Ich Hier Jetzt Origos

In modern fictional biography as in other fictional forms, one of the clearest markers of deliberate fictionality is the unrealistic, ‘psychic’ omniscience of the narrator; this enables him to persistently represent the internal world of his subjects to a level which (even when logically possible) would be highly implausible were it found in an historical biography. Indeed as Cohn argues (following Hamburger) this is one of the distinguishing features of fictionality: far from being merely a narrative device (‘internal focalisation’, ‘zero focalisation’), it is constitutive of a narrative’s fictional status, since it is logically ruled out by non-fictional narratives. This is found in abundance in Greek fiction (e.g. epics, novels), but the earliest fictional(ised) biographies are concerned with verisimilitude and self-authentication: therefore they usually employ direct speech or quoted letters where more overtly fictional forms employ internal focalisation (leading to difficulties scholars have had in deciding authorial intentions with regard to fictionality or historicity in ancient biographies). This chapter investigates the use made of ‘psychically’ omniscient narration, and the question of its usefulness in determining fictionality, in ancient Greek biographical narratives. At this early stage in the development of fiction itself and of fictional biography, however, other markers of (intentional) fictionality need to be sought, namely: the lack of realism in portraying characters as saying or writing certain things (either tout court, or to or in the presence of certain other characters); the lack of realism in conceiving how the narrator came to know (especially private) utterances and letters by their biographical subjects. The chapter therefore also investigates these features and the information they can yield regarding ancient Greek biographical texts’ fictional status. Examples are taken from Xenophon’s Cyropaedia, the Alexander Romance, the Life of Aesop or Aesop Romance, and Philostratus’ Vita Apollonii, and comparisons made with Plutarch’s more historical bioi and the ancient novel. It concludes that the use of psychically omniscient narration does indeed distinguish fictionalising from more historical forms of Greek biographical narrative, as in much modern biographical writing.

Cohn, D. 1999 The Distinction of Fiction Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press
Hamburger, K 1973 Die Logik der Dichtung Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta