in fact a fictitious being. 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. However, it was popularized in the early 20th century during the Post-Modern literary movement. 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. 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. Breaking the fourth wall in literature is not always metafiction. Modern examples of breaking the fourth wall include Ada Palmer's Terra Ignota, and William Goldman's The Princess Bride. 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. See also Aside Audience participation List of narrative techniques Meta-reference References External links List of films that break the fourth wall on the Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia Metafictional techniques Stage terminology