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In literary criticism
Literary criticism

Literary criticism is the study, discussion, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. Modern literary criticism is often informed by literary theory, which is the philosophical discussion of its methods and goals....
, stream of consciousness is a narrative mode that seeks to portray an individual's point of view by giving the written equivalent of the character's thought processes, either in a loose interior monologue, or in connection to his or her actions. The introduction of the term to describe literature - transferred from psychology - is attributed to May Sinclair, and is mostly a dead metaphor
Dead metaphor

A dead metaphor is a figure of speech, initially developed as a metaphor, that through popular usage has become an idiom and lost its original, metaphorical application....
.

am-of-consciousness writing is usually regarded as a special form of interior monologue and is characterized by associative (and at times--dissociative) leaps in syntax and punctuation that can make the prose difficult to follow, tracing a character's fragmentary thoughts and sensory feelings.






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In literary criticism
Literary criticism

Literary criticism is the study, discussion, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. Modern literary criticism is often informed by literary theory, which is the philosophical discussion of its methods and goals....
, stream of consciousness is a narrative mode that seeks to portray an individual's point of view by giving the written equivalent of the character's thought processes, either in a loose interior monologue, or in connection to his or her actions. The introduction of the term to describe literature - transferred from psychology - is attributed to May Sinclair, and is mostly a dead metaphor
Dead metaphor

A dead metaphor is a figure of speech, initially developed as a metaphor, that through popular usage has become an idiom and lost its original, metaphorical application....
.

Literature

Stream-of-consciousness writing is usually regarded as a special form of interior monologue and is characterized by associative (and at times--dissociative) leaps in syntax and punctuation that can make the prose difficult to follow, tracing a character's fragmentary thoughts and sensory feelings. Stream of consciousness and interior monologue are distinguished from dramatic monologue
Dramatic monologue

A 'dramatic monologue' is a type of poem, favored by many poets in the Victorian era period, in which a fictional character in fiction or in history delivers a speech explaining his or her feelings, actions, or motives....
, where the speaker is addressing an audience or a third person, and is used chiefly in poetry
Poetry

Poetry is a form of literature art in which language is used for its aesthetics and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its apparent meaning ....
 or drama
Drama

Drama is the specific Mode of fiction Mimesis in performance. The term comes from a Ancient Greek word meaning "Action " , which is derived from "to do" ....
. In stream of consciousness, the speaker's thought processes are more often depicted as overheard in the mind (or addressed to oneself) and is primarily a fiction
Fiction

Fiction is an imaginative form of narrative, one of the four basic rhetorical modes. Although the word fiction is derived from the Latin fingo, fingere, finxi, fictum, "to form, create", works of fiction need not be entirely imaginary and may include real people, places, and events....
al device. The term was first introduced to the field of literary studies from that of psychology by philosopher and psychologist William James
William James

William James was a pioneering American psychology and philosophy trained as a medical doctor. He wrote influential books on the young science of psychology, educational psychology, psychology of religion experience and mysticism, and the philosophy of pragmatism....
, brother of writer Henry James
Henry James

Henry James, Order of Merit , son of theologian Henry James Sr., brother of the philosopher and psychologist William James and diarist Alice James, was an United States author....
.

Several notable works employing stream of consciousness are:
  • Fyodor Dostoyevsky's Notes from Underground
    Notes from Underground

    Notes from Underground is a short novel by Fyodor Dostoevsky. It is considered by many to be the world's first existentialism novel. It presents itself as an excerpt from the rambling memoirs of a bitter, isolated, unnamed narrator who is a retired civil servant living in St....
     (1864)
  • Leo Tolstoy
    Leo Tolstoy

    Leo Tolstoy, or Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy Tolstoy's further talents as essayist, dramatist and Education reform made him the most influential member of the aristocracy Tolstoy....
    's Anna Karenina
    Anna Karenina

    Anna Karenina , is a novel by the Russian writer Leo Tolstoy, published in serial installments from 1873 to 1877 in the periodical The Russian Messenger....
     (1873-77)
  • Édouard Dujardin
    Édouard Dujardin

    ?douard Dujardin was a France writer, one of the early pioneers of the literary technique Stream of consciousness writing, exemplified in his 1888 novel Les Lauriers sont coup?s....
    's Les Lauriers sont coupés (1888)
  • Knut Hamsun
    Knut Hamsun

    Knut Hamsun, born Knud Pedersen was a Norwegian literature. He was considered by Isaac Bashevis Singer to be the "father of modern literature", and by Haakon VII of Norway to be Norway's soul....
    's Hunger
    Hunger (novel)

    Hunger is a novel by the Norway author Knut Hamsun and was published in its final form in 1890. Parts of it had been published anonymously in the Denmark magazine Ny Jord in 1888....
     (1890) and Mysteries
    Mysteries (novel)

    Mysteries is a novel by Norwegian language author Knut Hamsun....
     (1892)
  • Arthur Schnitzler
    Arthur Schnitzler

    File:Arthur_Schnitzler_1912.jpgDr. Arthur Schnitzler was an Austrians Austrian literature and dramatist....
    's Lieutenant Gustl (1900)
  • T. S. Eliot
    T. S. Eliot

    'Thomas Stearns Eliot', Order of Merit , was a poet, dramatist, and literary critic. He received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1948. Among his most famous writings are the poems The Love Song of J....
    's The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
    The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

    The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock is the 1915 in literature poem that marked the start of T. S. Eliot's career as one of the twentieth century's most influential poets....
     (1915)
  • Dorothy Richardson
    Dorothy Richardson

    Dorothy Miller Richardson was the first writer to publish an English-language novel using what was to become known as the Stream of consciousness writing technique....
    's Pilgrimage (1915-28)
  • James Joyce
    James Joyce

    James Augustine Aloysius Joyce was an Ireland expatriate author of the 20th century. He is best known for his landmark novel Ulysses and its controversial successor Finnegans Wake , as well as the short story collection Dubliners and the semi-autobiographical novel A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man ....
    's
    • A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
      A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

      A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is a autobiography novel by James Joyce, first serialized in The Egoist from 1914 to 1915 and published in book form in 1916 in literature....
       (1916)
    • Ulysses
      Ulysses (novel)

      Ulysses is a novel by James Joyce, first serialized in parts in the American journal The Little Review from March 1918 to December 1920, then published in its entirety by Sylvia Beach on February 2, 1922, in Paris....
       (1922) - in particular Molly Bloom's Soliloquy
      Molly Bloom's Soliloquy

      Molly Bloom's soliloquy is presented in the eighteenth, and final, chapter of James Joyce's novel Ulysses . It is a compilation of the thoughts of Molly Bloom, the concert-singing wife of advertising agent Leopold Bloom, whose wanderings around Dublin are followed in much of the book....
    • Finnegans Wake (1939)
  • Virginia Woolf
    Virginia Woolf

    Adeline Virginia Woolf was an England novelist and essayist, regarded as one of the foremost modernist literature literature figures of the twentieth century....
    's
    • Mrs. Dalloway (1925)
    • To the Lighthouse
      To the Lighthouse

      To the Lighthouse is a novel by Virginia Woolf. A landmark novel of high modernism, the text, centering on the Ramsay family and their visits to the Isle of Skye in Scotland between 1910 and 1920, skillfully manipulates temporality and psychological exploration....
       (1927)
    • The Waves
      The Waves

      The Waves, first published in 1931, is Virginia Woolf's most experimental novel. It consists of soliloquies spoken by the book's six characters: Bernard, Susan, Rhoda, Neville, Jinny, and Louis....
       (1931)
  • Hugh MacDiarmid
    Hugh MacDiarmid

    Hugh MacDiarmid is the pen name of Christopher Murray Grieve , a significant Scotland poet of the 20th century. He was instrumental in creating a Scottish version of modernism and was a leading light in the Scottish Renaissance of the 20th century....
    's A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle
    A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle

    A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle is a long poem by Hugh MacDiarmid written in Scots language and published in 1926. It is composed as a form of monologue with influences from stream of consciousness writing#Literature genres of writing....
     (1926)
  • Hermann Hesse
    Hermann Hesse

    Hermann Hesse was a German-Switzerland poet, novelist, and painter. In 1946, he received the Nobel Prize in Literature. His best-known works include Steppenwolf , Siddhartha , and The Glass Bead Game which explore an individual's search for spirituality outside society....
    's Steppenwolf
    Steppenwolf (novel)

    Steppenwolf is the tenth novel by Germany-Switzerland author Hermann Hesse. Originally published in Germany in 1927, it was first translated into English in 1929....
     (1927)
  • William Faulkner
    William Faulkner

    William Faulkner was a Nobel Prize in Literature-winning United States author. One of the most influential writers of the 20th century, his reputation is based on his novels, novellas and short story....
    's
    • The Sound and the Fury
      The Sound and the Fury

      The Sound and the Fury is one of the most celebrated novels of the twentieth century, written by American author William Faulkner, which makes use of the Stream of consciousness writing narrative technique pioneered by European authors such as James Joyce and Virginia Woolf....
       (1929)
    • As I Lay Dying (1930)
  • Lewis Grassic Gibbon
    Lewis Grassic Gibbon

    Lewis Grassic Gibbon was the pseudonym of James Leslie Mitchell , a Scotland writer.Born and raised in Arbuthnott, Aberdeenshire, Mitchell started working as a journalist for the Aberdeen Journal and the Scottish Farmer at age 16....
    's Sunset Song
    Sunset Song

    Sunset Song is a 1932 novel by the Scotland writer Lewis Grassic Gibbon. It is widely regarded as one of the most important Scottish novels of the 20th century, if not the most important....
     (1932)
  • J. D. Salinger
    J. D. Salinger

    Jerome David "J. D." Salinger is an American author, best known for his 1951 novel The Catcher in the Rye, as well as his reclusive nature....
    's The Catcher In The Rye
    The Catcher in the Rye

    The Catcher in the Rye is a 1951 in literature novel by J. D. Salinger. Originally published for adults, the novel has become a common part of high school and college curricula throughout the English-speaking world; it has also been translated into almost all of the world's major languages....
     (1949)
  • William Styron
    William Styron

    William Clark Styron, Jr. was an United States novelist and essayist.Before the publication of his memoir Darkness Visible in 1990, Styron was best known for his novels, which included...
    's Lie Down in Darkness
    Lie Down In Darkness

    Lie Down In Darkness may refer to:*Lie Down in Darkness, a 1951 novel by William Styron*"Lie Down In Darkness ", a song by a-ha from their 1993 album Memorial Beach...
     (1951)
  • Samuel Beckett
    Samuel Beckett

    Samuel Barclay Beckett was an Irish people writer, dramatist and poet. Beckett's work offers a bleak outlook on human culture and both formally and philosophically became increasingly minimalism....
    's 'trilogy' :
    • Molloy
      Molloy (novel)

      Molloy is a novel by Samuel Beckett. The English translation is by Beckett and Patrick Bowles....
       (1951)
    • Malone Dies
      Malone Dies

      Malone Dies is a novel by Samuel Beckett. It was first published in 1951, in French language, as Malone Meurt, and later translated into English language by the author....
       (1951)
    • The Unnamable
      The Unnamable

      The Unnamable may mean:* The Unnamable , a 1953 novel by Samuel Beckett* The Unnamable , by H. P. Lovecraft* The Unnamable , a 1988 movie based on the H....
       (1953)
  • Sam Selvon's The Lonely Londonders (1956)
  • William Burroughs's Naked Lunch
    Naked Lunch

    Naked Lunch is a novel by William S. Burroughs originally published in 1959.The book was originally published with the title The Naked Lunch in Paris in 1959 by Olympia Press....
     (1959)
  • Jack Kerouac
    Jack Kerouac

    Jack Kerouac was an American author, poet and Painting. Alongside William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg, he is considered a pioneer of the Beat Generation....
    's On the Road
    On the Road

    On the Road is a novel by American writer Jack Kerouac, written in April 1951, and published by Viking Press in 1957 in literature. It is a largely Autobiography work that was based on the spontaneous road trips of Kerouac and his friends across mid-century America....
  • Jerzy Andrzejewski
    Jerzy Andrzejewski

    Jerzy Andrzejewski was a prolific Polish author. In 1976 he was one of the founding members of the intellectual opposition group KOR . Later, Andrzejewski was a strong supporter of Poland's anti-Communist Solidarity movement....
    's Gates to Paradise
    Gates to Paradise

    Gates to Paradise is a 1968 film by Poland director Andrzej Wajda. The film is set in medieval France and is based on a story by Poland writer Jerzy Andrzejewski that seeks to expose the motives behind youthful religious zeal....
     (1960)
  • Ken Kesey
    Ken Kesey

    Kenneth Elton Kesey was an United States author, best known for his novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest , and as a counter-cultural figure who, some consider , was a link between the Beat Generation of the 1950s and the hippies of the 1960s....
    's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
    One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

    One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest may refer to:* One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest , a 1962 novel by Ken Kesey* One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest , a 1975 film adaptation of the novel...
     (1962)- particularly Chief Bromden
    Chief Bromden

    Chief Bromden is a fictional character in Ken Kesey's 1962 novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest , which was later made into a One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and into a One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest , both sharing the same title as the novel....
    's thoughts during elctroshock therapy.
  • J. D. Salinger
    J. D. Salinger

    Jerome David "J. D." Salinger is an American author, best known for his 1951 novel The Catcher in the Rye, as well as his reclusive nature....
    's Seymour: An Introduction (1963)
  • Julio Cortázar
    Julio Cortázar

    Julio Cort?zar, born Jules Florencio Cort?zar was an Argentina author of novels and short story. He influenced an entire generation of Latin American writers from Mexico to Argentina, but most of his best-known work was written in France, where he established himself in 1951....
    's     Rayuela
    Rayuela

    Hopscotch is a novel by Argentina author Julio Cort?zar. It was written in Paris and published in Spanish language in 1963 and in English language in 1966....
     (Hopscotch) (1963)
  • Hubert Selby Jr.'s
    • Last Exit to Brooklyn
      Last Exit to Brooklyn

      Last Exit to Brooklyn is a 1964 novel by United States author Hubert Selby, Jr. The novel has become a cult classic because of its harsh, uncompromising look at social class Brooklyn in the 1950s and for its brusque, everyman style of prose....
       (1964)
    • Requiem for a Dream
      Requiem for a Dream (novel)

      Requiem for a Dream is a 1978 novel by Hubert Selby Jr.This story follows the lives of four people, Harry, Marion, Tyrone, and Sara. Harry and Marion are in love and Tyrone is their friend....
       (1978)
  • Jean Rhys
    Jean Rhys

    Jean Rhys , born Ella Gwendolen Rees Williams, was a mid 20th century Dominican novelist. She is best known for her novel Wide Sargasso Sea, written as a "prequel" to Charlotte Bront?'s Jane Eyre....
    's     Wide Sargasso Sea
    Wide Sargasso Sea

    Wide Sargasso Sea is a 1966 in literature postcolonial literature parallel novel by Dominica-born author Jean Rhys. After her last work, Good Morning, Midnight, Rhys lived in obscurity before Wide Sargasso Sea was published in 1939....
     (1966)
  • Oguz Atay
    Oguz Atay

    Oguz Atay was a pioneer of the modern novel in Turkey. His first novel, Tutunamayanlar , appeared 1971-72. Never reprinted in his lifetime and controversial among critics, it has become a best-seller since a new edition came out in 1984....
    's     Tutunamayanlar (The Disconnected) (1972)
  • Thomas Pynchon
    Thomas Pynchon

    Thomas Ruggles Pynchon, Jr. is an American literature based in New York City, noted for his dense and complex works of fiction. Hailing from Long Island, Pynchon spent two years in the United States Navy and earned an English studies degree from Cornell University....
    's     Gravity's Rainbow
    Gravity's Rainbow

    Gravity's Rainbow is an epic Postmodern literature novel written by Thomas Pynchon and first published on February 28 1973.The narrative is set primarily in Europe at the end of World War II and centers on the design, production and dispatch of V-2 rockets by the German military, and, in particular, the quest undertaken by several chara...
     (1973)
  • Robert Anton Wilson
    Robert Anton Wilson

    Robert Anton Wilson or RAW was an United States novelist, essayist, philosopher, psychonaut, futurologist and libertarian.Wilson described his writing as an "attempt to break down conditioned associations?to look at the world in a new way, with many models recognized as models or maps and no one model elevated to the Truth." ... ...
     & Robert Shea
    Robert Shea

    Robert Joseph Shea was a novelist and former journalism best known as co-author with Robert Anton Wilson of the science fantasy trilogy Illuminatus!....
    's     Illuminatus! (1975)
  • Samuel R. Delany
    Samuel R. Delany

    Samuel Ray Delany, Jr. is an award-winning United States science fiction author. He has written works that have garnered substantial critical acclaim, including the novels Babel-17, The Einstein Intersection , Nova , Hogg , Dhalgren, and the Return to Nev?r?on series....
    's     Dhalgren
    Dhalgren

    Dhalgren is a science fiction novel by Samuel R. Delany.The story begins with this cryptic passage:to wound the autumnal city.'So howled out for the world to give him a name....
     (1975)
  • Nadine Gordimer
    Nadine Gordimer

    Nadine Gordimer is a South African writer, political activist and Nobel laureate.Her writing has long dealt with moral and racial issues, particularly apartheid in South Africa....
    's     July's People (1981)
  • Bahram Bayzai
    Bahram Bayzai

    Bahram Bayzai is an Iranian film director, theatre director, screenwriter, playwright, film editor, film producer, and researcher.Bahram Bayzai is the son of the poet Ostad Ne'mat'ollah Bayzai ....
    's     Death of Yazdgerd (1982)
  • Patrick McCabe
    Patrick McCabe

    Patrick McCabe is an Ireland novelist, known for his mostly dark and violent novels set in contemporary, often small-town, Ireland. His books include The Butcher Boy and Breakfast on Pluto , both shortlisted for the Booker Prize....
    's The Butcher Boy
    The Butcher Boy

    The Butcher Boy is a 1992 novel by Patrick McCabe . It was shortlisted for the 1992 Booker Prize and won the 1992 Irish Times Irish Literature Prize for Fiction....
     (1992)
  • Irvine Welsh
    Irvine Welsh

    Irvine Welsh is a contemporary Scottish novelists, best known for his novel Trainspotting . He has also written plays and screenplays, and directed several short films....
    's     Trainspotting
    Trainspotting (novel)

    Trainspotting is the first novel by Scotland writer Irvine Welsh. It is written in the form of short chapters narrated in the first person by various residents of Leith, Edinburgh who either use heroin, are friends of the core group of heroin users, or engage in destructive activities that are implicitly portrayed as addictions that serv...
     (1993)
  • Mark Z. Danielewski
    Mark Z. Danielewski

    Mark Z. Danielewski is an United States author. He is the son of Poland avant-garde film director Tad Danielewski and the brother of singer and songwriter Annie Decatur Danielewski, a.k.a....
    's     House of Leaves
    House of Leaves

    House of Leaves is the debut novel by the American author Mark Z. Danielewski, published by Pantheon Books. The novel quickly became a bestseller following its March 7 2000 release, having already developed a cult following through gradual release over the Internet....
     (2000)
  • Jonathan Safran Foer
    Jonathan Safran Foer

    Jonathan Safran Foer is an United States writer best known for his 2002 in literature novel Everything Is Illuminated. He lives in Brooklyn, New York City, with his wife, the novelist Nicole Krauss, and their son, Sasha....
    's Everything is Illuminated
    Everything Is Illuminated

    Everything Is Illuminated is the first novel by the United States writer Jonathan Safran Foer, published in 2002 in literature. It was adapted into a Everything Is Illuminated starring Elijah Wood in 2005 in film....
     (2002)
  • Will Christopher Baer
    Will Christopher Baer

    Will Christopher Baer is an American author of noir fiction, often delving into sex, violence, Mystery fiction and erotica. Currently published works include Kiss Me, Judas, Penny Dreadful and Hell's Half Acre , all of which have since been published in the single volume Phineas Poe....
    's     Phineas Poe
    Phineas Poe

    Phineas Poe is a novella collection by Will Christopher Baer. It contains three stories, Kiss Me, Judas, Penny Dreadful & Hell's Half Acre and was first published in 2005....
     trilogy (2005))
    • Kiss Me, Judas
      Kiss Me, Judas

      Kiss Me, Judas is the first published novel by United Statesn author Will Christopher Baer. The plot uses an urban legend, with protagonist Phineas Poe waking up in a hotel bathtub full of ice to discover that somebody has removed one of his kidneys....
    • Hell's Half Acre
      Hell's Half Acre

      Hell?s Half-Acre can refer toin History*area around Lock 38 of the Ohio and Erie Canal in Cuyahoga Valley National Park*a location at the Battle of Stones River...
    • Penny Dreadful
      Penny Dreadful

      Penny Dreadful was a term applied to nineteenth century British fiction publications, usually lurid serial stories appearing in parts over a number of weeks, each part costing a penny....
       (parts)
  • Clarice Lispector
    Clarice Lispector

    Clarice Lispector was a Brazilian Brazilian Literature. Acclaimed internationally for her innovative novels and short stories, she was also a journalist and a translator....
    's whole work.
  • Marcel Proust
    Marcel Proust

    Valentin Louis Georges Eug?ne Marcel Proust was a France novelist, essayist and critic, best known as the author of In Search of Lost Time , a monumental work of twentieth-century fiction published in seven parts from 1913 to 1927....
         In Search of Lost Time
    In Search of Lost Time

    In Search of Lost Time or Remembrance of Things Past is a semi-autobiographical novel in heptalogy by Marcel Proust. His most prominent work, it is popularly known for its extended length and the notion of involuntary memory, the most famous example being the "episode of the Madeleine "....
    , (or À la recherche du temps perdu ) 1913 - 1927


The technique has been parodied, for example, by David Lodge
David Lodge (author)

David John Lodge CBE, is a Great Britain author....
 in the final chapter of The British Museum Is Falling Down
The British Museum Is Falling Down

The British Museum Is Falling Down is a comic novel by United Kingdom author David Lodge about a 25-year-old poverty-stricken student of English literature who, rather than work on his thesis in the British Museum Reading Room of the British Museum, is time and again distracted from his work and who gets into all kinds of trouble inste...
.

See also

  • Stream of consciousness (psychology)
    Stream of consciousness (psychology)

    Stream of consciousness refers to the flow of thoughts in the consciousness mind. The full range of thoughts that one can be awareness of can form the content of this stream, not just Internal monologue....