Abstract
Abstract: The Lives of Cleopatra and Octavia is not simply a fanciful delivering of history but also a clever interrogation of biography and fiction. A narratological analysis of Sarah Fielding's introduction and The Lives reveals how Fielding's adaptation is simultaneously true and untrue, and how she subtly parallels her authorial practice with Cleopatra's contrivances. Fielding's constant elision among author, subject, and genres reveals the unsettling, yet alluring, power of fiction, and of prose narrative generally. Exposing the false dialectic between biography and fiction, Fielding challenges readers to judge the eponymous women, her own artful performances, and the purported dialectic between fiction and history.
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