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{{about|the character type|the 1999 action film|Anti-hero (film)|the punk band|Anti-Heros|the Marlon Roudette song|Anti Hero (Brave New World)}}Meow Meow Meow. My kitties say meow. They meow all day. Like kitties. <ref></ref> |
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<!--Info from TV Tropes, blogs, and fansites needs to be excluded--> |
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The '''antihero'''<ref name="merriam">{{cite web|url=http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/antihero |title=Antihero - Definition and More from the Free Merriam-Webster Dictionary |publisher=Merriam-webster.com |date=2012-08-31 |accessdate=2013-10-03}}</ref> or '''antiheroine'''<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/antiheroine?show=0&t=1350251069 |title=Antiheroine - Definition and More from the Free Merriam-Webster Dictionary |publisher=Merriam-webster.com |date=2012-08-31 |accessdate=2013-10-03}}</ref> is a [[protagonist|leading character]] in a film, [[Literature|book]] or play who lacks some or all of the traditional heroic qualities,<ref name="oxford">{{cite web|url=http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/anti-hero |title=anti-hero: definition of anti-hero in Oxford dictionary (British & World English) |publisher=Oxforddictionaries.com |date= |accessdate=2013-10-03}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|author=Gioia, Dana (editor) |url=http://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/american/antihero |title=Definition of antihero | Collins American English Dictionary |publisher=Collinsdictionary.com |date= |accessdate=2013-10-03}}</ref> such as [[altruism]],{{Citation needed|date=October 2013}} idealism,<ref name="ahd">{{cite web|url=http://www.ahdictionary.com/word/search.html?q=antihero |title=American Heritage Dictionary Entry: antihero |publisher=Ahdictionary.com |date=2013-01-09 |accessdate=2013-10-03}}</ref> courage,<ref name="ahd"/> nobility,<ref name="dictionary">{{cite web|url=http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/antihero |title=Antihero | Define Antihero at Dictionary.com |publisher=Dictionary.reference.com |date= |accessdate=2013-10-03}}</ref> fortitude,<ref name="gale">{{cite web|url=http://www.gale.cengage.com/free_resources/glossary/index.htm#antihero |title=Gale - Free Resources - Glossary - Home |publisher=Gale.cengage.com |date= |accessdate=2013-10-03}}</ref> and moral goodness.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.macmillandictionary.com/dictionary/british/anti-hero |title=anti-hero - definition of anti-hero by Macmillan Dictionary |publisher=Macmillandictionary.com |date= |accessdate=2013-10-04}}</ref> |
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Whereas the classical hero is larger than life, antiheroes are typically inferior to the reader in intelligence, dynamism or social purpose<ref name="autogenerated34">Northrop Frye, ''Anatomy of Criticism'' (1971) p. 34</ref> - giving rise to what [[Robbe-Grillet]] called “these heroes without naturalness as without identity”.<ref>Quoted in E. D. Ermath, ''Sequel to History'' (1992) p. 71</ref> |
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The term is also sometimes used more broadly to cover the flawed or part-villanous hero, in the literary tradition of the [[Byronic hero]].<ref>''Childe Harold's Pilgrimage'' (1812-1818)</ref><ref>''The Giaour'' (1813)</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://web.cn.edu/kwheeler/lit_terms_B.html#byronic_hero_anchor |title=Literary Terms and Definitions B |publisher=Web.cn.edu |date= |accessdate=2013-10-03}}</ref> |
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==History== |
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===Precursors=== |
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The anti-heroic type can be traced back at least as far as [[Homer]]'s [[Thersites]];<ref>[[George Steiner]], ''Tolstoy or Dostoevsky'' (1967) p. 197</ref> and has also been identified in classical [[Greek drama]], as well as in Roman satire and Renaissance literature,<ref>George Steiner, ''Tolstoy or Dostoevsky'' (1967) p. 197-8</ref> as with ''[[Don Quixote]]''<ref>{{cite web|url=http://web.cn.edu/kwheeler/lit_terms_A.html#antihero_anchor |title=Literary Terms and Definitions A |publisher=Web.cn.edu |date= |accessdate=2013-10-03}}</ref> or the [[picaresque]] rogue.<ref>M. Halliwell, ''American Culture on the 1950s'' (2007) p. 60</ref> |
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However such figures mainly served as foils to the hero, or the heroic genre, and it was only gradually that the antihero came to the fore in their own right, following the process whereby what [[Northrop Frye]] calls the fictional "center of gravity" slowly descended from feudal aristocrat to urban democrat, and literature shifted accordingly from the epic to the ironic.<ref name="autogenerated34"/> |
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The actual term antihero is first dated to 1714;<ref name="merriam">[http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/antihero Antihero - Definition and More from the Free Merriam-Webster Dictionary]</ref> and the later eighteenth century saw a fine example of the type in ''[[Rameau's Nephew]]'',<ref>George Steiner, ''Tolstoy or Dostoevsky'' (1967) p. 199-200</ref> though here the protagonist still remains placed in dialogue with a normative representative of the authorial position. |
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Nineteenth century [[Romanticism]], with its social critique, saw the antihero becoming still more prominent, often in the form of the Gothic double, until the main character of [[Fyodor Dostoevsky]]'s ''[[Notes from Underground]]'' brought the figure into full and independent flower.<ref>George Steiner, ''Tolstoy or Dostoevsky'' (1967) p. 201-7</ref> |
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===Heyday=== |
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Building on Dostoevsky, the first half of the twentieth century saw the heyday of the antihero, first in figures like [[Kafka]]'s K, and then in the writings of the French [[Existentialism|existentialists]],<ref>J. E. Barnhart ed., ''Dostoevsky's Polyphonic Talent'' (2005) p. 181</ref> as in Camus's [[The Stranger (novel)|L'Étranger]] (1942) or Sartre's [[La Nausée]] (1938) with their rootless, indecisive central characters drifting through their own lives.<ref>G. Brereton, ''A Short History of French Literature'' (1954) p. 254-5</ref> |
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A decade or so later, the antihero reached American literature, to dominate till the mid-Sixties as a lonely alienated figure, unable to communicate<ref>M/ Hardt/K. Weeks eds., ''The Jameson Reader'' (2000) p. 294-5</ref> - if typically more pro-active than his French counterpart - within the works of [[Jack Kerouac]] and [[Norman Mailer]] and many more.<ref>A. Edelson, ''Everybody is Sitting on the Curb'' (1996) p. 18</ref> The British equivalent appeared in the works of the so-called [[Angry young men]] of the fifties.<ref>I. Ousby ed., ''The Cambridge Guide to Literature in English'' (1995) p. 27</ref> |
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The collective protests of [[Sixties counterculture]] saw the solitary antihero gradually eclipsed from fictional prominence,<ref>A. Edelson, ''Everybody is Sitting on the Curb'' (1996) p. 1</ref> though not without subsequent revivals in literary or cinematic form.<ref>M/ Hardt/K. Weeks eds., ''The Jameson Reader'' (2000) p. 295</ref> |
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==Sporting antiheroes== |
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The sporting antihero is typically ''not'' a team player; challenges officialdom; sets financial gain over club loyalty; yet still acquires a large fan following,<ref>T. Delaney/T. Madigan, ''The Sociology of Sports'' (2009) p. 72 and p. 284</ref> by way of his or her actualisation of the rebel archetype.<ref>R. Skynner/J. Cleese, ''Families and how to survive them'' (1994) p. 202-3</ref> |
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==See also== |
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{{Portal|Literature}} |
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{{Columns-list|3| |
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* [[Antihumanism]] |
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* [[Anti-novel]] |
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* [[Film theory]] |
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* [[Good Soldier Schweik]] |
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* [[James Dean]] |
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* [[List of fictional antiheroes]] |
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* [[Method acting]] |
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* ''[[The Man Without Qualities]]'' |
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* ''[[Saturday Night and Sunday Morning]]'' |
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}} |
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==References== |
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{{reflist|2|}} |
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==Further reading== |
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{{Wiktionary}} |
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* {{cite book|last=Simmons|first=David|title=The Anti-Hero in the American Novel: From Heller to Vonnegut |year=2008 |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan |isbn=0-230-60323-8}} |
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==External links== |
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[http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/27600/antihero Antihero (literature) -- Britannica Online Encyclopedia] |
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[http://www.enotes.com/saturday-night-sunday-morning-salem/saturday-night-sunday-morning-674384 Saturday Night and Sunday Morning Character Analysis] |
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{{Comics genres and themes}} |
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{{Stock characters}} |
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[[Category:Heroes by role]] |
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[[Category:Tropes]] |
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Revision as of 16:03, 6 December 2013
Ain't nobody got time fo dis