Nothing but the Truth? Rhetoric and fictionality in the Greek and Latin novels.

The novel is arguably the most popular fictional genre nowadays. Since Antiquity has not left us any straightforward, theoretical definition of fiction, this project turns to the ancient novels themselves, from which, it argues, implicit concepts and definitions of fiction can be deduced. To do so, the project proposes narratological and rhetorical analyses of the metafictional potential of novelistic trial scenes, which are not only a staple of the genre but also self reflexive narrative moments (given the fact that they all deal with, comment on and thematize preceding parts of the plots of the novels in which they occur). The driving research hypothesis is that Greek and Latin novelists adopt ancient rhetorical traditions creatively in their trial scenes in order to reflect about and conceptualize the fictionality of their own works. In order to test this hypothesis, the project will analyze the narrative and rhetorical functions of trial scenes in the novels and examine the metafictional potential of these scenes by drawing on ancient rhetorical traditions (both theory and practice), which constituted an educational background shared by both authors and readers of the novels and developed toolkits, concepts and methods to create and analyze fictional worlds. This project will result, for the first time, in a systematic study of metafictionality in both the Greek and the Latin novels of Antiquity and will refine our understanding of each of these novels individually.