Historical accuracy in fiction

[Epictetus]

How important is historical accuracy in fiction? I’ve always been a hard-liner, getting angry at wrong clothes in movies or inaccurate events in books. But about a month ago I was reading Aristotle’s Poetics and had an epiphany of sorts.

It starts with definitions: Aristotle says that a writer of fiction (poet in his terminology) creates a representative of life and tries to arouse emotions. He says the difference between a historian and a poet is “that one tells what happened and the other what might happen… poetry tends to give general truths while history gives particular facts.”

He gives examples: invented personas interacting with historical figures, or historical figures acting in ways that may not be historically accurate but still illuminate something important about that individual. The writer of fiction is supposed to create a story and inspire emotions in the audience.

I think he has a point. It is unfair to a author to expect something other than his goal, and it is unfair to the reader to try and get one disciple (history) from another (fiction).

What do you think?

[Vindex]

"...It is unfair to an author to expect something other than his goal, and it is unfair to the reader to try and get one disciple (history) from another (fiction)."

What an interesting question.

I dislike it when I find errors in books and articles as it seems such a simple thing to check and get right (and not just in historical fiction).

But I think the reader will take from a book whatever he/she chooses and it may not necessarily be what the author intends! Philosophically they should be the same thing but for an author to achieve that aim with his reader, the reader must, surely, understand the same ethos and background of the author?

What is the aim of historical fiction? To entertain or to educate, or a mixture of the two? Some modern authors can blend the two masterfully and one does not know one is learning as one reads...but it is still the authors point of view, and one relies upon the research that individual has done; one trusts that they are right!

Some authors patronise when they write and include too much detail in long, impressive paragraphs on the description of something which adds little to the story or the pace of the narrative.

Can historical fiction have a moral tale as well, I wonder - this is implied by Aristotle's scenario of combining invented personas with historical figures - or is the author still impinging his/her own thoughts on the reader through the mouth piece of somone already known in history using their persona to give their own thoughts weight?

Thought provoking post.

Thanks!

[john roberts]

Personally, in my Roman novels I try to stick as close to historical fact as I can, but if there is uncertainty, perhaps contradiction among the ancient sources, I feel free to choose the version that suits me and best fits my story. Only since the Romantic Era of the early 19th century have writers even tried to make their stories true to the actual times. Shakespeare has cannons in 6th century Denmark and hour-tolling clocks in Caesar's Rome, but people think his plays are pretty good anyway.

[Robert Vermaat]

Isn't 'historical fiction' not a contradiction in terms anyway?

[Jona Lendering]

Aristotle says that a writer of fiction (poet in his terminology) creates a representative of life and tries to arouse emotions. He says the difference between a historian and a poet is “that one tells what happened and the other what might happen… poetry tends to give general truths while history gives particular facts.”

...

I think he has a point. It is unfair to a author to expect something other than his goal, and it is unfair to the reader to try and get one disciple (history) from another (fiction).

I think Aristotle is right, more or less. The purpose of fiction is not to tell how it really happened, but, indeed, to reveal more important truths.

That being said, if you want your story to be convincing, it is necessary to stay close to the facts.

[john roberts]

Was it Aristotle who said, "Myths are things that never happened but are always true."?

[Nathan Ross]

That being said, if you want your story to be convincing, it is necessary to stay close to the facts.

It's the convincingness of the story (and the characters, and the setting) that's the important part, I think. And this verisimilitude is greatly enhanced by the author paying close attention to the known facts of the period.

We tend to assume that authors are interested in and knowledgeable about the settings of their stories. Hard to imagine a good novel about (say) deep-sea trawler fishermen written by someone with no knowledge of the subject, who'd never even been in a boat. The more factual knowledge the author possesses, the greater vividness and complexity they can give to the fictional world they create.

There are some historical novelists who prefer not to involve themselves in too much research, arguing that it was all in the past and nobody really knows what went on back then anyway... But if you take away the specific details of an historical period, you leave only the author's imagination - and often this falls readily into cliche and sterotype. If the novel is (quoting Martin Amis!) a war against cliche, the historical novelist should be aware of the pitfalls of lazy thinking. Close attention to 'facts' - however disputed they may be - remains the best way of invigorating the imagination and producing stories that are fresh and convincing.

These facts don't have to be a straightjacket - there's a very good novel by Thornton Wilder called 'The Ides of March', set in 45BC. The novel features Catullus and Clodius, and Wilder points out in his prologue that both these men were dead by the period of his story. But, he says, he is not producing an historical reconstruction, but rather 'a fantasia on certain events and persons from the last days of the Roman republic'. Even so, Wilder clearly has a keen sense of the period, and it's very compelling - the world described seems genuine, populated by genuine individual people, and the dramas of Wilder's Rome have the flavour of truth, if not the exact ingredients.

I would rather read a novel like that, something alive and unique, than one in which every factual box was ticked, every beneficiarius consularis correctly labelled, but which failed to give any sense of a real world and real people inhabiting it!

- Nathan

[Jona Lendering]

Was it Aristotle who said, "Myths are things that never happened but are always true."?

Nope, it was Sallustius, a fourth-century writer commonly associated with Julian the Apostate.

[john roberts]

Thanks, Jona!

[Epictetus]

I decided to revisit this topic in a guest blog post I did for Reading the Past: Aristotle and Accuracy in Historical Fiction.

[ROMan]

I try not to *read* historical fiction, but have been known to relax with an historical movie, and I think what matters to me most is if the mistake is sloppy and pointless. The beginning of "Gladiator" when Crowe helps Richard Harris put his foot into a stirrup lost me for the entire movie; but "A Knight's Tale" simply rocked from beginning to end!

[M. Demetrius]

They say we're too picky about things like that, Mr. Mason, but truth is, it would have been just as easy for Maximus (or his body stand in) to lace his fingers and make a step-up for Aurelius. The difference, of course, is that he'd have had to ride without stirrups, and that's foreign to most people.

At the same time, neither of them probably did most of their "real" riding themselves--that's the business of stunt men and stand-ins. A simple tumble from a horse can cost a movie many thousands of dollars if one of the principals is injured.

[Dan Howard]

My problem is when the promoters of the movie make a fuss about the "historical advisors" they had on set and how closely they stuck to "historical facts" when it is clearly evident that the advisors were completely ignored. That's why Gladiator annoyed the hell out of me and 13th Warrior is one of my favourite movies.

[Kegluneq]

At the same time, neither of them probably did most of their "real" riding themselves--that's the business of stunt men and stand-ins. A simple tumble from a horse can cost a movie many thousands of dollars if one of the principals is injured.

Actually Russell Crowe is a skilled horseman (I believe he has a ranch in Australia) - part of the reason they had stirrups was so he could do his own stunts. They also used huge modern horses (iirc) which would have made going without stirrups that much more dangerous anyway.

Epictetus: You raised some very good points in that blog article. I'd actually like to see more of the other extreme occurring - Roman stories, told in modern contexts. It worked very well for the Hamlet/Macbeth stagings on the BBC a few years back after all (I should probably get round to watching Coriolanus at some point...)

[Olaf]

My problem is when the promoters of the movie make a fuss about the "historical advisors" they had on set and how closely they stuck to "historical facts" when it is clearly evident that the advisors were completely ignored. That's why Gladiator annoyed the hell out of me and 13th Warrior is one of my favourite movies.

Interesting that you mentionthese two movies, as Gladiatior manages to not show a single propper Gladiator Armatura, using mostly medieval armor props, while the Viking leader of the 13 is actually wearing a Gladiator helmet he must have found during his pillaging somewhere :-)