Fictional History and Historical Fiction

Abstract

History and Fiction. From the earliest examples of history-writing in the European tradition, the writing of history has been intertwined with fi ction. To the Greeks history was a branch of literature, but this did not imply that it was fi ction, merely that it was a form of letters. In his Iliad, considered history, Homer did not narrate an eyewitness account of the Trojan War. Moreover the process of oral composition and delivery over the centuries between the Trojan War and Homer’s time leave moot the usual modern distinction between fi ction and history. Yet the Greek attitude toward Homer’s epic more often than not treated the poet’s narrative as the recording of Greece’s most important historical event of its earliest known period. Homer’s work told the story of the confl ict between the Greeks (devoted to the goddess Athena and the intellect) and the Asian Trojans (portrayed as a barbaric civilization dominated by the senses). His work was often defended for the truth of its narrative and the accuracy of its detail. Because the poet was deemed a person inspired by the gods, Homer was thought to have been given an authentic, inspired vision of the event even to the point of being accurate in his detailing of the ships and in particulars he could not otherwise have known.1 One can often see the reverence for Homer’s accuracy in the work of sober historians, like Strabo, who frequently commented on the accuracy of Homer’s geographical details or distances.2 Here we see the early joining of poetry to history.