1) I fully support it being both. Did anyone ever say that poems are not essays. And if you want to get even more philosophical, why do we put literature into classifications? Isn't art supposed to be outside the norm?

2) In this context...I is....yourself. It could also refer to any writer, becoming more of writers lament than a personal one.

3) I'm afraid I don't know the word 'metaphysical' well enough to attempt to answer. I know it, but it isn't one I use casually enough to be comfortable with.

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I live in a fictional world, make friends with fictional people. I say fictional words, and think fictional thoughts. But never do I eat fictional food. It all tastes like paper.

[link]

~Timekeepers

1) But in a sense, art helps define the norm, by suggesting to us where to focus our attention. On the other hand, René Magritte provides his own form of artistic unreliability with this famous painting.

2) Ah, but the very concept of an unreliable narrator calls this into question. Here the narrator has declared that he is not only not the author, but is in fact merely a figment of his—my—imagination. (A 'fictionality' is something fictional.)

3) The narrator's awareness of his own fictional status is a member of a category of literary devices collectively referred to as metafiction.

Consider: what would be the implications of knowing for certain that you have no free will at all, that your every move, your every thought, is being choreographed from above by an unseen hand? For such a character, is there any difference between an author and a deity?

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I've tried pursuing happiness. Happiness sought a restraining order.

I think your description scared people off.

I refuse to answer the questions because I am currently doing a law assignment and my brain is too preoccupied with questions of law. I will say that Sophie's World is a fantastic book; I really must read it again.

I will say that if this is an essay, the structure is very lacking and would not pass muster in an NCEA exam.

"I will say", "I will say"... you can tell I'm not really thinking properly, can't you?

" 'I will say', 'I will say'... you can tell I'm not really thinking properly, can't you? "

I will say not.


"...If this is an essay, the structure is very lacking and would not pass muster in an NCEA exam. "

It's the lack of footnotes, isn't it? I knew I should've annotated properly!

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I've tried pursuing happiness. Happiness sought a restraining order.

It's your failure at following the appropriate SEX format, of course! Statement, Explanation, eXample. (Because of course, teenagers can only remember things that are to do with sex. )

But wait: the narrator has followed just such a format!

Statement: "I've sought to study prosody."

Explanation: "[Prosody is] the application of the rules of rhythm, meter...."

3 eXamples: "I've overstated imagery to underscore synecdoche [a demonstration of which ("atoms forming molecules") immediately follows].

"Embracing ambiguity, I've stretched the use of irony [by paradoxically declaring his awareness of his own non-existence]."

Lastly, there's the fact that this is indeed really a poem—my favorite kind, in fact—and therefore follows the strict rules of rhythm, rhyme, and meter ("all the tools") throughout.

(And as far as teenagers and sex goes, I have absolutely NO idea of what you must be talking about. )

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I've tried pursuing happiness. Happiness sought a restraining order.

That's true; but in NCEA, the narrator would be penalised for not having all that together in one paragraph, which is the cornerstone of the SEX format.

It is a very clever piece, of course, but you know that already.

Now see, the style guide I'm most familiar with is the MLA Handbook—which makes sense given that I'm a New Yorker, rather than a New Zealander.

And thank you, both for the praise and the .

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I've tried pursuing happiness. Happiness sought a restraining order.