History and the Novel

Distanced from the culture or deprived of the sources that must inform their work, many social historians of modern Europe have been unable to resist using easily accessible novels as documents.' Fiction by the great British and French realists resembles the achievements of many responsible nineteenthcentury historians; in this way it has suggested material for more recent historical research. Yet because of this tempting convenience and apparent resemblance, historians have sometimes mistaken a novel's observations for journalistic reporting, or more often considered its perspective as a simple literary transcription of political or social ideologies. Moreover, specialists in literature concerned mainly with the tradition and aesthetic of the text have failed their colleagues in history. In spite of, or perhaps because of the many extrinsic issues raised by literary sociologists, here and abroad, critics often stress the special self-contained world of the novel, whatever its contents or implications of interest to the historian. This unfortunate situation has not only divided scholarly interest in literature; it has further undermined the use of fiction as an historical source now that there are more social scientific approaches to the past. How then have social and even cultural historians misread the novel? In this

Aesthetics · Art · Literature · History · Philosophy · Philosophy, History, and Historiography

• Literature as Historical Archive

  Allan H Pasco•New Literary History•2004

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• Popular Fiction and the ‘Emotional Turn’

  Open Access•Sharon Crozier-De Rosa•History Compass•2010

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• Transnational Romance, Terror, and Heroism

  Open Access•Choi Chatterjee•Comparative Studies in Society…•2008

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