Fiction vs History?

[jbor]

on 23/10/04 4:12 AM, Ghetta Life wrote:

> one crucial difference between
> history and fiction is that history attempts to recount event which actually
> occurred, but fictional events are not purported to have ever occurred in
> the physical realm.

History does more than recount events. That is mere chronology. Historians
narrate: they impute cause(s) and effect(s) to events and knit it all
together into a larger story which, invariably, conveys an impression of
having a beginning, a middle, and an end.

On the other side of the coin, events and situations represented in fiction
are often "historical", both in the sense that they are events that really
happened and also in that the fiction reflects the culture and attitudes of
its time (as also does written history). I'd argue that Jane Austen's novels
present a richer and more authentic "slice of life" account of Georgian
England than do Lewis Namier's histories. That is not to denigrate Namier's
achievement in any way whatsoever.

best