The term framing device refers to the usage of the same single action, scene, event, setting, or any element of significance at both the beginning and end of an artistic, musical, or literary work. The repeated element thus creates a ‘frame’ within which the main body of work can develop.
The earliest example of this device is the frame story. Familiar examples of this include the Arabian Nights where Scheherazade must narrate stories in order to prevent her execution, Boccaccio's Decameron where young people run away from Florence to avoid the plague pass the time telling stories, and Chaucer's Canterbury Tales in which the host at the inn charges the travellers with each providing a tale.
Read more about Framing Device: Use in Narrative, Compared To Reprise
Famous quotes containing the words framing and/or device:
“In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men ... you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.”
—James Madison (1751–1836)
“A bracelet of bright hair about the bone,
Will he not let us alone,
And think that there a loving couple lies
Who thought that this device might be some way
To make their souls, at the last busy day,
Meet at this grave, and make a little stay?”
—John Donne (1572–1631)