January Meme: How would long dead historical figures react to the rpf written about them?
Which is what davetheanalyzer wants to know. Wellllllll, as Fontane (who wrote some historical rpf and poetry, though mainly contemporary stories) would say, das ist ein weites Feld. Some of them were used to it within their life time and appear to have been very sang froid about it. Case in point: Catherine de' Medici, who is on the record of observing after a particularly extravagant pamphlet about her was printed: The only pity is that the author had not previously applied to me for information, as by his own statement “’it was impossible to fathom the depths of her Florentine deceit’ - and he evidently knows nothing of the events he pretends to discuss. Besides, he left so much out!”
Whereas, while we're talking French Queens born in another country, Marie Antoinette would probably mind a lot, not least because the sheer number of outrageous stories (complete with pornographic details) making the rounds about her during her life time contributed to her death, in tne long term. But I think she'd also mind some of the later sympathetic depictions, no matter whether the author chooses Fersen as her One True Love, or one of her female friends like Gabrielle de' Polignac, because having your real or imagined private life complete with quotes from your most personal letters used to entertain the public at large is mortifying if you don't have an emotional skin of an elephant and/or are that type of extrovert. I mean, the woman had already to cope with seven years of marriage as a teenager where everyone and their valet knew she and her husband did not manage to have produce children and speculations as to why (was she frigid? Was he impotent?) were making the rounds not just in Versailles but in all of Europe, until her older brother finally gave her husband The Talk and marital sex plus procreation ensued. I think she probably hoped that at least once she was dead, all the rpf would cease.
Paradoxically, I think a great many historical personalities would mind the better researched fiction more than the more off base stuff precisely because of the letters and diaries factor. For us writers, intensely personal quotable lines in letters are a godsend. But imagine this kind of thing showing up in fiction about yourself! I dare say if the Duke of Wellington had known that the four Bronte children had written stories that started out as RPf starring him and his sons (until the characters developed far away from the originals, and they never had much to do with the real Wellesleys anyway, as Charlotte, Branwell, Emily and Anne had only Blackwood's Magazine and the like to inform them. But Charlotte Bronte herself would turn in her grave and/or set someone's house on fire at the thought that her desperate letters to Monsieur Heger, the Belgian teacher she fell in unrequited love with, would be amply quoted in biographies later, never mind showing up in fiction. (What Emily would think about being paired up with William Weightman in a movie, I have no idea, but I imagine a disdainful snort would be involved.)
Then again, I could be wrong about people not minding the more unlikely and less researched stuff; it all depends on the invidual personality and what they get out of the fiction, I guess. There's the famous story of Elizabeth I., after the Essex disaster which included Essex' people paying Shakespeare's company to restage Richard II, at this point already not a new play anymore, because it includes the deposition of a crowned monarch. Supposedly Elizabeth said "Don't you know I am Richard II?" to her godson later, bitterly referring to that particular detail. (Might not have been godson John Harrington she said it to, might have been someone else, I can't look it up right now, but that's how I remember it.) Leaving aside the historical accuracy of Shakespeare's depiction of Richard II, it's interesting that Elizabeth could see herself in it; whether she thought the entire character was intended as a portrait and agreed, or whether she thought other people (Essex included) saw her as Richard II is debateable.
But most of the VIPs at least (as opposed to people who were not famous within their lifetimes) would be absolutely unsurprised that there was RPF about them. Shakespeare wasn't the only writer depicting previous English history, and Elizabeth would have been aware she, in her turn, would be written about, and not just in a metaphorical way as Gloriana. Frederick the Great's younger brother Heinrich/Henry saw a play starring his brother (as a fictional character) on stage in Paris when he visited the city for the second time, which was only a few years after Frederick's death. Oh, and the 18th century had a craze for producing supposed "memoirs" of recently dead famous celebrities which were actually fiction by someone else - one of the most famous ones were "memoirs" supposedly by the Marquise de Maintenon (mistress and morganatic second wife of Louis XIV), and by Prince Eugene of Savoye (actually written by Charles de Ligne and so successful that the English wiki entry on Eugene still quotes from them as if they were genuine, or at least it did a year from now). Then there were actual memoirs mixing in a good deal of invention intentionally on the part of their authors; looking at you, Voltaire and Friedrich von der Trenck. So no, I don't think the majority of 18th century celebrities would have been surprised that RPF got written, both the more stately and the more outrageous versions. They'd have expected no less.
The other days
Whereas, while we're talking French Queens born in another country, Marie Antoinette would probably mind a lot, not least because the sheer number of outrageous stories (complete with pornographic details) making the rounds about her during her life time contributed to her death, in tne long term. But I think she'd also mind some of the later sympathetic depictions, no matter whether the author chooses Fersen as her One True Love, or one of her female friends like Gabrielle de' Polignac, because having your real or imagined private life complete with quotes from your most personal letters used to entertain the public at large is mortifying if you don't have an emotional skin of an elephant and/or are that type of extrovert. I mean, the woman had already to cope with seven years of marriage as a teenager where everyone and their valet knew she and her husband did not manage to have produce children and speculations as to why (was she frigid? Was he impotent?) were making the rounds not just in Versailles but in all of Europe, until her older brother finally gave her husband The Talk and marital sex plus procreation ensued. I think she probably hoped that at least once she was dead, all the rpf would cease.
Paradoxically, I think a great many historical personalities would mind the better researched fiction more than the more off base stuff precisely because of the letters and diaries factor. For us writers, intensely personal quotable lines in letters are a godsend. But imagine this kind of thing showing up in fiction about yourself! I dare say if the Duke of Wellington had known that the four Bronte children had written stories that started out as RPf starring him and his sons (until the characters developed far away from the originals, and they never had much to do with the real Wellesleys anyway, as Charlotte, Branwell, Emily and Anne had only Blackwood's Magazine and the like to inform them. But Charlotte Bronte herself would turn in her grave and/or set someone's house on fire at the thought that her desperate letters to Monsieur Heger, the Belgian teacher she fell in unrequited love with, would be amply quoted in biographies later, never mind showing up in fiction. (What Emily would think about being paired up with William Weightman in a movie, I have no idea, but I imagine a disdainful snort would be involved.)
Then again, I could be wrong about people not minding the more unlikely and less researched stuff; it all depends on the invidual personality and what they get out of the fiction, I guess. There's the famous story of Elizabeth I., after the Essex disaster which included Essex' people paying Shakespeare's company to restage Richard II, at this point already not a new play anymore, because it includes the deposition of a crowned monarch. Supposedly Elizabeth said "Don't you know I am Richard II?" to her godson later, bitterly referring to that particular detail. (Might not have been godson John Harrington she said it to, might have been someone else, I can't look it up right now, but that's how I remember it.) Leaving aside the historical accuracy of Shakespeare's depiction of Richard II, it's interesting that Elizabeth could see herself in it; whether she thought the entire character was intended as a portrait and agreed, or whether she thought other people (Essex included) saw her as Richard II is debateable.
But most of the VIPs at least (as opposed to people who were not famous within their lifetimes) would be absolutely unsurprised that there was RPF about them. Shakespeare wasn't the only writer depicting previous English history, and Elizabeth would have been aware she, in her turn, would be written about, and not just in a metaphorical way as Gloriana. Frederick the Great's younger brother Heinrich/Henry saw a play starring his brother (as a fictional character) on stage in Paris when he visited the city for the second time, which was only a few years after Frederick's death. Oh, and the 18th century had a craze for producing supposed "memoirs" of recently dead famous celebrities which were actually fiction by someone else - one of the most famous ones were "memoirs" supposedly by the Marquise de Maintenon (mistress and morganatic second wife of Louis XIV), and by Prince Eugene of Savoye (actually written by Charles de Ligne and so successful that the English wiki entry on Eugene still quotes from them as if they were genuine, or at least it did a year from now). Then there were actual memoirs mixing in a good deal of invention intentionally on the part of their authors; looking at you, Voltaire and Friedrich von der Trenck. So no, I don't think the majority of 18th century celebrities would have been surprised that RPF got written, both the more stately and the more outrageous versions. They'd have expected no less.
The other days