Narrative in the context of "Fictional universe"

History is the systematic study of the past, focusing primarily on the human past. As an academic discipline, it analyses and interprets evidence to construct narratives about what happened and explain why it happened. Some theorists categorize history as a social science, while others see it as part of the humanities or consider it a hybrid discipline. Similar debates surround the purpose of history—for example, whether its main aim is theoretical, to uncover the truth, or practical, to learn lessons from the past. In a more general sense, the term history refers not to an academic field but to the past itself, times in the past, or to individual texts about the past.

Historical research relies on primary and secondary sources to reconstruct past events and validate interpretations. Source criticism is used to evaluate these sources, assessing their authenticity, content, and reliability. Historians strive to integrate the perspectives of several sources to develop a coherent narrative. Different schools of thought, such as positivism, the Annales school, Marxism, and postmodernism, have distinct methodological approaches.

Myth is a genre of folklore consisting primarily of narratives that play a fundamental role in a society. For scholars, this is totally different from the ordinary sense of the term myth, meaning a belief that is not true, as the veracity of a piece of folklore is entirely irrelevant to determining whether it constitutes a myth.

Myths are often endorsed by religious and secular authorities, and may be natural or supernatural in character. Many societies group their myths, legends, and history together, considering myths and legends to be factual accounts of their remote past. In particular, creation myths take place in a primordial age when the world had not achieved its later form. Origin myths explain how a society's customs, institutions, and taboos were established and sanctified. National myths are narratives about a nation's past that symbolize the nation's values. There is a complex relationship between recital of myths and the enactment of rituals.

In poetry, an epic is a lengthy narrative poem typically about the extraordinary deeds of extraordinary characters who, in dealings with gods or other superhuman forces, gave shape to the mortal universe for their descendants. With regard to oral tradition, epic poems consist of formal speech and are usually learnt word for word, contrasted with narratives that consist of everyday speech, categorised into 'factual' or fiction, the former of which is less susceptible to variation.

Influential epics that have shaped Western literature and culture include Homer's Iliad and Odyssey; Virgil's Aeneid; and the anonymous Beowulf, Epic of Manas and Epic of Gilgamesh. The genre has inspired the adjective epic as well as derivative works in other mediums (such as epic films) that evoke or emulate the characteristics of epics.

Storytelling is the social and cultural activity of sharing stories, sometimes with improvisation, theatrics or embellishment. Every culture has its own narratives, which are shared as a means of entertainment, education, cultural preservation or instilling moral values (sometimes through morals). Crucial elements of stories and storytelling include plot, characters and narrative point of view. The term "storytelling" can refer specifically to oral storytelling but also broadly to techniques used in other media to unfold or disclose the narrative of a story.

Fiction is any creative work, chiefly any narrative work, portraying individuals, events, or places that are imaginary or in ways that are imaginary. Fictional portrayals are thus inconsistent with fact, history, or plausibility. In a traditional narrow sense, fiction refers to written narratives in prose – often specifically novels, novellas, and short stories. More broadly, however, fiction encompasses imaginary narratives expressed in any medium, including not just writings but also live theatrical performances, films, television programs, radio dramas, comics, role-playing games, and video games.

During the Second Punic War with Carthage, Rome's earliest known annalists Quintus Fabius Pictor and Lucius Cincius Alimentus recorded history in Greek, and relied on Greek historians such as Timaeus. Roman histories were not written in Classical Latin until the 2nd century BCE with the Origines by Cato the Elder. Contemporary Greek historians such as Polybius wrote about the rise of Rome during its conquest of Greece and ascension as the primary power of the Mediterranean in the 2nd century BCE. Moving away from the annalist tradition, Roman historians of the 1st century BCE such as Sallust, Livy, and even Julius Caesar wrote their works in a much fuller narrative form. While Caesar's De Bello Gallico focused specifically on his wars in Gaul, Roman works that served as a broad universal history often placed heavy emphasis on the origin myth of the founding of Rome as a starting point. These works formed the basis of the Roman historiographic models utilized by later Imperial authors of the Principate era, such as Tacitus and Suetonius.

A chronicle (Latin: chronica, from Greek χρονικά chroniká, from χρόνος, chrónos – "time") is a historical account of events arranged in chronological order, as in a timeline. Typically, equal weight is given for historically important events and local events, the purpose being the recording of events that occurred, seen from the perspective of the chronicler. A chronicle which traces world history is a universal chronicle. This is in contrast to a narrative or history, in which an author chooses events to interpret and analyze and excludes those the author does not consider important or relevant.

The information sources for chronicles vary. Some are written from the chronicler's direct knowledge, others from witnesses or participants in events, still others are accounts passed down from generation to generation by oral tradition. Some used written material, such as charters, letters, and earlier chronicles. Still others are tales of unknown origin that have mythical status. Copyists also changed chronicles in creative copying, making corrections or in updating or continuing a chronicle with information not available to the original chronicler. Determining the reliability of particular chronicles is important to historians.

In contemporary literary studies, a theme is a main topic, subject, or message within a narrative. Themes are ideas that are central to a story, which can often be summed in a single abstract noun (for example, love, death, betrayal, nostalgia, or parenthood) or noun phrase (for example, coming of age, humans in conflict with technology, seeking spirituality in the modern era, or the dangers of unchecked ambition). A theme may be exemplified by the actions, utterances, or thoughts of characters, as in the theme of loneliness in John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men, wherein many of the characters seem isolated and long for community with others. It may or may not differ from the thesis—the text's or author's implied worldview.

A story may have several themes and generally longer works, such as novels, plays, films, or television series, do. Themes often explore historically common or cross-culturally recognizable ideas, such as ethical questions, and are usually implied rather than stated explicitly. An example of this would be whether one should live a seemingly better life, at the price of giving up parts of one's humanity, which is a theme in Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. Along with plot, character, setting, and style, theme is considered one of the components of fiction. Themes can be divided into two categories: a work's thematic concept is what readers "think the work is about" and its thematic statement being "what the work says about the subject".

Folklore is the body of expressive culture shared by a particular group of people, culture or subculture. This includes oral traditions such as tales, legends, proverbs, poems, jokes, and other oral traditions. This also includes material culture, such as traditional building styles common to the group. Folklore also encompasses customary lore, taking actions for folk beliefs, including folk religion, and the forms and rituals of celebrations such as festivals, weddings, folk dances, and initiation rites.

Each one of these, either singly or in combination, is considered a folklore artifact or traditional cultural expression. Just as essential as the form, folklore also encompasses the transmission of these artifacts from one region to another or from one generation to the next. Folklore is not something one can typically gain from a formal school curriculum or study in the fine arts. Instead, these traditions are passed along informally from one individual to another, either through verbal instruction or demonstration.