in medias res

In or into the middle of a sequence of events, as in a literary narrative.

[Latin in mediās rēs : in, into + mediās, accusative pl. feminine of medius, in the middle of + rēs, accusative pl. of rēs, thing.]

in medias res [in med‐i‐ahs rayss], the Latin phrase meaning ‘into the middle of things’, applied to the common technique of storytelling by which the narrator begins the story at some exciting point in the middle of the action, thereby gaining the reader's interest before explaining preceding events by analepses (‘flashbacks’) at some later stage. It was conventional to begin epic poems in medias res, as Milton does in Paradise Lost. The technique is also common in plays and in prose fiction: for example, Katherine Mansfield's short story ‘A Dill Pickle’ (1920) begins in medias res with the sentence

‘And then, after six years, she saw him again.’

[Latin, Into the heart of the subject, without preface or introduction.]

In the middle of the action. Epics often begin in medias res. For example, the Odyssey, which tells the story of the wanderings of the hero Odysseus, begins almost at the end of his wanderings, just before his arrival home. In medias res is a Latin phrase used by the poet Horace; it means “in the middle of things.”

In the very midst of things.

The literary device of beginning a narrative, such as an epic poem, at a crucial point in the middle of a series of events. The intent is to create an immediate interest from which the author can then move backward in time to narrate the story.

For other uses, see In Medias Res (disambiguation).

Look up in medias res in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

In medias res, also medias in res (Latin for "into the midst of affairs (lit. into mid-affairs)"), refers to a literary and artistic technique where the narrative starts in the middle of the story instead of from its beginning (ab ovo or ab initio). The characters, setting, and conflict are often introduced through a series of flashbacks or through characters relating past events to each other.

Probably originating from an oral tradition, the technique is a convention of epic poetry, one of the earliest and most prominent examples in Western literature being Homer's Odyssey and Iliad.^[1] Other epics beginning in medias res include the Indian Mahābhārata, the Portuguese The Lusiads, the Spanish Cantar de Mio Cid, Germany's Nibelungenlied (The Song of the Nibelungs), and the Finnish Kalevala. Several Arabian Nights tales such as "Sinbad the Sailor" and "The Three Apples" also employ this technique.^[2] Virgil's Aeneid began the tradition in literature of imitating Homer,^[1] continued in Torquato Tasso's Jerusalem Delivered, John Milton's Paradise Lost and "Inferno" from Dante's Divine Comedy.^[3]

The narrative method has proven very popular throughout the ages, including frequent use in cinema and Modernist literature.

Etymology

The terms in medias res and ab ovo (literally "from the egg") both come from the Roman poet Horace's Ars Poetica ("Art of Poetry", or "The Poetic Arts"), lines 147–148, where he describes his ideal for an epic poet^[4]:

“

Nor does he begin the Trojan War from the double egg, but always he hurries to the action, and snatches the listener into the middle of things …

”

The "double egg" is a reference to the origin of the Trojan War with the mythical birth of Helen and Clytemnestra from an egg laid by their mother, Leda, after she was raped by Zeus in the form of a swan.

See also

• Reverse chronology
• Flashback/analepsis
• Flashforward/prolepsis
• Cold opening

References

1. ^ ^{a b} Murray, Christopher John (2004). Encyclopedia of the Romantic Era, 1760-1850. Taylor & Francis. p. 319. ISBN 1579584225
2. ^ Pinault, David (1992), Story-Telling Techniques in the Arabian Nights, Brill Publishers, pp. 86–94, ISBN 9004095306 
3. ^ Forman, Carol (1984). Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy: The Inferno. Barron's Educational Series. p. 24. ISBN 0764191071
4. ^ Horace (in Latin). Ars Poetica. "nec gemino bellum Troianum orditur ab ouo; semper ad euentum festinat et in medias res" 

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