The Trouble with History and Fiction | M/C Journal

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Historical fiction, a widely-read genre, continues to engender contradiction and controversy within the fields of literature and historiography. This paper begins with a discussion of the differences and similarities between historical writing and the historical novel, focusing on the way these forms interpret and represent the past. It then examines the dilemma facing historians as they try to come to terms with the modern era and the growing competition from other modes of presenting history. Finally, it considers claims by Australian historians that so-called “fictive history” has been bestowed with historical authority to the detriment of traditional historiography. Hayden White, a leading critic in the field of historiography, claims that the surge in popularity of historical fiction and the novel form in the nineteenth century caused historians to seek recognition of their field as a serious “science” (149). Historians believed that, to be scientific, historical studies had to cu

The Trouble with History and Fiction Authors Richard Carroll QUT DOI: https://doi.org/10.5204/mcj.372 Keywords: historical fiction, historiography. How to Cite Carroll, R. (2011). The Trouble with History and Fiction. M/C Journal , 14 (3). https://doi.org/10.5204/mcj.372 More Citation Formats ACM ACS APA ABNT Chicago Harvard IEEE MLA Turabian Vancouver Download Citation Endnote/Zotero/Mendeley (RIS) BibTeX Vol. 14 No. 3 (2011): trouble Published 2011-05-20 Articles Normal 0 MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 Normal 0 false false false EN-AU X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 Historical fiction,

The Trouble with History and Fiction | M/C Journal

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