Womens historical fiction after feminism : discursive reconstructions of the Tudors in contemporary literature

[摘要] ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Historical fiction is a genre in a constant state of flux: since its inception in thenineteenth century, it has been shaped by cultural trends and has persistentlyresponded to the way in which history is popularly conceptualised. As such, historicalnovels have always revealed as much about the socio-political context of theirmoment of production as they do about their historical settings. The advent offeminism was among the most significant movements which shaped the evolution ofthe women's historical novel in the twentieth century, prompting as it did a radicalshift in historiographic methodology. As feminist discourse became embedded inpopular culture in the latter decades of the twentieth century, this shift in turn allowedauthors of historical fiction the opportunity to reconsider the ways in which womenhave been traditionally represented in both historical narrative and fiction. Thehistorical novel thus became a site for exploring the female perspective of history, aperspective that had been denied or ignored by more male-centred historicalnarratives.This dissertation will assess the impact wrought by the popularisation offeminist discourse on the genre of women's historical fiction during the twentieth andtwenty-first centuries. An examination of a selection of contemporary women'snovels set during the Tudor era will prove particularly useful in executing thisassessment, not least because of the Tudors' unprecedented popularity as the focus ofliterature and film in the last decade. More significantly, the women of this periodhave proven to be ideal subjects for their authors to imaginatively reconstruct in themould of third wave feminist icons in the twenty-first century. By examining howTudor women have been represented in the contemporary historical fiction of JeanPlaidy, Philippa Gregory, Mavis Cheek, Suzannah Dunn and Emily Purdy, thisdissertation will demonstrate the ways in which popular feminist discourse hasimpacted on the development of women's historical fiction in the last century,focusing specifically on texts published within the last decade. Three key aspects ofthe genre will be assessed in detail in this regard: the author's self-conscious feministintervention in the characterisation of her historical heroines; the shift in the narrativeperspective adopted and the deployment of postmodern literary devices; and therepresentation of female sexuality. The evolution of the genre as a whole will also beexamined in some detail, and the shifting parameters of modern feminisms will beinterrogated in order to fully understand their manifestations in popular culture.

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University