Modernism and Historical Fiction
Writing the Past
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Beschreibung
‘This study proposes a new, generous definition of modernist historical fiction which seeks not only to link realism and postmodern experimentation but also to use examples assembled widely from all four nations of the UK. This is an important work of revision, making us think again about historical fiction, and shining a light on many unfairly neglected novels.’
—Linda Anderson, Emeritus Professor, Newcastle University, OBE, (Hon) FRSL
Modernism and Historical Fiction: Writing the Past is the first comprehensive study of modernist historical fiction. Analysing texts from all four nations of the British Isles and arguing for a new spatially-aware theoretical approach, it outlines a concept of modernist historical fiction which bridges the gap between Walter Scott’s novels and late-twentieth-century postmodern historiographic metafiction.
Beginning with an exploration of Virginia Woolf’s engagement with Scott’s novels, it argues that this informed her own writing of historical fiction, including Orlando and Flush. It then uses five case studies examining representations of key historical periods (the classical world, the Middle Ages, the Renaissance and the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries) to analyse how other modernist writers used a variety of narrative and linguistic strategies to expose the plurality of the past.
The rich and diverse body of historical fictions examined includes work by Ford Madox Ford, H.D., Laura Riding, Mary Butts, Helen Waddell, John Cowper Powys, Sylvia Townsend Warner, Edith Sitwell, Naomi Mitchison, Lynette Roberts, Gwyn Thomas and Joseph Conrad. These fictions foreground the act of writing the past in order to revise, displace or supplement traditional narratives and offer new ways of thinking about the processes of historiography.
Diana Wallace is Professor of English Literature at the University of South Wales, UK, where her teaching and research focus on women’s writing, historical fiction, Modernism and the Gothic. Her publications include Christopher Meredith (2018), Female Gothic Histories: Gender, History and the Gothic (2013), The Woman’s Historical Novel: British Women Writers, 1900-2000 (2005) and Sisters and Rivals in British Women’s Fiction, 1914-39 (2000). She has edited Hilda Vaughan’s Here are Lovers (1926) and Harvest Home (1936) for Honno’s Welsh Women’s Classics series.
Modernism and Historical Fiction: Writing the Past is the first comprehensive study of modernist historical fiction. Analysing texts from all four nations of the British Isles and arguing for a new spatially-aware theoretical approach, it outlines a concept of modernist historical fiction which bridges the gap between Walter Scott’s novels and late-twentieth-century postmodern historiographic metafiction.
Beginning with an exploration of Virginia Woolf’s engagement with Scott’s novels, it argues that this informed her own writing of historical fiction, including Orlando and Flush. It then uses five case studies examining representations of key historical periods (the classical world, the Middle Ages, the Renaissance and the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries) to analyse how other modernist writers used a variety of narrative and linguistic strategies to expose the plurality of the past.
The rich and diverse body of historical fictions examined includes work by Ford Madox Ford, H.D., Laura Riding, Mary Butts, Helen Waddell, John Cowper Powys, Sylvia Townsend Warner, Edith Sitwell, Naomi Mitchison, Lynette Roberts, Gwyn Thomas and Joseph Conrad. These fictions foreground the act of writing the past in order to revise, displace or supplement traditional narratives and offer new ways of thinking about the processes of historiography.
First comprehensive study of modernist historical fiction which explores a rich and diverse body of neglected texts Argues for a new trialectical and spatially-aware theoretical approach to historical fiction Shows how writers, especially women, have used modernist experimentation to develop innovative new models of history
Autor*in
Diana Wallace
Themen in »Modernism and Historical Fiction«
Modernism Twentieth century Short stories Historic past Experimental literature Historiography Women writers Virginia Woolf Postmodernism Literary genre Four nations approach