Editing Digression (section)

== Literary use ==
Digressions in a literary text serve a diverse array of functions, such as a means to provide background information, a way to illustrate or emphasize a point through example or [[anecdote]], and even a channel through which to satirize a subject.

=== 800–500 BCE ===
In 800-500 BCE, Homer relies upon digression in his composition of ''[[The Iliad]]'' in order to provide his audience with a break from the primary narrative, to offer background information, and, most importantly, to enhance the story's verisimilitude. Through these digressions Homer ensures his audience's devotion to the characters and interest in the plot.

For example, in Book Eleven, Homer employs a mini-digression when Agamemnon comes upon brothers Peisandros and Hippolokhos in battle. After they come to Agamemnon as suppliants, he remembers that their father was one who denied Menelaos’ emissaries and “held out for killing [them] then and there”.<ref>Homer. The Iliad. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2004.</ref> This short interlude from the action provides the audience with a critical fact about the beginning of the war and the nature of the opposing parties.

=== 18th and 19th centuries ===
In 18th-century literature, the digression (not to be confused with [[subplot]]) was a substantial part of [[satire|satiric work]]s.  Works such as [[Jonathan Swift]]'s ''[[A Tale of a Tub]]'', [[Laurence Sterne]]'s ''[[Tristram Shandy]]'' and [[Diderot]]'s ''[[Jacques le fataliste et son maître]]'' even made digressiveness itself a part of the satire.  Sterne's novel, in particular, depended upon the digression, and he wrote, "Digressions, incontestably, are the sunshine; — they are the life, the soul of reading; — take them out of this book (''Tristram Shandy'') for instance, — you might as well take the book along with them."<ref>"Tristram Shandy." The Electronic Labyrinth. Christopher Keep, Tim McLaughlin, Robin Parmar, n.d. Web. 2 October 2013.</ref> This use of digression as satire later showed up in [[Thomas Carlyle]]'s work.

The digression was also used for non-satiric purposes in fiction.  In [[Henry Fielding]]'s ''[[The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling]]'', the author has numerous asides and digressive statements that are a side-fiction, and this sort of digression within chapters shows up later in the work of [[Charles Dickens]], [[Machado de Assis]], [[William Makepeace Thackeray]], [[Herman Melville]], [[Victor Hugo]] and others. The novels of [[Leo Tolstoy]], [[J.D. Salinger]], [[Marcel Proust]], [[Henry Miller]], [[Milan Kundera]] and [[Robert Musil]] are also full of digressions.

=== 20th century ===
In late twentieth-century literature (in [[Postmodern literature|postmodern fiction]]), authors began to use digressions as a way of distancing the reader from the fiction and for creating a greater sense of play.  [[John Fowles]]'s ''[[The French Lieutenant's Woman]]'' and [[Lawrence Norfolk]]'s ''Lemprière's Dictionary'' both employ digressions to offer scholarly background to the fiction, while others, like [[Gilbert Sorrentino]] in ''Mulligan Stew'', use digression to prevent the functioning of the fiction's illusions.