The historical novel in nineteenth-century Europe : representations of reality in history and fiction / Brian Hamnett.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Hamnett, Brian R.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Historical fiction, European--History and criticism.

Historical fiction, European.

Europe--19th century--Fiction--History and criticism.

Europe.

Genre:

Fiction.

Physical Description:

ix, 332 pages ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press, 2011.

Summary:

Brian Hamnett examines key historical novels by Scott, Balzac Manzoni, Dickens, Eliot, Flaubert, Fontane, Galdós, and Tolstoy, revealing the contradictions inherent in this form of fiction and exploring the challenges writers encountered in attempting to represent a reality that linked past and present.

Contents:

The historical novel as genre and problem: an analytical and critical examination. An exploration of the categories: history, narrative, the novel and romance ; History and fiction: the trials of separation and reunion ; The German Sturm und Drang, historical drama, and early romantic fiction ; Scottish flowering: turbulence or Enlightenment? ; Romanticism and the historical novel ; The historians' response to the historical novel ; History and invention in the Italian question

Internal contradictions and unstable form : a comparative study of the historical novel's dilemma. Was the historical novel at mid-century in crisis? ; Is there a way out? Two experiments in myth and history ; Benito Pérez Galdós and the novel of Spanish national identity ; The struggle for identity and purpose in the Russian historical novel : From Pushkin to Tolstoy ; The German historical novel ; Modernism and beyond

Fictitious histories.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [308]-322) and index.

ISBN:

9780199695041

0199695040

OCLC:

713186722