[1] In Elias's usage, romance does not signify novels focused on marriage and love, but instead a style in which past events are "romanticized" and reinterpreted.
Metahistorical romance ties closely to the related philosophies of poststructuralism and postmodernism, which sought to push back against a confidence in human reasoning and knowledge.
In this way, metahistorical romances connect to Hayden White's concept of the "historical sublime," the theoretical past created by our minds and the world around us.
Both terms reference works that combine elements of the historical and the non-historical or fantastic, employing them specifically in the context of postmodern literary conventions.
Historiographic metafiction is a slightly larger term, encompassing novels that may not center around a historical event, such as Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five, or not employ the characteristic features of a "romance" as defined by Elias.