Historiographic Metafiction: A Comparative Analysis of the Iliad and the Aeneid (original) (raw)

Homer's The Iliad and Virgil's The Aeneid portray historical events of the Trojan War, and later the foundation of the Roman Empire. Both the Epics are works of great literary complexity that contain profound insights and a wide-ranging account of the human condition. A majority of epics and fiction written during the classical ages have been written in response to historical movements or events such as the Trojan War, and the establishment of the Roman Empire. The heroic effort to destroy Troy and get Helen back to Greece was an epic of struggle and theme covering the first half of the classical ages in Europe. Historians and literary artists have traditionally played a significant role in portraying the great wars and revolutions of the world. Not only, do they reach the minds of the people through their writings, but they also subject every institution of the society to a specific political philosophy. Herodotus and Thucydides two great historians have tried their best to write a history of their times, but Iliad and Aeneid are monumental epics that make specific use of history of the same period, painting deftly a moving saga of the whole Greek and Roman empires. The paper attempts to study the same in the light of the postmodernist theory as a work of Historiographic Metafiction in which historical sense and reality enter into the sphere of art imperceptibly.