4 ms·
A good read outlining the different kinds of historical writing, including 'passé présomptif' where an author makes statements that their subjuct may have done
by mmanfrin 8y ago
A good read outlining the different kinds of historical writing, including 'passé présomptif' where an author makes statements that their subjuct may have done something or would have been familiar with something else. It ends, essentially, as a review of Jean-Louis Brunaux's Vercingétorix .
- agumonkey 8y agoI, like the article writer, enjoy much more a clear listing of what is known and how it's been remembered later on, rather than a plausible view of his life.
- bloak 8y agoI agree. It's a great article. Incidentally, the "passé présomptif" is also much used for writing about Shakespeare: a similar phenomenon. Now I know what to call it.
- djur 8y agoWhen I was younger I read a really good book about Homer that was kind of framed as a 'biography' of Odysseus that was written in that way, but it was open from the start that it was an artifice used to elucidate what we know about the Greek Dark Ages.