Metafiction: 'The Pastime of Past time'"
from Hutcheon, Linda.
A Poetics of Postmodernism: History, Theory, Fiction. New York:
Angela Wei, 11/4, 1998
Historiographic metafiction is one
kind of postmodern novel which rejects projecting present beliefs and standards
onto the past and asserts the specificity and particularity of the individual
past event. It also suggests a distinction between ¡§events¡¨
and ¡§facts¡¨ that is one shared by many historians.
Since the documents become signs of events, which the historian transmutes
into facts, as in historiographic metafiction, the lesson here is that
the past once existed, but that our historical knowledge of it is semiotically
transmitted. Finally, Historiographic metafiction often points to the fact
by using the paratextual conventions of historiography to both inscribe
and undermine the authority and objectivity of historical sources and explanations.
(122-123, Linda Hutcheon)
Facts and Events: Hutcheon mentions a fact
is discourse-defined; an event is not, in other words, events have no meaning
in themselves and facts are given meaning. Do you agree? Why?
History and Fiction: Since history can be
fictional and fiction can be veracity, do you think if there is still a
line between history and fiction?
What does the title of this article mean?
Is the title related to Midnight's Children? Does Hutcheon's definition
of historiographical metafiction help us understand Midnight's Children
or ¡m°ª¬â¦Ê¦X¡n ¡H
I. Postmodern views
of history and fiction
Postmodern theory and art, and recent critical
readings of both history and fiction focus on what the two modes of writing
share than on how they differ. (105)
A. Verisimilitude rather then Objective
They [both fiction and historiography]
have both been seen to derive their force more from verisimilitude than
objective truth. (105)
B. Identified as linguistic Constructs:
They are both identified as linguistic
constructs, highly conventionalized in their
narrative forms, and not at all transparent
either in terms of language or structure. (105)
C. Equally Intertextual:
They appear to be equally intertexual,
deploying the texts of the past within their own
complex textuality. (105)
II. The relationship
between History and Literature in history
The separation of the two disciplines happened
in the nineteenth century, marked, for instance, by the rise of "scientific
fiction" or the rise of university. Before then literature and history
were considered branches of the same tree of learning, a tree for interpreting
experience, for the purpose of guiding and elevating man. (105).
These novels question their common use
of conventions of narrative, of reference, of the inscribing of subjectivity,
and their identity as textuality and their implication in ideology.
In the last century, historical writing and
historical novel writing influenced each other mutually. Ex. Dickens¡¦s
to Carlyle in A Tale of Two Cities. (106).
Today, the new skepticism of suspicion about
the writing history challenges historiography in novels. Ex. Shame,
The Public Burning, or A Maggot. (106).
III. The awareness
of fictiveness and reality can be traced to 18th century.
IV. The assertions
and characteristics of postmodern novels: the
plural truths, the
Claiming "Truth¡¨ in narrative:
The writers of novels from the start in 18th century seemed
determined to pretend that their work is not made[invented] but
simply exist. (107). Ex. Defoe¡¦s works claim to veracity
and convinced some readers that they were factual. (But Readers today or
readers of contemporary historiography metafiction are aware fictiveness
and reality) e.g. the use of witnesses' letters.
Contemporary Fiction questions of the relation
of story and history: Michael Coetzee¡¦s novel Foe (1986)
reveals the storytellers and historians can certainly silence, exclude
and absent certain past events and suggest the historians have done the
same. Ex. Where are the women in the traditional histories of 18th
Lies to multiple truths: The 18th
century concern for lies and falsity becomes a postmodern concern for multiplicity
and dispersion of truths and truths relative to the specific place and
problems of the
rewritings of history and the need and the danger to separate
fiction and history
as two different genres. (111).
ideological contexts, as well as formal
techniques. [Hayden White sees
Postmodern novels openly assert that there
are only truths in the plural and never one Truth ; and there is
rarely falseness per se, just others¡¦ truths. Ex. Flaubert¡¦s
Parrot, Famous Last Words, and A Maggot. (109)
Postmodern fiction suggests that to re-write
and to present the past in fiction and in history is to open it up to the
present, to prevent it from being conclusive. Ex. Susan Daitch¡¦s
L. C. There are two historical reconstruction and two translations of Lucienne¡¦s
The rewriting history is also problematic.
To take the film about Chekhov¡¦s
Journey as example, the actor begins to alter
the dates of verifiable historical events,
moving the Tunguska explosion from
1888 to 1908. Then, the film became a projection
of "a choas of unhistory." (110).
History and fiction are not the same even
though they share social, cultural,
historiography as emplotment.]
Paul Veyne signals the two genres¡¦
[history and fiction¡¦s] conventions: selection, organization,
diegesis, anecdote, temporal pacing, and emplotment but they are not ¡§the
same of discourse¡¨ (111).
Novels incorporate social and political history
to some extent, though the extent will vary; but history only emphasis
its historical development.(italic is added by me, 111).
Postmodernism deliberately confuses the notion
that history¡¦s problem is verification, while fiction¡¦s
is veracity. (112).
V. The assertions
and characteristics of historiographic metafiction:
Both forms of narratives are signifying systems
in our culture.(112).
Both are Doctorow¡¦s modes of
¡§mediating the world for the purpose of introducing meaning¡¨
(112) [It is necessary for us to make meanings that historiographic metafiction
Historiographic metafiction suggests the continuing
relevance of [fiction and fact] such an opposition. (113).
Historiographic metafiction both install [inscribes]
and then blurs the line between fiction and history. Ex. From the classical
epic, the Bible to the assertion and overt of postmodern fictions.
The differences between historical novel and
Historical novels present the generalized
and concentrated microcosm. However, it is difficult to generalize about
historiographic metafiction because history plays a great number of different
roles, at different levels of generality, in its various manifestations.
Three differences-- Lukacs¡¦s
belief the three major defining characteristics of historical novel:
should be a type.
are anything but proper
|The accuracy or
even truth of detail is
Irrelevant in order to achieve historical
faithfulness: usually assimilates the data to lend a feeling of verifiability..
|Two different ways
to contests this: 1.plays upon the truth and lies of the historical record.
2 use historical data but rarely assimilate such data.
are secondary roles as if to hide the joins between fiction and history
in a formal and ontological sleight of hand.
self-reflexive novels pose that ontological join as a problem: how do know
the past and what can we know of it now?
VI. The issues
about the interaction of historiography
and fiction are the nature of
subjectivity, the question of reference and representation, the
of the past, and the ideological nature of past.
The nature of identity and subjectivity: We
do not find a subject confident of his/her ability to know the past with
any certainty. (117). Ex. Midnight¡¦s children: nothing
survives the instability caused by the rethinking of the past in noon-developmental,
non-continuous terms. (118). Postmodernism both installs and then subverts
traditional concepts of subjectivity. (118).
The intertexual nature of the past:
Parody is one of the postmodern ways of literally
incorporating the textualized past into the text of the present. (118).
Postmodern intertextuality has a desire to
close the gap between past and present of the reader and a new desire to
rewrite the past in a new context. (118).
Postmodern novels teach that both fiction
and history actually refer the first level to other texts: we know the
past only through its textualized remains. (119).
The new questions about reference: "To which
discursive context could this language belong? To which prior textualizations
must we refer?"¨ Postmodern art suggests that there is no presence,
no external truth which verifies or unifies but there is only self-reference.
Historiographic metafiction self-consciously suggests this, but then uses
it to signal the discursive nature of all reference. (119).
The ideology of postmodernism while regarding
history: "every representation of the past has specifiable ideological
implications."¨. [The postmodern ideology is paradoxical for its claiming
and denying its own truth, for questioning the history it seeks to reconstruct,
for critiquing the ideologies it is influenced by ]. It is part of the
postmodern ideology not to ignore cultural bias and interpretative conventions
and to question authority-even its own. (121).