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Ancient historical fiction? (lemmy.ml)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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I had an interesting thought yesterday. I was pondering, what if some of the archaic literature we relied upon to document past events was actually fictional accounts intended to be read for leisure?

This prompted me to ask what ancient or medieval (preferably before the 15th century) do you know of? Some may describe The Iliad as historical fiction, what do you think.

P.S. Regarding fictional accounts mistook as historical, I found this enlightening discussion on reddit, libreddit link.

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

I don't think anyone ever mistook Beowulf (c. 700–1000 AD) for nonfiction, but just wanted to mention that if you've read it and enjoyed it, you might like Grendel, a modern retelling of Beowulf from the monster's perspective.

Btw it's really fun to get a side-by-side Modern English and Old English edition of Beowulf and compare them. Wild how much language can change in that time span.