Abstract
Historical fiction has generally been controversial. Critics, widely differing as to whether history or fiction should predominate the genre, have seldom approached it with a dispassionate eye; in defending their viewpoint, they have been more generous with censure than with praise. Drama, considerably limited in scope, has come in for a greater share of this wrath than has the novel. That the problem is not a recent one is evident from Aristotle’s reminder: “It is not the province of a poet to relate things which have happened, but such as might have happened and such things as are possible, probable, or which necessarily would have happened.”1 Prosper Merimée spoke for the extremists when he called historical fiction a “bastard form,” distorting history to make good fiction, or casting aside the requirements of fiction to make good history.
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© 1965 Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague, Netherlands
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Roberts, S.E. (1965). The Genre. In: Soviet Historical Drama. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-0867-4_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-0867-4_2
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