Historical Fiction from Sir Walter Scott to Georgette Heyer and Hilary Mantel
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- Опубликовано: 13 сен 2024
- Until the 1970s, historical fiction was a scorned genre that belonged to Georgette Heyer and Jean Plaidy. Over recent decades, literary fiction has turned back to History, from Hilary Mantel’s Thomas Cromwell trilogy to Helen Dunmore, Francis Spufford and Eleanor Catton. In the nineteenth century the historical novel had been more respected, with examples (sometimes impressive, sometimes absurd) from Scott, Dickens, and George Eliot.
This lecture will examine the genre’s vicissitudes (while noticing Georgette Heyer’s novelistic virtues).
A lecture by John Mullan recorded on 1 March 2023 at Barnard's Inn Hall, London.
The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website:
www.gresham.ac...
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I am just a working class lad that loves history and historical fiction. Do not enjoy reading, I do though have nigh on 500 audio books in my collection now and just love the genre. This chap made an academic subject I would never normally care about seem absolutely rivetting, exciting and fun. Well done that man and thank you.
Excellent. A passionate delivery from a knowledgeable person.
I LOVE Wake. I read it aloud to myself and the language was great fun and the story deeply moving. As you demonstrated, it is easy to understand when read aloud. It’s how I read Chaucer in my youth. It is the only time in my life that I wrote to an author and he sent a kind reply.
I have been binge listening to your delightful lectures which I just discovered.
I loved this lecture. I haven't read Scott since I was a child - I tried to read Waverly recently and couldn't do it. His point about Austen and Georgette Hayer is well made.
Professor Mullan never disappoints! An entertaining and educational run-through of the historical genre. By the bye, my introduction to Scott was as a preteen in a girls’ boarding school in the Kenya highlands-“Guy Mannering” with Gypsy Meg Merrilees and Dandy Dinmont’s dog. So yes, Scott excels at dogs! 😃👍
When was this? It's amazing to know there was a time in my country where people actually read past their classwork in Kenya.
thanks
Absolutely top notch stuff as always. One caveat: can’t believe there was no mention of Donizetti, who wrote several operas based on Scott novels at the height of “Scottomania”. Other than that, a brilliant tour what is a very difficult genre to get right and an all too easy genre to get horribly wrong. Bring Prof Mullen back for ore and more. He could probably lecture on the evolution of the old paper telephone directory and make it sound interesting!
I was attracted by Georgette Heyer in the title, but was disappointed that so little mention was made of her books. If you you read the biographies you will see that she did lots of research into language, clothes and the real people of the time. To find out that Mantel's books are all written in the present tense is enough to put me off. I've tried to read Sir Walter Scott as his son-in-law, John Gibson Lockhart (who wrote his first biography) was born quite local to me and Scott almost bought a home here before deciding on Abbotsford, but he's so very wordy I'm afraid I gave up.
Not enough Georgette Heyer.
Yes, but that applies to almost every situation in life. There's never enough Heyer or Austen.
The first time I read Hillary Mantell's trilogy (only the first two books. The third wasn't out), I loved it. But last time I tried to re-read the first novel (after beginning to write in the historical genre myself), the lack of period language in the characters dialogue really stood out to me (in a bad way), and it felt as though her Cromwell, far from being a 16th Century person with 16th Century values and attitudes and beliefs about the world, had the values, attitudes and beliefs about the world of a middle-aged, middle-class woman of the early 21st century. Her Cromwell was a thoroughly modern woman, and a very passive observer of the history that I understand in reality he was deeply involved in making happen. I was really disappointed.
How did he omit Robert Graves? Also, this is just about British historical fiction. Russia and France, for example, had great such authors in the 19th century.
For recent examples, look up Boris Akounine and Jean-François Parot.
Frankly, I got mixed fillings about this lecture: on the one hand it's a marvelous material, on the other hand, I learned about Hilary Mantel's death from this video =(
I have only recently learned abput her death, too. It’s awful, I was so looking forward to reading new work from her. Apparently, she had lifelong, serious health problems. It’s a loss to the world, what a magnificent mind she had.🙂
Although it seems the scope of the lecture was restricted to English language literature from Britain, there is a massive and perhaps intentional oversight. A novel which has not only left it’s impact on what we think is possible in a novel, but also on what history means and how it ought to be studied. War and Peace should not be excluded from any discussion regarding historical fiction. Maybe by not mentioning Tolstoy’s masterpiece, Professor Dullen is just trying to pay tribute to the recently deceased. But this narrative that the genre is of I’ll repute until Mantel, with the exception of Dickens, is not a claim that stands up to much scrutiny. Otherwise, still an entertaining lecture.
I read bits of Thomas Carlyle a long time ago when studying the French Revolution and loved his enthusiasm for the topic and how he would have loved to have been there with a magic sword to rescue the princess of Lamballe, Marie Antoinette's close friend, from the rioters about to tear her apart! Nothing like taking sides.
Carlyle ....yes ! In these times of course his " views " will be
considered unsuitable or ' triggering ' or some such nonsense.
So adults will be discouraged from reading him and making their own minds up. The Central Committee for Cultural
Affairs has made its decision..
I made it to 30 minutes in - oh dear.