The Classification of Fiction: The Development of a System Based on Theoretical Principles

by Clare Beghtol

Fiction documents are among those most often requested from libraries and other informational agencies, yet subject heading lists and classification systems have not routinely provided for the subject analysis of works of fiction. This book's major purpose is to develop an experimental classification system for the content of fiction documents. The thoretical background and principles of the experimental system are treated in depth, including explicit techniques for handling anomalous, fuzzy and/or ambiguous data in fiction. The system draws on research from cognitive science, linguistics, and literary studies for insights into fiction analysis, and the experimental system contains four fiction-specific data elements (Characters; Events; Spaces; and Times) that are used to classify fiction documents in detail. Description and discussion of recent initiatives for providing subject access to fiction, both verbal and classifactory, are included, and the relationships of this system to other fiction analysis systems are addressed.
In addition to information specialists, cultural anthropologists, literary scholars, and sociologists could benefit from such an information retrieval system. The book contains a number of figures illustrating theoretical concepts used in designing the experimental system and analyzing the results of its application to nineteen novels.

376 pages, Hardcover

First published June 28, 1994

Reviews

[Jerin Tahapary]

Wonder works of literature is fundamentally taxonomy-free,
as each human psyche projecting unto uniqueness attest,
as ancient Mahabharata/Ramayana pre-incorporate modern genres and dramas (even science-fiction),
as children’s literature influence even adult lit. and vice versa.

Main causation pervades our creation work. Razor-cutting every classification in creation.
Causes and effects links all cosmic virtually everything, including our brains’ big bang.
Although by reason of Information (in its widest sense of the term), we can seemingly revert to classification,
as to classify each creation their due categories, tho still non-minutely, still so inaccurately, ergo incomplete.
The proof herein is found within the fluctuation of a hypothetical psychical.

So perchance her completeness abides not in the humanities, but in a mathematical metaphysical (whence Pythagoreans in rapture gazes at).

Therefore, that taxonomy ‘s handy for to handling human minds solely, as it sorts out helping human senses.
Figuratively like guides, but never the gods’ themselves.


But this constant metaphysic like mathematic thru every be philosophically we see sui generis amongst sapience’ sensibility.