IHR Digital

Nothing Like It Has Ever Existed

noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Blaney) — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 09:00:00 +0000

Yesterday I went to a lecture by Robert Darnton, on 'The Digital Public Library of America: Current Plans and Future Prospects'. Darnton is University Librarian at Harvard and is centrally involved in the Digital Public Library of America, which is due to launch in April next year.

The library will aggregate content from libraries and museums from across the United States, and make it freely available on a one-click basis. Darnton had much to say about the library's proposed scope, costs, and copyright issues, and those interested in the detail should keep an eye on the JISC website, where a film of the talk and subsequent discussion should shortly appear.

I was particularly interested in some of the more general issues raised. Although information is increasingly available on the web, Darnton said, an increasingly small proportion of it is freely available; he was critical of Google Books for adopting a commercial model in response to lawsuits by authors' representatives (Darnton thought they should have made a robust case for 'fair use' and tried to set a legal precedent); he was also critical of some journal publishers for making excessive profits through monopolistic practices. In a potent phrase, this was described as the enclosure of cyberspace.

By contrast, The Digital Public Library of America will be free to all. This goes beyond national boundaries. Darnton mentioned that Harvard's Ukrainian collection is the best in the world, including the Ukraine; the Digital Public Library of America could make it available everywhere, including the Ukraine. Darnton's own research interests include the 'Republic of Letters', Diderot and the great French Encyclopédie project. The library that Darnton is working towards is surely an Enlightenment project itself. Darnton began his talk by quoting Thomas Jefferson, pictured above, on the transmission of knowledge, and concluded by saying that this project - "nothing like it has ever existed" - is one that Jefferson would surely approve.

Digital History seminar - spring term 2012

noreply@blogger.com (Peter Webster) — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 13:28:00 +0000

We're delighted to be able to publicise our programme for this term, full details of which are available on the main IHR site.

First up is Professor Magnus Huber (Universitaet Giessen), who will speak on what can be learned from the Old Bailey Online corpus for scholars of spoken English.

A new venture for us this term will be the paper from Professor Dan Cohen, who will speak live from his desk at George Mason University in Fairfax. Virginia, to a live audience in London and to the audience watching online. We'll shortly be having a 'dry run' at this, to check that all the technical details are in order.

The third session will be a roundtable discussion, featuring Alistair Dunning from the JISC, Professor Andrew Prescott, newly installed as Head of the department of Digital Humanities at King's College London), and Dr Melissa Terras, Deputy Director of the newly founded UCL Centre for Digital Humanities.

Social democracy - a Scandinavian mystery?

noreply@blogger.com (Danny Millum) — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 12:45:00 +0000

Perceptions of Scandinavia at the moment are governed by its seemingly endless production line of quality crime fiction and drama - the likes of Wallander, The Killing and the ubiquitious Girl With the Dragon Tattoo franchise, not to mention the terrifying work of Tove Jansson...

Previously these countries, particularly Norway and Sweden, were probably best known for their espousal of social democracy, a political approach which during the Cold War came to be seen as a middle way between capitalism and communism, and which is explored in Professor Francis Sejersted's The Age of Social Democracy. Norway and Sweden in the Twentieth Century (reviewed in detail here).

On the surface, these may appear to be contrasting phenomena, but in fact leftist politics and Scandi-crime have long been interrelated. The Martin Beck novels of the 1960s and 1970s were written by Marxist husband-and-wife team Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo, social issues in the Swedish welfare state feature in many Wallander tales, and Stieg Larsson himself was a noted left-winger.

The Moomins, of course, were nihilists...

Global War Studies – latest issue

noreply@blogger.com (Simon Baker) — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 08:11:00 +0000

The latest issue of the journal is out now and may be of interest to imperial historians as the articles focus on the fall of Malaya and Burma. The first, by Andrew B. Buchanan, The War Crisis and the Decolonization of India, December 1941 –September 1942: A Political and Military Dilemma, investigates the political repercussions of the defeat including the changing relationship between London and India, and the stance of the Indian National Congress. In the second, Brian P. Farrell explores the lost opportunity of guerrilla warfare on the overstretched Japanese supply line in, High Command, Irregular Forces, and Defending Malaya, 1941-1942.

The journal is now also available online via Ingenta.

Lieutenant-General Percival and his party carry the Union flag on their way to surrender Singapore to the Japanese (Imperial War Museum)

Was Titus Oates Ugly?

noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Blaney) — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 14:07:00 +0000

I'm struck by the fact that in Volume 8 of English Historical Documents, both the documents which deal with Titus Oates concentrate on his physical appearance. Roger North's Examen (document 397) describes him like this:

He was a low man, of an ill-cut, very short neck, and his visage and features were most particular. His mouth was the centre of his face, and a compass there would sweep his nose, forehead and chin within the perimeter. Cave quos ipse Deus notavit. In a word, he was a most consummate cheat, blasphemer, vicious, perjured, impudent and saucy, foul-mouthed wretch...

It is taken for granted here that physical ugliness is connected to moral ugliness, and the two ideas are linked by a Latin tag - 'watch out for those God has marked out' - which suggests that the former is divine judgement for the latter.

Oates (1649-1705) was the principal informant for the 'Popish Plot'. The so-called plot was a fabrication which engendered anti-Catholic hysteria and led to the executions of a number of people (including Richard Langhorne, who I mentioned when blogging about banking failures): Oates's false evidence helped condemn them.

The second document on Oates, number 398, is an excerpt from Absalom and Achitophel. John Dryden was a Catholic convert and in the poem, a witty commentary on the Duke of Monmouth's rebellion, Oates appears as Corah, and again his appearance is the focus:

Sunk were his eyes, his voice was harsh and loud
Sure signs he neither choleric was, nor proud
His long chin proved his wit, his saintlike grace
A church vermilion and a Moses face.

In their edition of Dryden's poems, Paul Hammond and David Hopkins quote several more unflattering descriptions of Oates, including this one by the Jesuit John Warner:

his face was flat, compressed in the middle so as to look like a dish or a discus; on each side were prominent ruddy cheeks; his nose was snub, his mouth in the very centre of his face, for his chin was almost equal in size to the rest of his face...The rest of his figure was equally grotesque; more like a beast's than human, it filled people with contempt.

This is beginning to look familiar, particularly the implausible claim that Oates's mouth was the geometrical centre of his face. I don't know if any of these writers ever saw Oates, but images of him circulated (see here for some examples) and it is a well-attested phenomenon that memories can be rewritten by subsequent information.

Allied to this, it was a commonplace of the time that the ugly are likely to be morally bad, as in Bacon's essay 'Of Deformity':

Deformed persons are commonly even with nature: For as Nature hath done ill by them; So doe they by Nature: Being for the most part, (as the Scripture saith) void of Naturall Affection

The only picture I have seen that looks like it was done from life doesn't quite agree with the canonical idea of ugliness. True, Oates is no Clooney, and, true, it might be flattering the sitter, but it's a different view of Oates:

Unfortunately for fans of Oates, he does seem to have been genuinely morally ugly: Alan Marshall's DNB article on him concludes:

For a time Oates succeeded beyond his dreams and was genuinely honoured as the saviour of the nation, but the sordid reality of his life in which there were no great secrets to uncover, only back alley meetings, stealing, begging, and poverty, vice, fear, and hatred, and above all failure, soon caught up with him.

Christmas in Connected Histories

noreply@blogger.com (Jane Winters) — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 14:06:00 +0000

Unsurprisingly, the term 'Christmas' appears frequently in the resources indexed by Connected Histories - 58,644 times to be precise. The search results include a significant numbers of people with the surname Christmas, from the Leicestershire vicar Henricus Christmas to the wonderfully named Priscilla Swift Christmas, who was unable to say precisely much money had been stolen from her in 1847. The vast majority of entries, however, are of course references to the festival itself. There are, for example, some lovely images in both the British Museum Image Database and the John Johnson Collection of Printed Ephemera. Among those in the BM collection is a boisterous 19th-century Father Christmas presiding over a plum pudding which doesn't seem unduly worried about its imminent demise. Quite what the sinister 'bogie' figure is doing towards the back of the image is another story. The illustrator Hablot Knight Browne is better known as 'Phiz', whose drawings accompanied so many of Dickens's works. In contrast, this Madonna and Child with Gallows, a woodcut by Eric Gill (1916), is starkly beautiful, undercutting the joy of the birth with a hint of what's to come. There are many other Gill illustrations in the collection, most designed for the book 'Adeste Fideles, a Christmas Hymn'. Much more 'traditional' is this 1874 design for a Christmas card by Walter Crane, with its bright colours, children and holly.

The Proceedings of the Old Bailey include a number of Christmas-related thefts, for example Charles Henry Thwaites was sentenced to eighteen months' hard labour after pleading guilty to 'stealing, whilst employed under the Post Office, a post letter containing a hat-pin, the property of the Postmaster-General. Also, a post letter containing a silk handkerchief and a Christmas card. Also to stealing a letter containing a pocket Bible, the property of the Postmaster-General'. Similarly, one John Shepherd was stopped by a watchman at 1.45 am on Christmas morning, with '7 lbs. weight of lead pipe, value 1s.; 1 brass cock, value 10d., and 1 screw-plate, with taps, value 6s.' under his coat. Pleading poverty, he was recommended to mercy and imprisoned for only six weeks. Some things didn't stop even for Christmas!

Christmas violence

noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Blaney) — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 10:17:00 +0000

The Christmas story is a violent one, at least according to the account in Matthew's gospel:

When Herod realized that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was furious, and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi.
Matthew II.16, New International Version

In time for the Christmas season the IHR Digital office has received a book for review by Robert Muchembled, called A History of Violence. My colleague, Danny Millum, has managed to get this book reviewed alongside Steven Pinker's The Better Angels of Our Nature for Reviews in History, and the conjunction should provide a fascinating article to read next year. The thesis of Muchembled's book seems to be similar to Pinker's: that there has been a marked decline in violence since the twelfth century. In fairness to Muchembled, I should mention that his book was originally published in 2008 as Une histoire de la violence.

Since violence has been something of a theme of my blog posts on English Historical Documents, I thought it would be appropriately festive to mention an incident that occurred in Acton Scott, in Shropshire, on Christmas Day 1287, between John de Quercubus and Hugh de Weston:

after sunset there were some men singing outside a tavern kept by Richard son of William de Skottesacton in that town. And Hugh came by the door immensely drunk and quarrelled with the singers. Now John was standing by, singing, and Hugh hated him a little because he sang well...so Hugh took a naked sword in his hand and ran at John, striking him once, twice, thrice, on the head, and nearly cutting off two fingers of his left hand. And John...ran into a corner near the street under a stone wall. And Hugh ran after him and tried to kill him, so he drew his knife and wounded Hugh in the chest, killing him instantly.
English Historical Documents, Volume 3, document 198.

Merry Christmas one and all!

What's in a name?

noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Blaney) — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 10:53:00 +0000

Christian attitudes to hell seem to have changed somewhat in the last century or two. Tertullian and Aquinas both thought that one of the delights of heaven would be a ringside seat to watch the torments of the damned. By contrast, in the salons of Proust's Paris the Abbé Mugnier was asked if he believed in hell. "I do, because it is a doctrine of the Church", he is said to have replied, "but I don't believe there is anyone in it."

A letter from Innocent III to an English monk in 1206 shows us something about the real fear of hell. The letter is included in English Historical Documents, volume 3, document 164. The issue was that the monk, who was originally called Henry, loyally changed his name to Augustine when he joined the Augustinian order. Then he had been worried enough to write to the Pope about the name change:

you fear that after death you may derive no benefit from the prayers which your loving brethren will make for you under the second of the two names.

Innocent assures Augustine that it will be all right: "you can with confidence keep the name given you at the time of your profession", and then gently points out that he, too, had changed his name (he was previously known as Lotario di Segni) and he wasn't too worried about prayers for him being incorrectly filed in heaven.

Dante's Commedia, the hitchhiker's guide to the afterlife, contains a fair number of popes, and a fair number of them are in hell. Innocent was perhaps right to be sanguine about his own chances because he doesn't appear at all, except as a passing mention in the story of St Francis of Assisi (Paradiso XI). Innocent III was the pope who, grudgingly, allowed Francis to set up his own ascetic monastic order. In Paradiso the humble friar treats Innocent royally - regalmente - making abundantly clear Dante's view of the real hierarchy.

Novel Approaches (15): Histories of Historical Fiction

noreply@blogger.com (Matt Phillpott) — Fri, 25 Nov 2011 15:00:00 +0000

In my first post on the topic of a history of historical fiction I asked where should such a history begin? I thought perhaps a definition of the term historical fiction? While useful such definitions could only get me so far. Then I thought that such a study should begin at the beginning with the first historical novel written. However, it soon proved that the first was not necessarily the first at all. What about the varying genres in which historical fiction can be formed? Everything from gothic horror to romance could be accepted as historical fiction but that route would have taken me in many directions, few of which were helpful in writing a ‘concise’ account.

It has proved that the beginning point for historical fiction is actually a study in the origins of academic history. At every step in the story of historical fiction I have found that relationship at its heart. In seventeenth century France the Particular and Secret history prevalent in historiographical discussions gave form to Madame de Lafayette’s Princess of Montpensier and Princess of Cleves amongst others. Sir Walter Scott’s Waverley derived out of growing discussions and belief in nationalism prevalent in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and the growing recognition of causality and the past as a ‘foreign country’. In the twentieth century the rising importance of gender equality and female independence gave rose to the division of historical fiction between the genders. The success of Mills & Boons historical romances have, for example, and as Jerome de Groot has stressed, yet to receive the attention that they deserve as a form of popular female entertainment. Gender and domestic history as an important part of the historian’s discipline have given way to a new form of historical fiction, one not only focused on national and international events but on the individual and their ordinary life. The complications of postmodernism and structuralism have blurred somewhat the distinction between academic and fictional histories and has posed the question (explored in both forms of writing) of whether one is very different from the other.

Historical fiction and its relationship to academic history has been the focus of the Novel Approaches conference and it is now clear to me how connected through time these two actually are. Both forms of writing about the past have relied upon and continue to rely upon each other even if at times they look at each other with suspicion.

A complete transcript of these blog posts have also been posted on the Novel Approaches virtual conference.

Novel Approaches (14): Postmodernism and historical fiction part two

noreply@blogger.com (Matt Phillpott) — Thu, 24 Nov 2011 15:00:00 +0000

Simon Schama's
Dead Certainties (1991)

It would seem that the ideas of postmodernism fit the historical fiction model well and has helped to reinvigorate it as a genre and as a place where some historians feel comfortable (to an extent) exploring. In a rather interesting experiment at combining the two, the well-known historian Simon Schama wrote in 1991 Dead Certainties. This work explored two widely reported deaths with a 100 year gap between them. The first was that of General James Wolfe (a military officer involved in the battles of over the Scottish highlands and the Seven Year War) and the second was George Packman (a Boston man of high class). In this work Schama assessed the complex relationship between history and fiction noting that the historian can never entirely reconstruct a dead world in its completeness. The narrative of Dead Certainties muddles the factual evidence were numerous pieces of conjecture and fictionalisation which lead some reviewers to see it as ‘subversive of the integrity of history as a discipline’. Writing a year later (May 1992) Cushing Strout noted that the result was ‘problematic for both literary and historical reasons’ (Strout, p. 157).

Elsewhere in the world postmodernism has helped to breathe fresh light on historiographical and novelistic practices. In the case of South Africa, Michael Green has argued that a similar correlation between nationalism and the rise of historical fiction occurred there in the early twentieth century as it did in Britain in the nineteenth. Early black South African novelists related their works to moments of nationalism in South Africa: Sol Plaaje’s Mhudi (1930); Thomas Mofolo’s Chaka (1910); and Peter Abraham’s Wild Conquest (1950) focus on interpretations of national fever and understanding of what that means. Green takes a postmodernist viewpoint of South African historiography and fictional writing. He sees a problem in the predominantly social history writing for South Africa and argues for a fix through viewing the past as historicization: ‘Fiction, no less than the writing of history, or, for that matter, the constructing of nations, becomes a historicizing form when it so operates upon its material – no longer bound to a particular temporal location, but open to the past, present, and future’ (Green, p. 130).

Bibliography

Michael Green, ‘Social History, Literary History, and Historical Fiction in South Africa’, Journal of African Cultural Studies, 12:2 (1999), pp. 121-136.

Cushing Strout, ‘Border Crossings: History, Fiction, and Dead Certainties’, History and Theory, 31:2 (1992), pp. 153-162.

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Novel Approaches (13): Postmodernism and historical fiction part one

noreply@blogger.com (Matt Phillpott) — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 15:00:00 +0000

POST 13: Novel Approaches: Postmodernism and historical fiction part 1

‘At the core of culture is a continuous dialogue between myth and history, “plain invention” and the “core of historical fact”’ (Slotkin, 229).

This quote from Richard Slotkin’s 2005 article ‘Fiction for the purpose of History’ explores the borderlines between academic history and historical fiction to show that if properly understood, historical fiction can be equally as ‘true’ as its academic counterpart. Slotkin argues that the act of historical fiction can provide the landscape to explore alternative theoretical approaches to a period or historical person. From that basis Slotkin suggests that myth-making, for that is what historical fiction is at heart, is the process by which societies maintain their cultural cohesion through time:

‘History is what it is, but it is also what we make of it. What we call “history” is not a thing, an object of study, but a story we choose to tell about things. Events undoubtedly occur: the Declaration of Independence was signed on 4 July 1776, yesterday it rained, Napoleon was short, I had a nice lunch. But to be construed as “history” such facts must be selected and arranged on some sort of plan, made to resolve some sort of question which can only be asked subjectively and from a position of hindsight. Thus all history writing requires a fictive or imaginary representation of the past. There is no reason why, in principle, a novel may not have a research basis as good or better than that of a scholarly history; and no reason why, in principle, a novelist’s portrayal of a past may not be truer and more accurate than that produced by a scholarly historian.’ (Slotkin, p. 222).

The development of postmodernism, structuralism and their related theories in philosophy subjects from the 1960s and 1970s has politicised even further the debate and rivalry between academic history and historical fiction. Jerome de Groot has argued that this view of history sees the discipline as simply the ‘interpretation of a tissue of quotations and texts’ (de Groot, p. 112). Hayden White meanwhile has suggested that if all historians ‘play with rhetoric and metaphor in constructing their narratives, then all historical fiction is predicated upon fictionalised ‘versions’ of the past. The ideas of postmodernism have had an influence on both forms of looking at the past and, as Slotkin demonstrates, can be a useful scholarly tool to produce both types of history.

Slotkin goes on to state that his own historical research begins with the finding of a story within the evidence that embodies what he is trying to find out but cannot be used by the historian for lack of evidence or certainty. Slotkin then writes that novel – bringing in other historical/physiological knowledge on how people dressed, how they spoke, what their surroundings were like, what were their daily habits – before embarking on the academic history. The novel helps Slotkin to imagine his subject in a different way – it is a mental exercise – the academic history then removes those fictional expressions whilst also taking account of the sense of his subject matter.

Bibliography

Richard Slotkin, ‘Fiction for the purposes of History’, Rethinking History, 9:2 (2005), pp. 221-236.

Jerome de Groot, The Historical Novel (Routledge: Oxon, 2010).

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Novel Approaches (12): The gendering of historical fiction part two

noreply@blogger.com (Matt Phillpott) — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 15:00:00 +0000

The Musketeers

Male historical fiction takes a very different form than that intended for a female audience: adventure, warfare, murder mysteries. For the most part this form of historical fiction repeatedly tests the protagonist (usually male) before he is awarded with some form of marital or political success. Unlike women’s historical fiction which desires to bring out of the darkness strong female characters from history, male fiction has no such need – generally re-enforcing and articulating male self-expression, masculinity, and power structures. A good example is Alexandre Dumas’ Musketeer novels and Bernard Cornwell’s Sharpe series. The key to these novels is companionship and team adventure as virtuous soldiers faced with highly politicised and dangerous situations work together to save themselves and those otherwise unable to protect themselves.

The Shardlake series by C.J. Sansom offers a good example of murder mystery again during the reign of Henry VIII. Matthew Shardlake, a hunchback lawyer who continually ends up involved in the high politics of his day much against his own desires, provides an intelligent but handicapped hero that allows Sansom to explore an alternative element of male masculinity. Although Shardlake does get involved in scrapes he is, for the most part, reliant on his servant to act as the self-expression of masculinity found in other novels. In this way Sansom has created a character much like Sherlock Holmes who thinks his way through situations and thus by doing so examines male intelligence over brute force as a way of understanding the multiplicity of malehood.

What seems interesting about the division between male and female historical fiction is how it is transferred to television screens. For the most part, female fiction remains largely for a female only audience, whilst male fiction often crosses between the sexes. The Musketeers and Sharpe are enjoyed by a mixed audience whilst Pride and Prejudice and adaptations about Anne Boleyn are by a much greater degree read and watched only by women.

Bibliogaphy

Jerome de Groot, The Historical Novel (Routledge: Oxon, 2010).

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Everything you always wanted to know about web technologies but were afraid to ask – the ultimate timeline.

noreply@blogger.com (Simon Baker) — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 11:38:00 +0000

The Evolution of the web is an amazing graphic timeline that should answer all questions about the web techologies. The colour bands visualise the interaction between web technologies and browsers showing the powerful web apps available. By clicking on the tabs you are shown a brief definition of the technology and a 'read more' link to the Wikipedia entries or web developer sites. Clicking on each stage of the timeline shows you what the technology looked like at the time, and you can move backwards and forwards through the timeline charting the changes and release dates for all browsers. This is a brilliantly simple guide to web technology.

Novel Approaches (11): The gendering of historical fiction part one

noreply@blogger.com (Matt Phillpott) — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 15:00:00 +0000

Example of Mills & Boons
Historical fiction

In the twentieth century the historical novel tended to split its readership between male and female readers. The gendering of historical fiction came before the rise of gender history and although there is a risk here of stereotyping reader’s, in general early modern high society belong to women whilst adventure and warfare belong to men; with murder mysteries somewhere in-between.

Woman’s historical fiction ranges from the light romantic fiction of Mills & Boon promising ‘chivalrous knights, roguish rakes and rugged cattlemen’ to serious studies of the female role in past societies. Catherine Cookson for example writes novels that are ‘idealistic about relationships but clear-sighted about history’. Cookson’s 1950 Kate Hannigan focuses on a cross-class romance between a girl in the slums and a doctor set in the Edwardian period.

In his 2010 The Historical Novel, Jerome de Groot explains that historical fiction written by women for women offer ‘places of feminine solidarity’ and provide a relationship for women with the past that is often limited in schools to Whiggish ‘male’ history. The example of Anne Boleyn, Henry VIII’s second wife illustrates this form of historical fiction: ‘it has sex, adultery, pregnancy, scandal, divorce, royaltry, glitterati, religious quarrels, and larger than-life personalities’ (de Groot, p. 70). There have been various takes on Boleyn over the years including Jean Plaidy’s Murder Most Royal (1949); Margaret Campbell Barne’s Brief Gaudy Hour (1949); Evelyn Anthony’s Anne Boleyn (1957); Jane Lane’s Sow the Tempest (1960); Norah Loft’s The Concubine (1963); and most recently Philippa Gregory’s The Other Boleyn Girl (2001) – there are many more!

The Other Boleyn Girl film adaptation (2008)

In a way Anne Boleyn is an odd topic for historical romance as it ends, inevitably, with Boleyn’s execution. However, the interest in her character – at once represented as beautiful, fearless and intelligent whilst at the same time ambitious, vengeful and ‘a sexual predator’ – is not only in the romance, but in the bringing into light a strong female character from a time when women were largely hidden in the historical records. Anne Boleyn allows us then to explore female agency where history rarely gives us a similar opportunity.

Jerome de Groot’s analysis also picks up on a rather ahistorical approach to historical fiction written by women for women. This form of historical fiction is not really based upon academic history but on the semi-fantasy world of Jane Austen. Continuations of Pride and Prejudice fit more into that fictional world than any historical analysis; for example Linda Berdoll’s Mr. Darcy Takes a Wife: Pride and Prejudice Continues (2004) which looks at the married life of Darcy and Elizabeth.

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Novel Approaches (10): Historical Fiction in the Twentieth Century

noreply@blogger.com (Matt Phillpott) — Sun, 20 Nov 2011 15:00:00 +0000

Sally Potter’s film adaptation of ‘Orlando’ staring

Tilda Swinton, Quentin Crip, and Jimmy Somerville (2010).

In The Historical Novel (2010) Jerome De Groot argues that during the twentieth century the historical novel has become more prevalent but also increasingly marginal. Not until after the Second World War and the rise of postmodernism did historical novels take on more interest by writers and theorists. The First World War seems to have given pause to authors and acted as a fragmentary influence as best described by Virginia Woolf. In 1925 Woolf argued that the genre needed ‘shacking up’. It lacked innovation and focused on the trivial and insubstantial when it should focus on the complexity of human experience, feeling, and knowledge. In short (as de Groot summarises):

‘Woolf argues for an interest in interiority, rather than the “alien and external”, a return to the individuation of experience. She criticises convention and urges novelists to remember that “everything is the proper stuff of fiction, every feeling, every thought; every quality of brain and spirit is drawn upon; no perception comes amiss”. This desire to adumbrate the detailed complications of life, allied to a clear interest in representing the psychological and in breaking formal conventions, forms the outline of what is often defined as literary modernism.’ (de Groot, p. 42).

Woolf’s Orlando (1928) does just this by fracturing historicity and doing all it can to upset the rationalism and realism of historical fiction: ‘the dullness of convention’. The novel follows a man who does not die from the Tudor period through to the twentieth century. Orlando even changes gender at one point threatening the integrity of identity and order. Why is Woolf doing this? Well, she wanted to show that historical fiction need not always attempt true depictions of historical events but instead to find a greater truth about what it means to be human. H. G. Wells Time Machine (1895) had done something similar by undermining history: rather than time being inescapable the protagonist finds that it is actually traversable.

The Novel Approaches Virtual Conference will start tomorrow at 10am!

Novel Approaches (9): The Nineteenth Century Historical Novel - Nationalism and Desire

noreply@blogger.com (Matt Phillpott) — Sat, 19 Nov 2011 15:00:00 +0000

The Wild Irish Girl
Oxford World's Classics series

I began my previous post with a quote summarising Georg Lukács claim to the distinctiveness of nineteenth century historical fiction and to how he argued for the role of academic and popular history in its creation: ‘It represents historical process, and in doing so gestures towards actual historical progress’. Last time I looked at the educative qualities stressed by nineteenth century writers and highlighted by Lukács and others. This time I will focus on its relationship to academic history.

If seventeenth century historical fiction related to French historiographical interest in Particular and Secret history then nineteenth century historical fiction related to the rise of nationalism, the professionalization of History, and the growing sense of historical change and otherness to the past.

One element in this re-invigorated genre during the following one hundred years was, then its predisposition to look at nationhood through the eyes of an outsider. In 1997 Ian Dennis set out a thesis looking at the role of nationalism in nineteenth-century historical fiction. Dennis wanted to look at how novelists ‘were shaped by, or resisted, the power of nationalism’ (Dennis, p. 1).

Of course Waverley is a prime example. Walter Scott focused on an Englishman as ‘the other’ finding himself embroiled in the Jacobite rebellion and in Highland and Lowland Scottish culture. As narrator Scott himself made several off-the-cuff notes as to not only the difference of time (i.e. that the culture he described was sixty years past) but also to the character of Scottish society as another world.

Dennis argues that nineteenth-century novelists employed a specific narrative pattern in regards to how they approached a sense of national identity. In the case of Ireland, Scotland or the United States that identity was often viewed through the lens of a foreigner, often English and often male. As a traveller to a foreign place the Englishman acted as the readers guide to a strange other place both in terms of location and time. In general the author who wrote about this Englishman was themselves from the country that the Englishman visited. Thus, a sense of nationhood was performed via the medium of an outsider, particularly that of ‘the overpowering national example of England’.

Dennis recounts various other novels as evidence of the other being used as a way to understand and examine a nation at any given time. Irish novelist Sydney Owenson’s The Wild Irish Girl (1806) for example, begins with a descriptive image of the Irish from an English viewpoint:

“I remember, when I was a boy, meeting somewhere with the quaintly written travels of Moryson through Ireland, and being particularly struck with his assertion, that so late as the days of Elizabeth, an Irish chieftain and his family were frequently seen seated round their domestic fire in a state of perfect nudity. This singular anecdote (so illustrative of the barbarity of the Irish at a period when civilization had made such a wonderful progress even in its sister countries), fastened so strongly on my boyish imagination, that whenever the Irish were mentioned in my presence, an Esquimaux group circling round the fire which was to dress a dinner, or broil an enemy, was the image which presented itself to my mind; and in this trivial source, I believe, originated that early formed opinion of Irish ferocity, which has since been nurtured into a confirmed prejudice.” (Owenson, vol. 1, Letter 1).

The description is an attempt by Owenson to depict the English prejudice and perception that the Irish are a barbarous people. But it is also intended, through the narrative of the novel itself, as a mask that is shown to be false. The novel then is to be seen as educative in that it reveals to the reader their own prejudices and shows them a glimpse of the truth about Elizabethan and indeed contemporary Ireland.

The interest in examining nationalism through historical fiction was equally as present in academic history and indeed in mainstream politics, society and culture. At the same time academic history was increasingly being codified, organised and moulded into a scientifically based discipline. No longer was History to be the preserve of amateur enthusiasts and antiquarians.

Bibliography

Ian Dennis, Nationalism and Desire in Early Historical Fiction (MacMillan Press: London, 1997).

Sydney Owenson, The Wild Irish Girl Online Edition

The Novel Approaches Virtual Conference will begin at 10am this Monday!

A Novel Approaches prelude (8): The Nineteenth Century Historical Novel - An educative genre

noreply@blogger.com (Matt Phillpott) — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 15:00:00 +0000

Charles Dickens' Barnaby Rudge by
Frederick Barnard

In the eighteenth century historical fiction was a familiar genre predominantly in France but soon to move over to England as well in the form of translations. It was, however, often considered a slightly disreputable form of reading. As I have discussed in previous posts, it was Sir Walter Scott’s Waverley novels that helped transform the beleaguered genre into something more respectable and interesting. Scott may not have been the first by any means to write historical fiction, but he was nonetheless the one who gave it credence and popularity.

Jerome de Groot and other literary theorists view the nineteenth century as bringing with it a second wave of historical fiction that held a distinctive voice. What was that voice? And what made it distinctive from what had come before?

Summarising Georg Lukács who, in 1955 wrote his detailed appraisal of historical fiction, de Groot brings us closer to understanding the specifics of the second wave of historical fiction:

“It represents historical process, and in doing so gestures towards actual historical progress. The realism of the novel allows the reader to engage with and empathise with historical individuals and thence gain a sense of their own historical specificity. It is able to communicate to people a sense of their own historicity, and the ways that they might be able to construct historically inflected identities for themselves. The historical novel has a humanist impulse to teach and educate, and this pedagogical element is crucial for Lukács; it is the movement to historicised revelation and understanding which is the point of the exercise.” (de Groot, p. 29).

So historical fiction was to, in part, educate; to help readers better understand past events, societies and customs. This element of nineteenth century historical fiction is perhaps best known today through the works of Charles Dickens. The detailed, often horrific and darkly violent stories that make up the Dickens collection is testament to his work to reveal and make known the social abuses and prejudices of his own times and, at the same time, act as a warning of how governments should not act.

In his first historical novel, Barnaby Rudge (1841), Dickens intertwines the private (generally fictive elements of his story) with the public (historical fact) to tell a story about the anti-Catholic Gordon riots of 1780. The attack on Newgate prison and the various narratives of mob violence warns of the consequences for society of intolerance and becoming caught up in the mob mentality. Oliver Twist (1837) whilst focused on a contemporary tale of poverty and workhouse treatment is perhaps one of Dickens most successful stories for causing social outrage and eliciting social reform. The historically based A Tale of Two Cities tells a story at the time of the French Revolution with a particular focus on the plight faced by the ordinary peasantry.

With the Novel Approaches conference now winding up we are about to fully begin our Novel Approaches virtual conference. My history of historical fiction blog posts will now go daily for the duration of the conference so look out tomorrow at 3pm for my investigation of nineteenth century nationalism and desire as part of the rising up of the Historical Novel genre.

Bibliography

Georg Lukács, The Historical Novel, trans. Hannah and Stanley Mitchell (Penguin: Harmondsworth, 1962)

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A Novel Approaches prelude (7): The first phase of Historical Novels: Don Carlos, Montpensier and The Princess of Cleves

noreply@blogger.com (Matt Phillpott) — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 15:00:00 +0000

In 1671 César de Saint-Réal published a treatise on secret history entitled Traités historiques de l’ usage de l’ histoire. The treatise proposed that individual psychology and human motives causes historical processes to take on their form. One year later he published his semi-fictional story Don Carlos in part as demonstration of his take on Secret history. Saint-Réal (1639-1692) rose through the court of Louis XIV during the 1660s in the role of historian and book cataloguer and became a relatively popular writer. Don Carlos was a novel about the heir to the Spanish throne who fell in love with his father’s bride, Elisabeth of France. This flirtation soon turns into plot as the lovers become instruments in a game of power that hinges on their own actions. Indeed, a key plot point revolves around a few unthinking remarks on behalf of the protagonists – an indication of Secret history as the primary causation of historical occurrence.

Madame de Lafayette’s novels provide more of a mixture of Secret and Particular history. In The Princess of Cleves we are brought to the court of Henri II through the tale of Cleves, a naïve heiress who is married off to the prince of Cleves. However, Cleves soon finds herself at the attention of the Duc de Nemours and a love triangle quickly ensues. In her first novel, Montpensier, Lafayette treats us to a relatively similar story. This time we follow the Count of Chabannes at the time of the St. Bartholomew’s Day massacre of 1572. The story begins a little before the massacre. Chabannes is friends with the prince-dauphin de Montpensier who has just got married. When Montpensier goes to war, Chabannes and Montpensier’s newlywed wife begin an affair which is, of course, eventually discovered.

All of the characters in Montpensier are in one way or another connected to the wider historical setting of Catholics verses Protestants. Chabannes himself is a former Huguenot who has converted to Catholicism to be near to his friend Montpensier. When discovered by Montpensier in his wife’s’ apartment, Chabannes goes into hiding and, as an ex-Huguenot is slaughtered during the massacre. However, the real purpose of setting the story during this turbulent time in French history was to explore the exploits of court intrigue during the time of the infamous Catherine de’ Medici.

This ‘first phase’ then of historical novelisation came out of French historiography prevalent at the time. When the genre came over to England it was largely in the form of English translations of Lafayette and other French novelists. Sir Walter Scott was one of the first, in England, to adapt the genre to his own uses but he did this in a way that brought the genre up-to-date and in the process, reformed the entire genre into a new, more popular form. The question still remains however; in what way is Scott’s Waverley and other nineteenth century historical fiction distinctly different to what had come before? How could Georg Lukács claim the origins of this genre lay over a century after Lafayette and her contemporaries? I will look into this question on Friday.

Bibliography

Richard Maxwell, The historical Novel in Europe, 1650-1950 (Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 2009).

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An Imaginative Punishment

noreply@blogger.com (Jonathan Blaney) — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 09:00:00 +0000

The reputation of English wine has improved dramatically in recent years, and even some world-class wines are being produced, but in general England is not thought of as a centre of viticulture.

So it's not surprising to find that in London in 1364, at the tavern of Walter Doget, St Leonard's Eastcheap, one John Penrose was found guilty of selling red wine that was "unsound and unwholesome, in deceit of the common people" [English Historical Documents, volume 4, document 616].

In November of that year Penrose was sentenced to a year and a day in prison but, for some reason, the judges (there were four of them) changed their minds about a week later, and instead ruled:

that John Penrose shall drink a draught of the same wine which he sold to the common people; and the remainder of such wine shall then be poured on the head of John Penrose; and he shall forswear the calling of a vintner in the City of London for ever

There are some excellent wine pubs in London today (I'm quite fond of the Princess Victoria in Shepherd's Bush) but there are also publicans who, while they may not deserve a year and a day in prison, might do well to forswear the calling of a vintner for ever.

1920s and 1930s fashion and film - Screen Search Fashion

noreply@blogger.com (Simon Baker) — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 16:14:00 +0000

Carly Eck and Hannah Kauffman discuss the website Screen Search Fashion in Costume. The film and fashion website is an online teaching and learning resource that is freely accessible and presents material that has been underused by fashion and costume historians. The resource is the result of a year-long, CETLD-funded project, carried out at the Royal College of Art and Screen Archive South East, at the University of Brighton.

The article outlines the scope and methods of the project, which concentrates upon the creation of a database, as well as the usual search facilities and a thematic learning resource that focuses on 1920s and 1930s fashion - an era that saw significant changes in fashion.

The resulting online resource includes film clips, stills (some from Worthing Museum and Art Gallery collections), descriptions, contextual information and links to other archival resources.

There is a thematic approach to the material which helps access. The six themes are: 1920s fashion, 1930s fashion, Sport, Leisure, Work and Travel. All the themes have sub-categories to aid further access and exploration; for instance Sport is divided into Health, Winter Sports, Team Sports, Summer Sports and Equestrian Sports. The Leisure - Bathing and the Seaside theme is great fun and evocative of the era.

The Costume article also discusses three films showing how film offers evidence of people's lives and their clothing – including an ordinary family’s summer wear, a fancy dress parade, and sophisticated millinery. Thanks to this unusual and innovative resource, fashion, costume and social historians can now access a wealth of examples of inter-war clothing that has been captured on film.

Costume, vol. 45, 2011, p. 75-84

A Novel Approaches prelude (6): Early French historical novelists

noreply@blogger.com (Matt Phillpott) — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 15:00:00 +0000

Madame de Lafayette (1634-1593)

Richard Maxwell, author of the 2009 study The Historical Novel in Europe, 1650-1950, argues that Madame de Lafayette, author of Princess of Montpensier (1662) and Princess of Cleves (1678) can be accredited as the beginning point in a line of works that led to Scott. Although some have argued that there were limited connection between Lafayette and Scott in terms of their methodology, Maxwell claims that the key ‘signature device’ claimed by literary scholars as Scott’s was actually borrowed from the former; that is, the embedding of a historical protagonist into a fictive story whilst insisting on the moral and ontological distance between these two takes.

The state of French historiography in the seventeenth century helps to explain the emergence of historical fiction. ‘French history and French fiction’ Maxwell tells us, ‘were hard to tell apart’ (Maxwell, p. 11). By the end of that century intellectual circles began to distinguish between the real and the fictional: ‘history was about what happened, fiction about what should have happened’ and ‘history gave priority to the demands of knowledge, fiction to the demands of narrative’. There was nonetheless a concern that fictive and factual mixtures created an undesired discord when it came to writing about past events. Or so the discussions ran and, by the very existence of the IHR’s upcoming conference, appear still to run.

Men such as the French philosopher Pierre Bayle (1647-1706) and later the Italian poet and novelist Alessandro Manzoni (1785-1873) and American literary critic and author Henry James (1843-1916) viewed historical fiction as somewhat useless as it was by nature unable to separate the real from the mythical or fictional. Historical fiction failed as a written form because of its hybridity ‘lost between literature and history’. Nonetheless it proved relatively popular and its relationship to History proper formed the core from which Lafayette, Antoine Préost, César de Saint-Réal and other writers of historical fiction forged their tales.

French historiography in seventeenth and early eighteenth century discourse focused on two competing strands other than the well-established universal history; Particular history and Secret history. Particular history, as Maxwell describes traced ‘the life of a town, a country, or especially a renowned figure, often reproducing original documents too specialised for the purposes of general or universal history’ (Maxwell, p. 13). In short it used the particular or smaller focus to understand the process of large scale events. Secret history focused on the ‘use of hidden personal motives or characteristics to clarify the meaning of conspiracies or other struggles for political and military power’ (Maxwell, p. 14). Secret history therefore relied on understanding the psychology of individuals and gave emphasis to individual action and peculiarities as having a significant and instrumental influence on historical events and occurrences. Secret history gave power to the individual to enact on historical causality.

The prevalence then of debates and interest by historians in the concepts of Particular and Secret history in seventeenth century France gave form to the emerging nouvelle historique. Although Lafayette’s second historical fiction, The Princess of Cleves, was the most esteemed and best-remembered historical novel of its generation it was not the first be given that sub-title. That accolade went to César de Saint-Réal author of Don Carlos (1672). More on that this coming Wednesday.

Bibliography

Richard Maxwell, The historical Novel in Europe, 1650-1950 (Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 2009).

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A Novel Approaches prelude (5): Sir Walter Scott's Waverley - The first historical novel? Part Three

noreply@blogger.com (Matt Phillpott) — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 15:00:00 +0000

Drawing of Edward Waverley
from Sir Walter Scott's
Waverley books.

The Jacobite rising of 1745 was one of the last in a series of rebellions aimed at returning the descendants of the House of Stuart to the throne. Although for a while Charles Edward Stuart with the aid of various Highland armies and a few others including English and French soldiers won various victories they were eventually defeated for good at the Battle of Culloden held near Inverness. This battle proved decisive with around 1,500 to 2,000 Jacobites killed or wounded and eventually led to the weakening of Gaelic culture and the attack on the Scottish clan system. This, then, is the stage upon which Sir Walter Scott set the first historical novel.

The main protagonist of the novel, Edward Waverley, was presumptive heir to the estate of his elderly uncle Sir Everard. The tale follows Edward as he joins the regiment of dragoons and finds himself embroiled in the Jacobite rising of 1745. At first he supports the Hanoverian army but, after falling in love with Flora Mac-Ivor, a Highlands woman dedicated to the Jacobite cause, transfers his allegiance to Prince Charles.

In the novel Edward Waverley himself is described by Scott as:

‘warm in his feelings, wild and romantic in his ideas and in his taste of reading, with a strong disposition towards poetry’ (Scott, p. 56).

With just a little knowledge of Walter Scott, one gets the feeling that in Waverley, Scott is basing the persona on his own predispositions. Indeed, we view the Highlands through Edward’s eyes, and, at first, as a visitor and via a lens of youthful romance and daydreams. Scott introduces us to his knowledge and learning of this period in Scottish history through Edward’s character. We gain a clear picture of both Highlands and old Lowland cultures of Scotland as well as the political debates and fortunes inherent in all involved parties. Through Edward’s changing allegiances, Scott is able to critique the conflict between Jacobite and Hanoverian from both sides.

So this is where our history of the historical novel begins with a tale of the Jacobite risings of the eighteenth century. Or does it? It is both interesting and telling that Richard Maxwell’s The Historical Novel in Europe, 1650-1950 published in 2009 takes as its title and content the chronological range of historical novels back to the seventeenth century. Maxwell categorically states his belief that ‘there is no necessity to follow Georg Lukács in this preference’ (Maxwell, p. 2). ‘Preference’ is a revealing word to use here; Maxwell believes that literary scholarship in the twentieth century has been somewhat blinded by Lukács preferences and his desire not to look too far behind Walter Scott. It would also seem that the breaking apart of literary scholarship in terms of periodisation (as indeed has often been the case in History also) has made it difficult for scholars to note the restrictions in their own research. Of course, I’m far from claiming to be an expert in literary theory (or of its own history) but from the arguments I have read this realisation seems to be a relatively new and profitable one.

If then Sir Walter Scott’s Waverley is not the origin of the historical fiction “genre” as has often been claimed then where should a history of historical fiction begin? I’ll be investigating that topic next week so please do keep an eye out.

Bibliography

Jerome de Groot, The Historical Novel (Routledge: Oxon, 2010).

Richard Maxwell, The historical Novel in Europe, 1650-1950 (Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 2009).

Claire Lamont (ed.), Sir Walter Scott Waverley; or, ‘Tis Sixty Years Since (Oxford University Press: Oxford, New York, 1986).

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A Novel Approaches prelude (4): Sir Walter Scott's Waverley - The first historical novel? Part Two

noreply@blogger.com (Matt Phillpott) — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 15:00:00 +0000

Waverley is not a book ‘merely for amusement’ as Sir Walter Scott himself tells us but one designed to make the story ‘intelligible’, through a knowledge and learning of past events, culture and politics. Thus Scott begs pardon for ‘plaguing them [his readers] so long with old-fashioned politics, and Whig and Tory, and Hanoverians and Jacobites’. Why? Well Scott explains:

“My plan requires that I should explain the motives on which its action proceeded; and these motives necessarily arose from the feelings, prejudices, and parties, of the times. I do not invite my fair readers, whose sex and impatience give them the greatest right to complain of these circumstances, into a flying chariot drawn by hyppogriffs, or moved by enchantment. Mine is a humble English post-chaise, drawn upon four wheels, and keeping his majesty’s highway. Those who dislike the vehicle may leave it at the next halt, and wait for the conveyance of Prince Hussein’s tapestry, or Malek the Weaver’s flying sentry-box.” (Scott, p. 24).

Beyond Scott’s assumptions about the interests of female readers, is a claim by Scott not to be writing for all interests. This is a novel intended to instruct his readers about past politics not a fantasy adventure. The alternative title of Waverley is Tis sixty years since. It is an apt title in that it explains to the reader that this story is historical and set sixty years before the present (or more precisely sixty years before 1 November 1805). Indeed the narrative often delves into the nuances of the period and at times explains the differences between present and past directly. For instance, at the point when the main protagonist of the novel, Edward Waveley leaves home for the Highlands his aunt ‘gave the young officer, as a pledge of her regard, a valuable diamond ring’ (Scott, p. 30). Scott then explains to the reader that diamond rings were ‘frequently worn by the male sex at that time’ as were ‘a purse of broad gold pieces’. A few pages later Scott provided another example when describing the Scottish village of Tully-Veolan:

‘The village was more than a half a mile long, the cottages being irregularly divided from each other by gardens, or yards, as the inhabitants called them, of different sizes, where (for it is Sixty Years since) the now universal potatoe was unknown, but which were stored with gigantic plants of kale or coleword, encircled with groves of nettles, and here and there a huge hemlock, or the national thistle, overshadowing a quarter of the petty inclosure.’ (Scott, p. 34).

Scott’s novel therefore used his setting of the past as a means to convey change amongst other historical processes. On Friday I will continue this discussion by refocusing on how this past world is conceptualised by Scott.

Bibliography

Claire Lamont (ed.), Sir Walter Scott Waverley; or, ‘Tis Sixty Years Since (Oxford University Press: Oxford, New York, 1986).

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Scottish PoMS - the Paradox of Medieval Scotland 1093-1286 database

noreply@blogger.com (Simon Baker) — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 13:11:00 +0000

The Paradox of Medieval Scotland database explores the social relationships and identities before the Wars of Independence.

The “paradox” refers to Rees Davies’ observation of Scotland that, “paradoxically, the most extensively English-settled and Anglicised part of the British Isles was the country which retained its political independence.” (The First English Empire: Power and Identities in the British Isles 1093-1343, p. 170).

The project was funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council in collaboration with the Universities of Glasgow, Edinburgh and King's College London. The project used over 6000 contemporary charters and the database contains all the information that could be assembled about every individual involved in actions in Scotland or relating to Scotland - in documents written between the death of Malcolm III in 1093 and the death of Alexander III in 1286. This represents a unique database which contains more than 15,000 people and institutions.

An article in Local Population Studies by Amanda Beam outlines the methods of the project and discusses the various search strategies and possible uses of the site in local history. The site itself also has a number of useful articles including an introduction and timeline; glossary of terms and documents; and “features of the month”, which are specially written discussions on the data such as, The kings’ brithen (Gaelic for ‘judge’) and the recording of dispute resolutions by Dauvit Broun. There are the usual help screens and tutorials for searching.

An e-book to accompany the project, The reality behind charter diplomatic in Anglo-Norman Britain, is available and contains the following chapters:- People and languages in eleventh- and twelfth- century Britain and Ireland: reading the charter evidence by Richard Sharpe; The donor and the duty of warrandice: giving and granting in Scottish charters by John Reuben Davies; Common burdens in the regnum Scottorum: the evidence of charter diplomatic by Alice Taylor; and The presence of witnesses and the making of charters by Dauvit Broun.

Evidently a huge amount of research has been undertaken to develop this resource, research which has already yielded such results as evidenced by the features of the month and the e-book. Hopefully the resource will yield even more such research in the future.

Local Population Studies (no 86 2011, p. 84-96)

A Novel Approaches prelude (3): Sir Walter Scott's Waverley - The first historical novel? Part One

noreply@blogger.com (Matt Phillpott) — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 15:00:00 +0000

Sir Walter Scott (painted 1822) by Henry Raeburn

It has been said that the famous nineteenth century German historian Leopold von Ranke first turned to the study of history through reading the novels of Sir Walter Scott (see McGarry, White, 1963, p. 17). Therefore right from the inception of historical fiction in novel format the historian and the novelist have, it seems, found themselves intertwined.

Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832) was a Scottish playwright, poet and historical novelist. His first novel Waverley (1814) was followed by Guy Mannering (1815) and The Antiquary (1816) and together formed a trilogy covering Scottish history from the 1740s through to the 1800s. Scott wrote various other novels in his lifetime including Ivanhoe (1820). Ivanhoe was not only a commercial success but can also be said to have played a major role in reigniting general and scholarly interest in the medieval period. Scott also wrote novels based in the fifteenth, sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. During his lifetime Scott wrote at a feverish pace and in general was popular not just in Britain but across the world. Although his popularity can be said to have dwindled nearer the end of his life (and indeed after it) Scott is nevertheless famed for his role in popularising history through the medium of fiction.

In general Waverley can be considered a great success for Scott. Within two days of its publication the first edition had sold out. Critics adored the work, particularly Francis Jeffrey of the Edinburgh Review who viewed its characterisation and vivid descriptions as a means for readers to understand and feel the ‘actual experience’. The now better remembered and regarded Jane Austen wrote somewhat playfully (I think) in September 1814 (less than three months after its publication) that:

“Walter Scott has no business to write novels, especially good ones – it is not fair – He has fame and profit enough as a poet, and should not be taking the bread out of other people’s mouths. I do not like him, and do not mean to like Waverley if I can help it – but fear I must.” (reprinted in Lamont, p. vii)

Despite her somewhat annoyance at the competition Austen recognised the importance of Scott’s approach and Scott himself was to become one of her chief supporters. Although a few critics worried and complained about the mixing of history with romance and fiction this stopped few from enjoying the novel. Indeed this was Scott’s very intention.

On Wednesday I will look further into Waverley and into what it can be claimed was Scott’s unique approach that originated the genre of historical fiction.

Bibliography

David D. McGarry and Sarah Harriman White, Historical Fiction Guide: annotated Chronological, Geographical and topical List of Five Thousand Selected Historical Novels (The Scarecrow Press, Inc: New York, 1963).

Claire Lamont (ed.), Sir Walter Scott Waverley; or, ‘Tis Sixty Years Since (Oxford University Press: Oxford, New York, 1986).

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