accepted knowledge and sources of the culture.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://commons.clarku.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1004&context=surj |title=Metafiction as Genre Fiction |access-date=12 March 2018 |archive-date=13 March 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180313092325/https://commons.clarku.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1004&context=surj |url-status=live }}</ref> The use of metafiction or breaking the fourth wall in literature varies from that on stage in that the experience is not communal but personal to the reader and develops a self-consciousness within the character/reader relationship that works to build trust and expand thought. This does not involve an acknowledgment of a character's fictive nature.<ref>{{Cite book |title=Dramaturgy and Architecture |last=Turner |first=Cathy |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan UK |year=2015 }}</ref> Breaking the fourth wall in literature is not always metafiction.

Modern examples of breaking the fourth wall include Ada Palmer's ''Terra Ignota'',<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://crookedtimber.org/2017/04/18/a-dialog-on-narrative-voice-complicity-and-intimacy/ |title=A Dialog on Narrative Voice, Complicity, and Intimacy |date=18 April 2017 |website=Crooked Timber |access-date=12 March 2018 |archive-date=13 March 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180313092632/http://crookedtimber.org/2017/04/18/a-dialog-on-narrative-voice-complicity-and-intimacy/ |url-status=live }}</ref> and William Goldman's ''[[The Princess Bride (novel)|The Princess Bride]]''.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.tor.com/2015/12/24/meta-irony-narrative-frames-and-the-princess-bride/ |title=Meta, Irony, Narrative, Frames, and The Princess Bride |first=Jo |last=Walton |date=24 December 2015 |website=Tor.com |access-date=12 March 2018 |archive-date=13 March 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180313092424/https://www.tor.com/2015/12/24/meta-irony-narrative-frames-and-the-princess-bride/ |url-status=live }}</ref> [[Sorj Chalandon]] wrote a novel called "The 4th wall" of the setting-up of a theatrical performance of Antigone in Beirut, while the civil war is raging.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.grasset.fr/livres/le-quatrieme-mur-9782246808718 |title=Le quatrième mur |first=Sorj |last=Chalandon |date=21 August 2013 |website=www.grasset.fr |access-date=25 May 2022 |archive-date=29 June 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220629153312/https://www.grasset.fr/livres/le-quatrieme-mur-9782246808718 |url-status=live }}</ref>