The relationship between fiction and history

Essay from the year 2009 in the subject Didactics for the subject English - Literature, Works, grade: 1.1, The University of Sydney, course: Fiction Writers at Work, language: English, abstract: It stands to reason that historical and political discourses are only two of many paths leading to a truthful representation of the past. While historians and theorists struggle with the challenges of extreme interpretative relativism, fiction allows ideas that relate to questions of history and identity to be played out in a non-instructional setting. The poststructuralist tendencies in the arts and social sciences are best embodied in literature by the rise of the historical fiction genre. The fact that several of the novels on the 2009 Booker Prize longlist are part of the genre shows that historical fiction has been enthusiastically embraced by the wider literary community. Concurrently, the relationship between fiction and history has become a much debated topic in Australian culture. By discussing the role of history in three notable Australian novels - David Malouf¿s Ransom, David Brooks¿ The Umbrella Club and James Bradley¿s The Resurrectionist, the essay investigates how important the historical is to the fictional ¿ and vice versa.