Talk:Point of view (literature)

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[edit] Messups in paragraph after 2nd person point of view

In the paragraph after the point of views, at the very end there are some random letters and just an overall mess that someone has made. I dont know what to do to fix it and if someone else could re place what has been written there it would help alot. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.196.131.47 (talk) 21:59, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Structure of the article

Although this article has lots more info (at first sight at least), I like the structure on nl:Vertelperspectief better. 23:46, 22 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Second person

In comedy this is actually quite common. Dennis Leary springs to mind. Shinobu 23:46, 22 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Examples

This article needs brief examples of each, not just 2nd person. Example: 3rd person limited and 3rd person omniscient.Good examples of 3rd person omniscient are at: jonquil.livejournal.com

[edit] Pronouns or POV

It's confusing to lable POV or perspective as first, second, or third person POV or narration. First, second, and third person refers to pronouns. First person we use I. Second person, you. Third person, he or she. POV refers to who is telling the story or from which character the perspective is taken from.

Personally, I prefer to use the terms of:

Nonparticipant:narrator is not a character in the story and uses either omniscient, neutral omniscient, or selective omniscient.

Participant.: The narrator is a character in the story and is either telling his own tale from his POV, or telling the story of another from his own POV.

--JennyAnne 02:19, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

That makes sense, but i don't think we should change the whole article. Emily 20:41, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

The pronouns refer directly to how the story is told. Does the narration say "He", "I", or "you".Avt tor 05:46, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Article titel

I belive that this article is informative and concise, however, it has a major problem: what it refers to has nothing really to do with literary point of view in the theoretical sense!! The article describes 1., 2. and 3.-person narration, these are different "types of narration", not different "points of view"! It is true, of course, that 1., 2. and 3.-person narration are sometimes named "points of view" in inaccurate everyday use of the terms, however, an article on a literary concept should not reproduce common inacurracies. Prior to the 1960's/1970's, literary theory did not distinguish theoretically between types of narration POV, yet from Genette and onwards, these have commonly been regarded as two different concept. (The precise definitions of the concepts of narration and POVs have, of course, as any other theorecial concept been disputed, and if someone whould like to write a specialized article about the verious very technical narration/POV debates, it would, of course, be most appreciated, yet I do not see this as the most urgent task).

The general problem about not to distinguish between point of view and types of narration is that a text easily can be narrated by one person but seen from another person's point of view (e.g. narrated by a "third person narrator" but seen from a character's point of view or, for example, occiliatng between seen from different characters' points of view).

For references on this issue, see e.g. Katie Wales: "A Dictionary of Stylistics", Gerald Prince: "A Dictionary of Narratology.

In conclusion, the article is fine yet in my opinion it should be renamed "types of narration" (and ajusted accordingly) or, alternatively, it should simply be re-merged with the "narrator" article, and another article about "point of view, focalisation and perception in narratives" should be created. What do you people say?Jeppebarnwell 12:28, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

From my perspective, "Narrator" refers to the narrator as character or other aspects of narration. "Point of view" refers to one aspect of narration. The articles should not be merged.Avt tor 21:06, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
My earlier comment was about merging "Point of View" with "Narrator". "Point of view" is a well-understood concept used by writers. See Mastering Point of View by Sherri Szeman, Points of View by James Moffett and Kenneth R. McElheny; also extensively discussed in Characters and Viewpoint by Orson Scott Card. Point of view is an aspect of narration, but only one aspect, and deserves a separate article. This is a basic problem that many writers deal with.
And I don't consider "bitch" as a verb to be "cursing", it's simply a synonym for "complaining" with connotations.
Please note that I did not write most of the content of this article, I simply helped organize existing content that had been scattered randomly across the two earlier articles. I'm sure improvements would be welcome, so long as they are neutral, relevant, and conciseAvt tor 06:03, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Notes

This is a terrible article. What about POV for formal writing? Sounds like a stuck-up "writer"-know-it-all wrote this -- it sounds very opinionated.

I seriously suggest we get some sources on this. Colonel Marksman 00:53, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Don't bitch about it, if you don't like it, fix it. Feel free to include sources if you have them. Something is better than nothing.Avt tor 21:06, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
Hey, hey! I was fixing to apologize. No need to go about cursing. You destroy your outlook of professionalism that way. I didn't see the "(literature)". There is a separate article (grammatical person) which details what I was looking for.

As for simply ranting, I don't have any references immediately with me. In fact, don't have any clue about several articles I post suggestions about: they aren't thoughts about inserting information I have, but come from simply looking at the article. I don't have to be an expert at fashion to see that there are hundreds of fashion-related articles and suggest a Wikiproject be created. (It WAS a Musslim who created the Wikiproject: Christianity.) I'll come back to the article later today. If you promise to stop cursing me for being offended, I'll agree to work with you on helping the article. This is one of the few things I have books, magazines, and experience with. Colonel Marksman 21:25, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] More discussions

I brought some text which was misplaced at Grammatical person to this page. For a few more discussions that took place there, see the respective Talk Page. FilipeS 23:46, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] First Person

The section on first person needs to be expanded - I don't have time now, but I be able to work on it later. Specifically I feel there should be seperate subsections for first person primary character and first person secondary character; there's a huge difference. Also, there should maybe be a seperate subsection for "Other types of first person," such as first plural narration (like in Virgin Suicides) Snowboardpunk 03:52, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Okay, cool, go for it.Avt tor 15:31, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Is Anthem really in first person plural? It's written with the word "We" but it is very clearly written only to replace "I" as a political statement, rather than to establish an idea of communal action.

[edit] MAYOR FLAWS! EXAMPLE: Common uses of grammatical person

This article is terribly flawed and inconsistent. Please see the following example:

Common uses of grammatical person
Past Present Future
First autobiographies wills shopping lists
Second letters adventure
books		 ransom notes
Third novels plays instructions

This text box is pure nonsense!! Wills could hardly be written consistently in the first-person present, they are rather primarily in the third-person future. e.g. "Peter shall have my estate, Mary my boat……"; shopping lists are normally not written in any person or tense (they are not narrative), e.g. "eggs, sugar, milk……" (one would rarely write “I need to buy 6 eggs, then I need to buy one kilo of sugar” etc. since it is quite obvious); letters are, I assume, equally often written in any of the three persons, eg. one could write one's own experiences (1.person) or one could write about a relative, for example, (i.e. in the 3. person) or one could write about one’s feelings towards the addressee (2. person); plays cannot really be said to be written in any person (they are not narrative in the strict sense of the term), they consists of dialogue (which could be in any person and any tense); instructions are hardly ever written in the third person but most often in the second person ("after you have finished part one, move on to part two ….."), or in the imperative mode (“finish part one and move on to part two………”)

Why does anyone write such rubbish which is so easy to prove false? If you come up with something, why not try to consider if it makes any sense before you post it!!???

The article is basically unfixable, it needs a complete revision!

Actually, as a narrative form, wills are written in first-person: "I declare", "I revoke", "I am married to", "I appoint", "I bequeath", and so on.
This article has come together from many different editors. It lacks consistency and surely has plenty of room for improvement. Feel free to improve it. In the process, please be careful not to lose any of the substance of the current content, unless you have better material on the same issues which is properly sourced. A major rewrite is a lot of effort, which is why nobody has done it yet. Avt tor 23:40, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Also: "that happened, the king died" (quotations actually in the quote)- shouldn't it be "that happened", "the king died"? 71.167.53.199 (talk) 15:59, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Pynchon

I don't think "Gravity's Rainbow" was in third limited -- the narrator frequently went in and out of several different characters heads. However, I've only read the book once so far so I might just be confused.... Still, I thought it was third omniscent. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by SeizureToday (talk • contribs) 00:49, 1 February 2007 (UTC).

[edit] Incorrect statement on authorial intrusion

The summary part of this article states Authors rarely, in fiction, insert or inject their own voice. This is just not true; it was a common thing to do in 19th century novels, including many of those now considered classics. It is much less common now, but the statement does not limit itself to current books. Eric-Albert 00:49, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] You are getting it all wrong

You are making a common mistake, mixing the concepts of "narrator" and "point of view". The narrator is the one "telling the story". But the same narrator could tell the story from several different points of view. "Pont of view" is who's seeing the story, or whose perspective (visual, phisicological, idiological, etc) is being adopted while telling the story. The same narrator can tell the same story from different points of view, and a single point of view can be adopted by various narrators.

An example: a grown man can narrate the story of his childhood from his grown up point of view, or from the way he saw things back then when he was a child, or a combination of both. In the two cases it's a narrator in first person, but still, two different points of views.

Same happens with the third person narrator. He can tell the story from a detached and neutral position, or he can take the side of one of the charachters. Same narrator, same gramatical category, different points of views.

First, second, third persons, are categories referring to the narrator, not to the point of view. Although they are related to the point of view, since gramatical different persons are sometimes used to denote different points of view, the point of view is by no means synonim to the "expirience of the narrator". It can be the expirience of the narrator, if the narrator chooses to, but it can also be the story as expirienced by one of the charachters, one of the charachters at certain location, time or age, or a any given combinations.

BTW, I'm basing myself on what I remember from my textbook to "Introduction to Narratology" class:

Narrative fiction : contemporary poetics / Shlomith Rimmon-Kenan. London ; New York : Routledge, 2002, c1983

--Rataube 15:25, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Another thing, the person who introduced this term and used it as I explain above was Gerard Genette.--Rataube 11:51, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Fourth Person

I made grammatical edits to the section, but it seems to me that so-called "fourth person" is a rhetorical technique more than it is a point of view. Anyone else care to weigh in? --TheEditrix2 00:08, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] heresy

"pov" has become internet slang (at least here) for "heresy". anyone else notice that?

[edit] notable?

It it notable enough that woot.com links to this article?Should that me mentioned in the talk page? Kushalt 12:15, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Contradiction

  • Paragraph 2: In a novel, the first person is commonly used...
  • Paragraph 4: Most novels are narrated in "third person omniscient", or in "third person limited".

Is either used significantly more often than the other? What is truly the most frequent point of view employed? --UberScienceNerd Talk Contributions 01:27, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Noticed this too, this needs to be fixed, but I have no clue which might be correct, though I'd tend towards 3rd person.--85.93.206.16 (talk) 14:22, 8 April 2008 (UTC)