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Patricia Waugh defines it as follows: 'Metafiction is a term given to fictional writing which self-consciously and systematically draws attention to its status as an artefact in order to pose questions about the relationship between fiction and reality.'

According to Judge William, the aesthete laughs the 'laughter of despair' and Kierkegaard speaks of the 'superior indolence that cares for nothing at all, that does not care to work [...], that disperses and exhausts all the powers of the soul in soft enjoyment, and lets consciousness itself evaporate into a loathsome gloaming'.

The distinctive aspect, in comparison to verbal irony, is that this 'irony sensu eminentiori [in the eminent sense] is directed not against this or that particular existing entity [...]'

Sass describes solipsism as a state of mind in which 'the whole of reality, including the external world and other persons, is [regarded as] but a representation appearing to a single individual self'.

Sartre offers the example of looking through a keyhole: 'I am alone and on the level of a non-thetic self-consciousness [...]'