okay, without looking it up...

[clauclauclaudia]

Does this usage of eponymous seem okay to you or not? Why?

[blah blah Chekhov on film] "Based on his eponymous 1891 novella, THE DUEL gives life to a classic Chekhovian tale...."

All right. Look it up if you want to, but let me know if you do.

I'm screening comments for a bit to get independent answers, but I'll unscreen them soonish. [Edit: slow unscreening now complete.]

Comments

off the top of my head

[rmd.livejournal.com]

if and only if "THE DUEL" refers to an actual duel, not the title of a book. so, for instance, "according to the eponymous novella, THE DUEL was called off on account of rain," maybe. but "according to the eponymous novella, THE DUEL is a rousing tale of adventure and duelling" is right out.

Re: off the top of my head

[clauclauclaudia]

Not quite. Your example sentence is equally bad to my ears. An eponym is always a person (or, well, entity, in the case of band names).