The Historical Novel

Description

The historical novel is an enduringly popular genre that raises crucial questions about key literary concepts, fact and fiction, identity, history, reading, and writing. In this comprehensive, focused guide, Jerome de Groot offers an accessible introduction to the genre and critical debates that surround it, including: the development of the historical novel from early eighteenth-century works through to postmodern and contemporary historical fiction different genres, such as sensational or ‘low’ fiction, crime novels, literary works, counterfactual writing and related issues of audience, value, and authenticity the many functions of historical fiction, particularly the challenges it poses to accepted histories and postmodern questioning of ‘grand narratives’ the relationship of the historical novel to the wider cultural sphere with reference to historical theory, the internet, television, and film key theoretical concepts such as the authentic fallacy, postcolonialism, Marxism, queer and feminist reading. Drawing on a wide range of examples from across the centuries and around the globe The Historical Novel is essential reading for students exploring the interface of history and fiction. Cover THE HISTORICAL NOVEL Title Page Copyright Page Table of Contents SERIES EDITOR’S PREFACE ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 1 Introduction 2 Origins: early manifestations and some definitions Gothic novels and the fetishisation of European history Sir Walter Scott: the Waverley novels and their influence Theoretical paradigms: Georg Lukács and the birth of the historical novel Theoretical paradigms: Manzoni, the ‘naked historian’ Nineteenth-century histories European versions: Hugo, Pushkin, Flaubert and Tolstoy Modernism and the end-of-history novel ‘Not time or inclination to study the more serious historians’: Herbert Butterfield and theories of the historical novel during the twentieth century 3 Genre fiction Novels for women: romance and history Novels for men: authenticity, adventure and heroism Historical fiction for children 4 Literary fiction and history The historical novel as an international form Literary fiction and history War novels 5 Postmodernism and the historical novel: history as fiction, fiction as history Postmodernism and metafiction John Fowles: metanarrative and pastiche Umberto Eco, The Name of the Rose and detective fiction ‘The sound of ghosts laughing sadly’: magical realism and history ‘Tap-dancing on the edge of the abyss’: problematising postmodernism through history 6 Challenging history Conflicted national histories History from the margins Alternative histories and interventions GLOSSARY BIBLIOGRAPHY INDEX