The Historical Novel

ISBN-13: 9780415426619 / Angielski / Twarda / 2009 / 208 str.

Jerome de Groot

Opis

The historical novel is not only an immensely popular genre, but also one that raises fascinating questions about the nature of key foundational concepts such as fact and fiction, history, reading and writing. This wide-ranging guide offers an accessible introduction to both the genre and the critical debates around it.

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 the 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.

Spis treści

Introduction  1. 'Origins': early manifestations and some definitions  2. 'Low' genre or sensational novels  3. High or Literary Fiction  4. Postmodernism and the Historical Novel  5. Challenging History  History from the margins: colonial, sexual  Glossary  Further Reading

O autorze

Jerome de Groot is Lecturer in Renaissance Literature and Culture at The University of Manchester. His publications include Consuming History (2008) and Royalist Identities (2004).