Heroism in Historical Fiction
February 21, 2025
online
University of Silesia in Katowice
Institute of Literary Studies
H/Story Research Group
Heroism as an idea dates back to the very dawn of stories portraying ancient heroes and heroines as if they were gods or god-like. Despite being a much later invention, historical fiction (very broadly defined) has been consistently preoccupied with divine-like heroes and heroines. And, whether these are works authored by the early or the latter representatives of the genre, they abound in gladiators (The Students of Spartacus, Gladiator) or warriors (Count Belisarius, Troy) that both draw on the Antique heroism patterns and rework them from the perspective of later trends, ideas, and contexts.
More recent incarnations of heroism – and hence ones that could be found employed in historical fiction even more readily – include Carlyle’s idea of the great man as the key agent making history, Campbell’s journeying hero, and the idea of heroic imagination proposed by Zimbardo and Franco that debunks the “heroic elect” myth and makes heroism “something that seems in the range of possibilities for every person, perhaps inspiring more of us to answer that call.” Of course, historical fiction does not satisfy itself by merely translating the great man theory into fictionalised history-makers. On the contrary, texts, films, television series and games of this type seem to have reworked the theory in every possible way: a few of many notable examples might include Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace, which is critical of the great man theory; Jędrzej Napiecek’s The King Who Run Away in which this is a dwarf servant of Henri de Valois who engineers the king’s key decisions; and the renowned Kingdom of Heaven, which shows the dark sides of great men and women. Similarly, Campbell’s hero journey has also been reworked in historical fiction (Braveheart, The Northman). And one might wonder whether the accretion of alternatives to Campbell’s idea is still cognitively productive (the heroine journey in the BBC’s series Merlin with the character of Morgana) or whether it has already diluted the idea so much so that it has become meaningless (for instance, with its insistence on chance, the comic take on history presented in The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared might push one to wonder whether heroism is anything but a stroke of luck).
Circulating in the works of historical fiction (Diana Gabaldon’s Claire and Jamie Frazer, Lady Macbeth, The Last Duel) as well as in academic texts (Weber’s charismatic authority, Tatar’s The Heroine with 1001 Faces, hesitant/reluctant hero), these and many other perspectives on heroism have further generated many variants of heroes and heroines, and thus have also contributed to the idea of hero becoming a much more democratic/inclusive one. Accordingly, one may also wonder about the inspirations circling back and forth between various theoretical heroisms and fictional representations of the idea.
But it is not only who is heroic that has changed in historical fiction and is worth investigating; this is also the construction of the stories themselves that seems to have shifted from those in which the hero or heroine shapes history to include also those in which history shapes them as well (Unbroken, Cleopatra, The Last Samurai). Moreover, historical fiction heroes and heroines seem also to have grown beyond being history makers and causes of social transformation to be also conceptualised as “expressions of historically specific conflicts” (Pachinko, Medieval) (or, more generally, of social conditions), narrative phenomena, expressions of collective ego/unconscious, “product[s] of constructive imagination” (Thomas and Katherine in the Kingmaker series), etc. Similarly, heroic acts and their motivations have also been expanded on in historical fiction. First and foremost, heroic acts “are [no] longer the exclusive province of larger-than-life figures. Rather, they [are] the deeds of ordinary people” (the Dutton family members in 1883 and in 1923). Secondly, browsing through historical fictions, one might realise that the motivations of heroes and heroines have grown very complex: they are often changeable – obligation- principle-, altruism-, or pity-derived (Shūsaku Endō’s The Samurai; Pam Jenoff’s The Woman with the Blue Star) – as well as both intrinsic (personal traits, feeling such as altruism, self-denial, other-directed feelings) and extrinsic (including those pertaining to the situations of social pre-conditioning by human organisation structures, such as police service, emotional cultures, cultural resources and networks) (The London House by Katherine Reay).
Heroism has also been reworked at much more abstract levels, for instance, these of discourse (How and under what conditions historical discourse on heroism is created? Is heroism a process or a state? What is the cognitive productivity of differentiating between various degrees of heroism? How is heroism related to the “economy of respect, esteem,” and prestige distribution?) or ideas (charisma, risk, social types, congratulatory culture, the decline of the idea of heroism/post-heroic age); and it might be cognitively productive to observe how historical fiction responds to these changes.
With all this and much more in mind, the H/Story Research Group invites scholars working in various disciplines and fields of study to participate in the II International H/Story Seminar, Heroism in Historical Fiction. Specific topics may address, but are not limited to:
- Hero types and their developments (social hero, narcissist hero, animal hero, war hero, underdog, whistle-blower, post-heroic hero, collaborative heroism)
- What makes a hero? (identity formation, psychological traits, tropes, skills, knowledge, quests, risks, sacrifices, choice, agency)
- Narratives of the hero’s journey and their developments (challenges, alternatives, cognitive productivity in the post-heroic age)
- The hero versus the society (the hero in the eye of the beholder, the hero contract, heroism as a product)
- Social labour of heroic figures (physical and mental risk versus transformation and inspiration)
- Values informing heroism (agency, integrity, hope, responsibility, altruism)
- Heroic acts and their motivations (heroes born out of trauma, self-fulfilment, self-sacrifice/ heroic suicide, mad heroism, moral tickle, positive rumination)
- Non-mainstream heroisms, gendered and post-gender heroism, animal heroism
- Fantasises and the dark side of heroism and their social consequences
- Memory of and nostalgia for heroism, processes of heroinisation of individuals and groups
- Heroism and war, nationalism, totalitarianism
- Uses and abuses of heroism
- Heroism at the service of ideologies, religions, social groups, and affects
- Philosophical, political, social, and psychological takes on heroism
We are delighted to announce that the seminar’s keynote addresses will be presented by Prof. Michael Joseph (Rutgers University), the editor-in-chief of The Robert Graves Review and the author of “Myth of the Golden Age: Journey Tales in African Children’s Literature” and The Marvelous Real in a Land of Dreams.
The seminar is free of charge and takes place online. We welcome scholars from various academic fields to submit their proposals by 15 December 2024. Abstracts of no longer than 300 words in English and accompanying short biographical notes should be emailed to hstory.seminar@gmail.com. Notifications of acceptance will be sent out on an ongoing basis.
Kind regards,
Alicja Bemben and Aleksandra Mzyk