Qui vitas aliorum scribere orditur: Narratological implications of fictional authors in the Historia Augusta
Publication date
2016
Authors
Burgersdijk, Diederik
Editors
Demoen, Kristoffel
De Temmerman, Koen
Advisors
Supervisors
Document Type
Part of book
Metadata
Show full item recordCollections
License
taverne
Abstract
About the alleged authorship of the Historia Augusta, and how the unknown author tries to hide his identity behind a host of fictitious authors, in the attribution of the individual books as well as in the historical narration itself. It appears that that author tries to present his collection of books as the surviving part of a more complete manuscript, while in fact the collection is just as it is: a work full of lacunae, lacking preface and epilogue, all smothered in contradictory authorial comments meant to delude the reader.
Keywords
biography, historia augusta, fourth century AD, Roman empire, latin literature, narratology, Taverne
Citation
Burgersdijk, D 2016, Qui vitas aliorum scribere orditur : Narratological implications of fictional authors in the Historia Augusta. in K Demoen & K De Temmerman (eds), Writing Biography in Greece and Rome : Narrative Technique and Fictionalization. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 240-256. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781316422861.014