Between the "poet" and the "historian" - a purpose of historical fiction

Abstract

History and fiction are associated since the homeric epopee. Aristoteles
differentiated the “poet” from the “historian”, but the distinction is not
satisfactory nowadays, regardind the modifications occurred in these two
discursive modalities. The historical novel of the 19th century also mixes historic
subjects and pure invention, replacing the theoretical problem of the limits
between history and fiction. Modernity contests the “classic” model of historical
novel, romantic, especially as for the triunphing and temporal distance of the
narrator. This article tries to make a typification of the peculiarities of the
historical fiction.