History, Memory and Experience in A.S. Byatt's Neo-Victorian Fiction

Studies in Literature and Culture. Volume 16

Ewa Fiutka
ISBN: 978-83-8061-366-9
Stron: 240
Format: 220 x 205 mm
Rok wydania: 2017


TABLE OF CONTENTS

List of abbreviations

Introduction
1. Neo-Victorian Fiction
2. A.S. Byatt: A Critic and a Storyteller
3. Hayden White and Frank Ankersmit: Narrativism, Historical Representation and Historical Experience
4. The Change from Postmodern Historical Uncertainty Towards Other Forms of Mediating the Past (Poetry, Trauma, Experience)
5. The Composition of the Book

Chapter 1: The Narrative Logic of Possession and The Biographer's Tale
1. Narration in History and Fiction
2. History as a Narrative Substance
2.1. The Lack of Certainty about Past Events
2.2. Subjectivity, or the Myth of Objectivity
2.3. Lacunae

Chapter 2: Historical Representation I: Metaphors of a Historian in Byatt's Neo-Victorian Fiction
1. Historical Representation as a Metaphor
2. Metaphors of a Historian
2.1. The Historian as a Detective: White's Theory of Discovery
2.2. Ghostwriting: The Historian as a Ventriloquist and a Spiritualist

Chapter 3: Historical Representation II: Metaphors of History and the Past in Byatt's Neo-Victorian Fiction
1. The Concept of Time
1.1. The Concept of Cyclical History in Possession
1.2. The Ages of Man in The Children's Book
1.3. Intertextuality
2. History as a Spatial Concept
2.1. History as Theatre
2.1.1. The Greek Chorus as a Metaphor for the Victorian Narration Chapters in Possession
2.1.2. The Children's Book: Puppets in the Hands of History
2.2. History as a Container: Wunderkammer, Museum, Exhibition

Chapter 4: Communicative and Cultural Memory in Byatt's Neo-Victorian Fiction
1. Memory, Testimony and Commemoration
2. Cultural Memory
3. Communicative Memory
3.1. Photographs

Chapter 5: Historical Experience: A Truce between History and Literature
1. From Language to Experience
2. Byatt's Neo-Victorian Fiction as Alternative History
3. Historical Experience
4. Sublime Experience
5. Trauma

Conclusion

Works cited