Aesthetic distance refers to the gap between a viewer's conscious reality and the fictional reality presented in a work of art. When a reader becomes fully engrossed in the illusory narrative world of a book, the author has achieved a close aesthetic distance. If the author then jars the reader from the reality of the story, essentially reminding the reader they are reading a book, the author is said to have "violated the aesthetic distance."

Authors of film, fiction, drama, and poetry evoke different levels of aesthetic distance. For instance, William Faulkner

William Faulkner

William Cuthbert Faulkner was an American writer from Oxford, Mississippi. Faulkner worked in a variety of media; he wrote novels, short stories, a play, poetry, essays and screenplays during his career...

 tends to invoke a close aesthetic distance by using first-person narrative

First-person narrative

First-person point of view is a narrative mode where a story is narrated by one character at a time, speaking for and about themselves. First-person narrative may be singular, plural or multiple as well as being an authoritative, reliable or deceptive "voice" and represents point of view in the...

 and stream of consciousness, while Ernest Hemingway

Ernest Hemingway

Ernest Miller Hemingway was an American author and journalist. His economic and understated style had a strong influence on 20th-century fiction, while his life of adventure and his public image influenced later generations. Hemingway produced most of his work between the mid-1920s and the...

 tends to invoke a greater aesthetic distance from the reader through use of third person narrative.

Violating the aesthetic distance

Anything that pulls a viewer out of the reality of a work of fiction is said to be a violation of aesthetic distance. An easy example in theater or film is "breaking the fourth wall," when characters suspend the progress of the story to speak directly to the audience. When the aesthetic distance is deliberately violated in theater, it is known as the distancing effect, or Verfremdungseffekt, a concept coined by playwright Bertolt Brecht

Bertolt Brecht

Bertolt Brecht was a German poet, playwright, and theatre director.An influential theatre practitioner of the 20th century, Brecht made equally significant contributions to dramaturgy and theatrical production, the latter particularly through the seismic impact of the tours undertaken by the...

.

Many examples of violating the aesthetic distance may also be found in meta-fiction. William Goldman

William Goldman

William Goldman is an American novelist, playwright, and Academy Award-winning screenwriter.-Early life and education:...

, in The Princess Bride

The Princess Bride

The Princess Bride is a 1973 fantasy novel written by William Goldman. It was originally published in the United States by Harcourt Brace, while in the UK it is/was published by Bloomsbury Publishing....

, repeatedly interrupts his own fairy tale to speak directly to the reader. In the musical, Stop the World I Want to Get Off, the protagonist

Protagonist

A protagonist is the main character of a literary, theatrical, cinematic, or musical narrative, around whom the events of the narrative's plot revolve and with whom the audience is intended to most identify...

, Littlechap, periodically stops the progress of the play to address the audience directly.

In film, the aesthetic distance is often violated unintentionally. Examples might include a director's cameo, poor special effects, or perhaps blatant product placement

Product placement

Product placement, or embedded marketing, is a form of advertisement, where branded goods or services are placed in a context usually devoid of ads, such as movies, music videos, the story line of television shows, or news programs. The product placement is often not disclosed at the time that the...

 - any can be enough to pull a viewer out of the reality of the film. David Mamet

David Mamet

David Alan Mamet is an American playwright, essayist, screenwriter and film director.Best known as a playwright, Mamet won a Pulitzer Prize and received a Tony nomination for Glengarry Glen Ross . He also received a Tony nomination for Speed-the-Plow . As a screenwriter, he received Oscar...

 in On Directing Film

On Directing Film

On Directing Film is a non-fiction book by American playwright and filmmaker David Mamet published in 1991.-Overview:...

asserts that any direct depiction of graphic sex or violence in film is an inherent violation of aesthetic distance, as audience members will instinctively make judgments as to whether or not what they just saw was real, and thus be pulled out of the story-telling.