in medias res
{{Short description|Narrative technique}}
{{Other uses|In Medias Res (disambiguation)}}
A narrative work beginning in medias res ({{IPA|la-x-classic|ɪn ˈmɛdɪ.aːs ˈreːs|lang|link=yes}}, {{lit}} "into the middle of things") opens in the chronological middle of the plot, rather than at the beginning (cf. ab ovo, ab initio).{{cite encyclopedia|url=https://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/284369/in-medias-res|title=In medias res|encyclopedia=Encyclopædia Britannica |access-date= July 31, 2013}} Often, exposition is initially bypassed, instead filled in gradually through dialogue, flashbacks, or description of past events. For example, Hamlet begins after the death of Hamlet's father, which is later discovered to have been a murder. Characters make reference to King Hamlet's death without the plot's first establishment of this fact. Since the play is about Hamlet and the revenge more so than the motivation, Shakespeare uses in medias res to bypass superfluous exposition.
Works that employ in medias res often later use flashback and nonlinear narrative for exposition to fill in the backstory. In Homer's Odyssey, the reader first learns about Odysseus's journey when he is held captive on Ogygia, Calypso's island. The reader then finds out, in Books IX through XII, that the greater part of Odysseus's journey precedes that moment in the narrative. In Homer's Iliad there are fewer flashbacks, although it opens in the thick of the Trojan War.
First use of the phrase
The Roman lyric poet and satirist Horace (65–8 BC) first used the terms ab ovo ("from the egg") and in mediās rēs ("into the middle of things") in his Ars Poetica ("Poetic Arts", c. 13 BC), wherein lines 147–149 describe the ideal epic poet:{{cite book|last=Horace |author-link=Horace|title=Ars poetica|url=http://www.thelatinlibrary.com/horace/arspoet.shtml|language=la|quote=nec gemino bellum Troianum orditur ab ovo; / semper ad eventum festinat et in medias res / [...] auditorem rapit}}
{{quote|Nor does he begin the Trojan War from the egg,
but always he hurries to the action, and snatches the listener into the middle of things ...|}}
The word "egg" reference is to the mythological origin of the Trojan War in the birth of Helen and Clytemnestra from the double egg laid by Leda following her seduction by Zeus in the guise of a swan. Compare the Iliad, which begins nine years after the start of the Trojan War, rather than at its beginning.
Literary history
With likely origins in oral tradition, the narrative technique of beginning a story in medias res is a stylistic convention of epic poetry, the exemplars in Western literature being the Iliad and the Odyssey (both 7th century BC), by Homer.Murray, Christopher John (2004). Encyclopedia of the Romantic Era, 1760-1850. Taylor & Francis. p. 319. {{ISBN|1-57958-422-5}} Likewise, the Mahābhārata (c. 8th century BC – c. 4th century AD) opens in medias res.
The classical-era poet Virgil (Publius Vergilius Maro, 70–19 BC) continued this literary narrative technique in the Aeneid, which is part of the Roman literary tradition of imitating Homer. Later works starting in medias res include the story "The Three Apples" from the One Thousand and One Nights (c. 9th century),{{Cite book|title=Story-Telling Techniques in the Arabian Nights|first=David|last=Pinault|publisher=Brill Publishers|year=1992|isbn=90-04-09530-6|pages=86–94}} the Italian Divine Comedy (1320) by Dante Alighieri,Forman, Carol (1984). Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy: The Inferno. Barron's Educational Series. p. 24. {{ISBN|0-7641-9107-1}}{{Cite book|title=The Complete Danteworlds: A Reader's Guide to the Divine Comedy|last=P. Raffa|first=Guy|date=15 May 2009|publisher=University Of Chicago Press|isbn=978-0226702704|pages=12}} the German Nibelungenlied (12th century),{{cn|date=July 2020}} the Spanish Cantar de Mio Cid (c. 14th century),{{cite journal|title=El Cid redentor|journal=Rocky Mountain Review|volume=72|issue=2|year=2018|page=280-299|last=Leaños|first=Jaime|doi=10.1353/rmr.2018.0023|s2cid=166420522}} the Portuguese The Lusiads (1572) by Luís de Camões,{{cite journal|title=History as Prophecy in Camões's "Os Lusíadas"|last=Dixon|first=Paul B.|journal=Luso-Brazilian Review|volume=22|issue=2|year=1985|pages=145–150|jstor=3513451|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/3513451}} Jerusalem Delivered (1581) by Torquato Tasso,{{cn|date=July 2020}} Paradise Lost (1667) by John Milton,{{cite book|title=Modernity, Metatheory, and the Temporal-Spatial Divide: From Mythos to Techne|page=132|year=2015|last=Kimaid|first=Michael|publisher=Taylor & Francis|isbn=9781317565437}} and generally in Modernist literature.
Modern novelists using in medias res with flashbacks include William Faulkner and Toni Morrison.
Edgar Allan Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart" is written in medias res.{{cite book|last1=Attolino|first1=Paolo |editor1-last=Amendola |editor1-first=Alfonso |editor2-last=Barone |editor2-first=Linda|title=Edgar Allan Poe across disciplines, genres and languages|date=2018|publisher=Cambridge Scholars Publishing|location=Newcastle upon Tyne, UK|isbn=9781527506985|chapter=Chapter Ten: The Tell-Tale Heart… of Mine: Poe Told by Stewart Copeland}}
Some biographers start with a turning point in the subject's life. For example, David McCullough's Truman begins with his World War I experience.
Cinematic history
It is typical for film noir to begin in medias res; for example, a private detective will enter the plot already in progress.{{cite book|title=The Philosophy of Film Noir|first=Deborah|last=Knight|editor1-first = Mark T. |editor1-last = Conard |editor2-first = Robert |editor2-last = Porfirio|publisher=University Press of Kentucky|year=2007|isbn=978-0-8131-9181-2|page=208}} Crossfire (1947) opens with the murder of Joseph Samuels. As the police investigate the crime, the story behind the murder is told via flashbacks.
{{cite book|title=Encyclopedia of Film Noir|first1=Geoff|last1=Mayer|first2=Brian|last2=McDonnell|publisher=ABC-CLIO|year=2007|isbn=978-0-313-33306-4|pages=146, 161}} Dead Reckoning (1947) opens with Humphrey Bogart as Rip Murdock on the run and attempting to hide in a Catholic church. Inside, the backstory is told in flashback as Murdock explains his situation to a priest.
The technique has been used across genres, including dramas such as Through a Glass Darkly (1961),{{cite book|title=Screenwriting for Narrative Film and Television|first=William Charles|last=Miller|publisher=Hastingshouse/Daytrips|year=1980|isbn=978-0-8038-6773-4|page=66}} 8½ (1963), Raging Bull (1980), and City of God (2002);{{Cite web|url=http://www.innovateus.net/innopedia/what-term-medias-res|title=What is the term, In Medias Res? |access-date=2011-11-01 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171107011324/http://www.innovateus.net/innopedia/what-term-medias-res |archive-date=2017-11-07 |url-status=dead}} crime thrillers such as No Way Out (1987), Grievous Bodily Harm (1988),{{cite book|title=New Australian Cinema|url=https://archive.org/details/newaustraliancin00mcfa |url-access = registration|first1=Brian|last1=McFarlane|first2=Geoff|last2=Mayer|publisher=Cambridge University Press|year=1992|isbn=978-0-521-38768-2|page=[https://archive.org/details/newaustraliancin00mcfa/page/100 100]}} The Usual Suspects (1995), and Kill Bill Volume 2 (2004);{{cite book|title=Remade in Hollywood|first=Kenneth|last=Chan|publisher=Hong Kong University Press|year=2009|isbn=978-962-209-056-9|page=147}} horror films such as Firestarter (1984);{{cite book|title=Horror Films of the 1980s|first=John Kenneth|last=Muir|publisher=McFarland|year=2007|isbn=978-0-7864-2821-2|pages=135, 389}} action films such as many in the James Bond franchise;{{cite book|title=The Bedford Glossary of Critical and Literary Terms|first1=Ross C.|last1=Murfin|first2=Supryia M.|last2=Ray|publisher=Bedford/St. Martins|year=2009|isbn=978-0-230-22330-1|page=245}}{{cite book|title=Film Music|first=Kevin J.|last=Donnelly|publisher=Edinburgh University Press|year=2001|isbn=978-0-7486-1288-8|page=36}} and comedies such as Dr. Strangelove (1964). Some have argued that Star Wars takes advantage of this technique because its first-released film, A New Hope, is the fourth episode of a nine-part epic.{{cite book|last1=Danesi|first1=Marcel|title=Popular Culture: Introductory Perspectives|date=2008|publisher=Rowman & Littlefield|location=United States|isbn=978-0-7425-5547-1|page=177 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rcBR7u5wRTgC&dq=%22in+medias+res%22+%22star+wars%22&pg=PA177|via=Google Books|access-date=July 25, 2020|chapter=Chapter 6, Cinema and Video}}
Superhero films with a satirical edge such as Deadpool (2016) and Birds of Prey (2020) have utilized in medias res to frame their stories.{{cite web|url=http://redfenceproject.com/redfence/?p=5763|title=Film Review: Deadpool|date=30 May 2016|publisher=Red Fence}}
Animated films such as Grave of the Fireflies (1988), The Emperor's New Groove (2000), Hoodwinked! (2005), Happily N'Ever After (2006), Megamind (2010), and The Mitchells vs. the Machines (2021) have opening scenes in medias res, with a brief but significant scene that foreshadows the events that occurred earlier. This scene is then seen again afterwards (although in a different way than how it was shown at the beginning).
Many war films, such as The Thin Red Line (1998), also begin in medias res, with the protagonists already actively in combat and no prior domestic scenes leading up to the film's events.{{cite book|title=wHeroes of Film, Comics and American Culture|chapter=Ridley Scott's Epics: Gender of Violence|first=Danielle|last=Glassmeyer |editor-first = Lisa M. |editor-last = Detora|publisher=McFarland|year=2009|isbn=978-0-7864-3827-3|pages=297–8}}
See also
References
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