An article by Associate Professor of Classics Jesse Weiner was recently published in The Ancient World in Alternative History and Counterfactual Fictions from Bloomsbury Academic.
“Antiquity Interrupted: Counterfactuals and Partial Receptions of the Classics” appears in a section titled “Art, Culture and the Poetics of Counterfactuals.” In his chapter, Weiner applies the notion of counterfactuals (“what if x didn’t happen”) to literature, as opposed to history, by developing a concept of partial, terminal receptions.
“These receptions are partial, in that the later works structure themselves through sustained intertext with their source texts, yet only engage with only a portion of these source texts,” he says, adding “they are also terminal in that they truncate their ancient narratives, and their counterfactuals serve as termini rather than starting points for their narratives.”
Weiner uses three case studies to explore these dynamics: Hélisenne de Crenne’s 16th-century translation of the Aeneid’s first four books into French prose; Kurt Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle, a novel that draws subtly on Odysseus’ wanderings in the Odyssey; and Ferdinando Baldi’s Il Pistolero dell’Ave Maria, a western film based upon Aeschylus’ Oresteia.
He argues that by interrupting their ancient narratives, such counterfactuals can provide critical and transformative interventions upon their source texts.
