Metahistorical romance is a term for a form of postmodern historical fiction defined by the scholar Amy J. Elias in her study Sublime Desire: History and Post-1960s Fiction. Elias describes it as continuing the legacy of historical romance begun by Walter Scott while also engaging with contemporary postmodern historiography: rather than simply using history as a backdrop, a metahistorical romance forces the reader to reexamine history and their own view of it, by reinterpreting historical events, writing about ordinary people, crossing between time periods, or otherwise bending history. In Elias's usage, romance signifies not a story of marriage and love but a style in which past events are romanticized and reinterpreted.
Facts
Notable ExampleThe Sot-Weed Factor by John Barth (1960) 1 Defining TraitForces the reader to reexamine history and their own view of it 1 Defining Trait Connections
Form Of Genre
Subgenre Of
Source Metahistorical romance - Wikipedia
Sources
1. Metahistorical romance - Wikipedia
Examples
The Sot-Weed Factor, by John Barth (1960)
Introduction
forces the reader to reexamine history, and their own view of it
Lead paragraph, defining sentence
Metahistorical romance is a term describing postmodern historical fiction, defined by Amy J.
Subgenre Of: Historical Fiction, Lead paragraph, sentence naming the parent genre
Metahistorical romance is a term describing postmodern historical fiction, defined by Amy J.
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