stream of consciousness

stream of consciousness in literature, technique that records the multifarious thoughts and feelings of a character without regard to logical argument or narrative sequence. The writer attempts by the stream of consciousness to reflect all the forces, external and internal, influencing the psychology of a character at a single moment. The technique was first employed by Édouard Dujardin (1861-1949) in his novel Les Lauriers sont coupés (1888) and was subsequently used by such notable writers as James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, and William Faulkner. The phrase "stream of consciousness" to indicate the flow of inner experience was first used by William James in Principles of Psychology (1890).

stream of consciousness Literary style in which the thought processes of characters are presented in the disconnected, illogical, chaotic or seemingly random way they might come to them, without the usual literary regard for narrative continuity or linear sequence. Edouard Dujardin's novel Les Lauriers Sont Coupes (1888) is generally regarded as the first example of the style in literature. Generally, it is associated stylistically with early modernism, and in particular the writings of James Joyce, Virginia Woolf and William Faulkner.