nonfictional prose, any literary work that is based mainly on fact, even though it may contain fictional elements. Examples are the essay and biography. Defining nonfictional prose literature is an immensely challenging task. This type of literature differs from bald statements of fact, such as ...
Maurice Merleau-Ponty testified to this experience in The Prose of the World (Merleau-Ponty [1969] 1974): “I have access to Stendhal’s outlook through the commonplace words he uses. But in his hands these words are given a new twist. The cross-references multiply. More and more arrows ...