Luule- ja pärislugude eristus teoorias ja praktikas II
The Distinction between Fictional and Factual Narrative in Critical Theory and Practice II

Summary/Abstract: Part Two of the article describes various attempts of dating the rise of fiction and explaining its relationships with history and myth in oral cultures, periods of antiquity, middle ages, early modern times, and in the 18th century. Depending on the historians’ notion of fictionality, several incompatible dates have been given. The survey makes it clear that fictionality is not an unhistorical anthropological universal, although its origin and genealogy are hard to pin down as the concept of fictionality itself is rather elusive. It may signify all kinds of untrue inventions, but its more interesting and restrictive sense implies a tacit contract between the author and the reader. Due to the slippery nature of the notions of author’s intention and reader’s expectations it is hard to detect fictionality where there is no explicit poetics of fiction present. Various views about the relationship between lying and fiction, the poetics of truth and the poetics of fictionality are discussed. The limits of the audience’s credulity have been put to test by fabricated histor- ies, fake letters and pseudo-biographies. At the same time, ancient novels frequently used the conventions of historiography. Before the emergence of the modern novel, verisimilar believable fictions aroused suspicion, as they were easy to confuse with history. Fiction was tolerated only if it was overtly fantastic or unbelievable. The instinctive competence of readers has always been more advanced than theoretical analysis of fictionality.

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