Fictional vs Historical: A Cross-Cultural Study of Narrative in Western and Non-Western Traditions

DOI

10.2991/978-2-38476-541-6_25How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Fictional Narrative; Historical Narrative; Comparative Literature; Cross-cultural Analysis

Abstract

This essay comparatively studies fictional and historical narratives in ancient Greece and China, focusing on Homer’s Iliad, Herodotus’ Histories, Luo Guanzhong’s Romance of the Three Kingdoms, and Sima Qian’s Shiji. Although fiction and history are often considered opposites—one imaginative, and the other factual—this study argues both operate as cultural acts of storytelling that encode values of heroism, legitimacy, and human meaning. Drawing on narratology and intellectual history, it addresses three questions: (1) How do fictional and historical narratives differ in structure, causality, and moral framing in each tradition? (2) What ideals of fate, virtue, and authority they emphasize? (3) Where they converge despite cultural differences? The comparison reveals fictional epics diverge in narrative design and ethical focus: the Iliad builds a unified tragic arc around Achilles’ wrath and the pursuit of kleos (glory), while Romance of the Three Kingdoms adopts a sprawling episodic form, moralizing loyalty (zhong) and righteousness (yi) amid dynastic change. Historical narratives also exhibit contrasting worldviews: Herodotus frames history as open-ended inquiry shaped by irony and relativism, whereas Sima Qian embeds moral judgment through Confucian categories and Heaven’s mandate. Yet both historians broaden their scope to ethnography and reflect on common humanity across cultures. By comparison, the essay demonstrates that narrative, whether fictional or historical, is not neutral but a cultural practice of meaning-making. Greek texts foreground tragic individuality and inexorable fate, while Chinese texts stress moral duty and cosmic order, but both traditions converge in their recognition of courage, wisdom, and shared human vulnerability.

Copyright

© 2026 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Houkun Wang
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/02/26
TI  - Fictional vs Historical: A Cross-Cultural Study of Narrative in Western and Non-Western Traditions
BT  - Proceedings of the 2025 5th International Conference on Culture, Design and Social Development (CDSD 2025)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 210
EP  - 220
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-2-38476-541-6_25
DO  - 10.2991/978-2-38476-541-6_25
ID  - Wang2026
ER  -