In medias res
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In medias res, also medias in res (Latin for "into the midst of affairs (lit. into mid-affairs)"), refers to a literary and artistic technique where the narrative starts in the middle of the story instead of from its beginning (ab ovo or ab initio). The characters, setting, and conflict are often introduced through a series of flashbacks or through characters relating past events to each other.
Probably originating from an oral tradition, the technique is a convention of epic poetry, one of the earliest and most prominent examples in Western literature being Homer's Odyssey and Iliad.[1] Other epics beginning in medias res include the Indian Mahābhārata, the Portuguese The Lusiads, the Spanish Cantar de Mio Cid, Germany's Nibelungenlied (The Song of the Nibelungs), and the Finnish Kalevala. Several Arabian Nights tales such as "Sinbad the Sailor" and "The Three Apples" also employ this technique.[2] Virgil's Aeneid began the tradition in literature of imitating Homer,[1] continued in Torquato Tasso's Jerusalem Delivered, John Milton's Paradise Lost and "Inferno" from Dante's Divine Comedy.[3]
The narrative method has proven very popular throughout the ages, including frequent use in cinema and Modernist literature.
[edit] Etymology
The terms in medias res and ab ovo (literally "from the egg") both come from the Roman poet Horace's Ars Poetica ("Art of Poetry", or "The Poetic Arts"), lines 147–148, where he describes his ideal for an epic poet[4]:
| “ | Nor does he begin the Trojan War from the double egg,
but always he hurries to the action, and snatches the listener into the middle of things … |
” |
The "double egg" is a reference to the origin of the Trojan War with the mythical birth of Helen and Clytemnestra from an egg laid by their mother, Leda, after she was raped by Zeus in the form of a swan.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ a b Murray, Christopher John (2004). Encyclopedia of the Romantic Era, 1760-1850. Taylor & Francis. p. 319. ISBN 1579584225
- ^ Pinault, David (1992), Story-Telling Techniques in the Arabian Nights, Brill Publishers, pp. 86–94, ISBN 9004095306
- ^ Forman, Carol (1984). Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy: The Inferno. Barron's Educational Series. p. 24. ISBN 0764191071
- ^ Horace (in Latin). Ars Poetica. "nec gemino bellum Troianum orditur ab ouo; semper ad euentum festinat et in medias res"
