Lies and Fiction in the Ancient World

Where the boundary lies between falsehood and fiction, between an actual untruth and an admitted invention, has set off many debates in intellectual circles. In classical studies, this issue has gained prominence through the upsurge of interest in the ancient novel and through recent work on the rhetorical character of ancient historiography.This pathfinding collection of essays charts the borderland between falsehood and fiction in the ancient world, especially by considering how far...
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Where the boundary lies between falsehood and fiction, between an actual untruth and an admitted invention, has set off many debates in intellectual circles. In classical studies, this issue has gained prominence through the upsurge of interest in the ancient novel and through recent work on the rhetorical character of ancient historiography.This pathfinding collection of essays charts the borderland between falsehood and fiction in the ancient world, especially by considering how far "lying" was distinguished from "fiction" at different periods and in different genres. The areas covered are early Greek poetry (E. L. Bowie), Plato (Christopher Gill), Greek and Roman historiography (J. L. Moles and T. P. Wiseman), and the Greek and Roman novel (J. R. Morgan and Andrew Laird). Michael Wood and D. C. Feeney discuss the literary critical questions involved and draw connections with contemporary debate. All Greek and Latin passages are translated into English, and the collection is designed to be accessible to students of literature and history generally, as well as to Classicists.