Stream of consciousness writing
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Stream_of_consciousness_writing".

For other uses, see Stream of consciousness (psychology)

In literary criticism, stream of consciousness is a literary technique that seeks to portray an individual's point of view by giving the written equivalent of the character's thought processes, either in a loose interior monologue, or in connection to his or her actions. The introduction of the term to describe literature, transferred from psychology, is attributed to May Sinclair, and is mostly a dead metaphor.

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Stream-of-consciousness writing is usually regarded as a special form of interior monologue and is characterized by associative (and at times--dissociative) leaps in syntax and punctuation that can make the prose difficult to follow, tracing a character's fragmentary thoughts and sensory feelings. Stream of consciousness and interior monologue are distinguished from dramatic monologue, where the speaker is addressing an audience or a third person, and is used chiefly in poetry or drama. In stream of consciousness, the speaker's thought processes are more often depicted as overheard in the mind (or addressed to oneself) and is primarily a fictional device. The term was first introduced to the field of literary studies from that of psychology by philosopher and psychologist William James, brother of the influential writer Henry James.

Several notable works employing stream of consciousness are:

The technique has been parodied, for example, by David Lodge in the final chapter of The British Museum Is Falling Down.

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