Contesting the Monument: The Anti-illusionist Italian Historical Novel: No. 10

The Anti-illusionist Italian Historical Novel

Ruth Glynn

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781351196536
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Languages
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

"In the second half of the twentieth century, the Italian historical novel provided an unrivalled number of best sellers and publishing 'phenomena'. The success of the genre is closely related to a more general interest in revisiting the past in the light of a changed understanding of the nature, or philosophy, of history. This study aims to explore the particularly marked increase in the production and popularity of the historical novel in the period between the mid-1960s and the early 1990s, with reference to current debates on the nature of history. It presents a theoretical framework which establishes the centrality of philosophy of history to the development of the genre. The employment of this framework opens out the discussion of literary change to the consideration of historiographical developments and wider critical debate. The theoretical insights gained inform the close textual analysis provided in the chapters dealing with novels written by five of Italy's foremost contemporary writers: Leonardo Sciascia, Vincenzo Consolo, Sebastiano Vassalli, Umberto Eco, and Luigi Malerba."

Chapter I
Theorizing the Historical Novel

Genre Considerations

Any discussion of the norms and developments of a literary genre necessarily rests on certain generic presuppositions. In the case of my own theory of the historical novel, those presuppositions are founded on considerations suggested by both the diachronic and the synchronic approaches to generic change.

I would like to open the discussion on the diachronic approach to generic development by reasserting Michal Glowinski's proposition that a generic model is not a stable and unchanging entity; generic norms are not static, but sensitive to change over time, resulting in a shifting distribution of obligatory and optional features.¹ Genres, and their constituent texts, are dynamic units that interact, challenge and transform one another over the course of time. This diachronic approach has engendered much debate over the nature of generic change. Three distinct models of diachronic change emerge. The first of these is an organic model which proposes that a genre, like a living organism, evolves in a steady, progressive and regular manner through a series of vital stages, and according to biological laws. This first model, which disregards anything other than biological considerations (i.e., any external influences on literary genres), then gave rise to the more refined evolutionary model. This second model propounds an evolutionary program of development, whereby the history of a genre is viewed in relation to cultural and historical factors pertinent to the specific genre under investigation, thus suggesting factors which might trigger the emergence and disappearance of the genre. In this scheme, a gradual sequence of developments sees a given genre evolving into a modified version of that same genre. For instance, Alastair Fowler's evolutionary model expounds the notion that the historical evolution of a genre can be divided into three interrelated stages; the first in which the various features of a genre are assembled until a clearly delineated type emerges; the second in which writers consciously and respectfully imitate the primary type; and the third in which authors put the secondary type to new uses, sometimes even turning it against its own purposes.² Thus the evolutionary approach implies a linear process whereby literary developments will be fitted into a teleological scheme of a genre's rise, maturity or culmination, and subsequent decline.³

While both these generic models are predicated on a philosophy of continuity — they approach a new work with the aim of investigating the way in which it adheres to the norms of its genre, and builds on what has gone before — the third model of diachronic generic change stands in direct opposition to this hypothesis. This is the revolutionary model of generic change which emerged from Foucauldian analysis. In The Order of Things, Michel Foucault argues against the interpretative predilection for continuous evolution, and presents instead a philosophy of discontinuity, one marked by abrupt changes in the configuration and systematization of knowledge. Foucault warns, however, that he has overstressed his concept of historical breaks in order to counter the traditional interpretation of evolutionary progress. For Foucault, discontinuity refers to a change from one historical period to another, so that 'things are no longer perceived, described, expressed, characterized, classified and known in the same way'.⁴ Applied to the notion of generic development, this philosophy of discontinuity imposes on literary history a fragmented collection of scattered synchronic constructs which cannot be meaningfully related to each other because generic change is conceived of as wholesale metamorphosis. The revolutionary model of generic change is therefore based on the sudden subversions of pre-existing forms rather than on the progressive growth and harmonious changes characterizing both the organic and the evolutionary systems. In this approach, new works are viewed as 'discontinuous', and the study emphasizes the way in which a new work will reject or deviate from the norms of its genre, thus a given genre will simply metamorphose into a different genre.

The divergence between the evolutionary and the revolutionary models of generic change has formed the focal point of the debate at the heart of the diachronic approach to literary history. The evolutionary model has been criticized for its attempt to squeeze the history of genres into pre-existent pseudo-biological schemes, instead of elaborating a new, literature-specific system. The revolutionary model, on the other hand, is problematic with regard to the question of radical textual originality and the source from which the new genre suddenly springs — the suggestion that a new literary genre may emerge ex nihilo is clearly difficult to substantiate in the light of both the works under examination in this book and authorial statements about formative influences.

More recently, however, literary criticism has tended towards a practical amalgamation of both evolutionary and revolutionary models. Cristina Della Coletta, for instance, has formally approved this position, indicating that the evolutionary and revolutionary models are not necessarily mutually exclusive. Taken together, the two approaches define 'a Hegelian dialectics of continuity and discontinuity between the old and the new, an interplay of reversals and preservations that comprehensively defines the concept of genre' (Della Coletta 1996a, p. 8). In practice, this may have been taking place for a long time — Fowler, drawing on communication theory in order to account for textual variation, suggested that for successful communication to take place, both conformity to and departure from established conventions are necessary.⁵ Similarly, Glowinski recognized that literary works may be observed in relation to two 'simultaneous and yet contrary movements, one tending towards the adoption of norms, the other to their rejection.⁶ Thus the diachronic adventure of a generic ensemble is based neither on continuity nor on discontinuity but rather on a combination of both.

When applied to the twentieth-century Italian historical novel, the amalgamation of the evolutionary and revolutionary models of generic change is quite fruitful. Indeed, it is precisely the acknowledgement of continuity and discontinuity in generic change which approves the continued application of the term 'historical novel' in relation to even the most recent and innovative developments in the field of historical fiction. In the shift from illusionist to anti-illusionist modes of narration in the twentieth century, the genre displays conformity to the traditional model in that its structural make-up continues to be a fusion of historical fact and creative fiction, and also in that the choice of both content and form continue to be determined by the underlying philosophy of history. But at the same time, the genre also displays discontinuity, rupture or revolution with regard to the traditional model; as a result of a radical re-conceptualization of the field of philosophy of history, the historical novel has witnessed significant innovation in both its content and form. Thus the diachronic adventure of the historical novel over the course of the century is based on the accommodation of a radical new understanding of what type of process history is alongside the traditional dialogue between history and fiction.

In addition to the considerations offered by the diachronic approach to genre development, some of the issues raised by the synchronic approach are also pertinent to the study of the recent Italian historical novel. The synchronic approach, as outlined by T. S. Eliot in 1919, suggests that a literary work exists not only in a sequential framework, as a link in a chain, but also in direct connection with other works belonging to the remote as well as the immediate past. Each work establishes a dialogue with the other texts that share the generic space and the genre itself exists in a situation of constant exchange with the other genres in the literary system. New works that are aesthetically innovative influence the old ones by stretching the limits of the genre, thereby altering the canon, modifying the existing order, reshaping our understanding of the bulk of literature that preceded it, and effecting a rearrangement of the whole canon.

This approach to generic change is particularly appealing to an analysis of the twentieth-century Italian historical novel because so many of the novels under examination in this study display a ready willingness to dialogue with both immediate predecessors and early ancestors. Much recent historical fiction plays upon the themes, motifs and topics of earlier historical novels, frequently with the intention of creating new understandings of the earlier works. On occasion direct allusions are made to the ancestral relatives of the new work, most frequently with reference to Manzoni's canonic text, but references to previous novels also recur to a significant extent within the Sicilian context. In addition, many of the novels under examination are concerned with the notion of intertextual dialogue and theories of the circularity of knowledge, whereby the relation of influence between the past and the present may be equally considerable in either direction. Finally, the innovative incorporation of inter-generic concepts (from the disparate fields of historiography, artistic representation, semiotics, etc.) adds to the body of stimuli which may dramatically alter and renew the literary conventions of the genre.

Towards a Theory of the Historical Novel

Any attempt to define the limits of a literary genre falls prey to inherent dangers. As generic definitions per se tend towards an inventory of thematic and formal recurrences abstracted from the observation of a body of text or extrapolated from a work of extraordinary literary import, the methodology assumes an interpretative positioning outside of the inherent historicity of the literary structure: an absolute post rem with respect to the history of the genre itself. Yet, as I have outlined above, genres and their individual textual members are dynamic units, in continuous dialogue with one another and in a constant state of alteration. Each text within a genre, by providing its own peculiarities, promotes changes that affect the entire genre, leading to a revision of the constituent elements and preventing the genre from becoming a rigid receptacle, incapable of evolution and transformation.

I therefore wish to preface the presentation of my own theory of the historical novel with a tempering of the normally rigid and prescriptive nature of generic definition. The employment of the term 'theorizing' in the title of this chapter serves to suggest that generic definition is, and will always be, a work in progress. The following theoretical deliberations are intended to provide a provisional ordering system, avoiding prescriptive or absolute conclusions, but seeking pragmatically to enable precise critical judgements to emerge. In this way, I hope to avoid the creation of a totalizing generic definition, favouring instead a conditional, contextualized position.

The term 'historical novel' does not facilitate easy definition. On the most basic level, it denotes a work of art which incorporates both real and fictitious past personae and which attempts to narrate by fictitious means the events of a real, existing past. It is therefore a hybrid genre, a narrative construct situated uneasily between history and fiction, and torn between external reference and internal autonomy. In practice, the possibilities offered by such a narrative construct are vast, as a brief historical overview of the genre will reveal.

Walter Scott's Waverley novels are the generally accepted prototypes of the genre, and in the nineteenth century, historical fictions emulating this type were very popular. The following description offered by Edward Bulwer-Lytton in 1832 is one of the earliest critical definitions of the genre. He stipulates that the historicity of the novel comes not so much from its portrayal of historical events, or the introduction of 'characters whose names are enrolled in the annals of antiquity, but because it professes to delineate the distinctive peculiarities and costumes of the times to which it is understood to relate. The historical event is referred to for the purpose of giving consistency and probability to the plot, and the persons are introduced as landmarks of the age whereof the manners are representative'.⁸

The critic goes on to assert that in the hands of a master, the genre will sustain readers' interest by presenting a fictitious narrative about a fictitious, rather than a historical character. Bulwer-Lytton's stipulations are evidence that, within Scott's lifetime, the generic naming evidently had sufficient currency that the critic could attempt a stipulative definition and that historical fiction was well enough defined that works could be specifically excluded from classification.

Since then the genre has developed in many different ways, and generated a variety of approaches to the problem of definition. M. H. Abrams incorporated both the element of verisimilitude and the centrality of historical enquiry into his definition, describing the historical novel as that which takes its setting and at least some of its chief characters and events from history, but develops these elements with careful attention to the known facts, and also makes the historical events and issues important to the central narrative.⁹ David Cowart has focused solely on the element of the past, for his excessively broad description requires only that 'the past figures with some prominence' (Cowart, p. 6). Others have emphasized — as would I — the centrality of historical process to the narrative, such as Walter Schiffels (who understands by historical narration 'all texts of epic narrative form which thematize history and historicity as such or treat them as determining content'),¹⁰ or Harro Müller (who defines the historical novel as a form of fiction 'in which history as history becomes conceptually virulent').¹¹ Others still, principally György Lukács, have tackled the tension between fact and fiction from the side of history, relating the genre to historico-sociological developments. His definition of the historical novel therefore stresses the 'derivation of the individuality of characters from the historical peculiarity of their age' and 'an artistically faithful image of a concrete historical epoch' so that the historical novel becomes a 'historical truth in the artistic reflection of reality'.¹² Yet others, notably Hans Wilmar Geppert, take the opposite view, tackling the fact-fiction tension from the side of fiction: for him the poetic of the historical novel derives from the consciousness of the hiatus between fact and fiction within the novel, so that it is the fiction which dominates and to which the history is subjugated.¹³

The breadth of these various approaches to the genre is an implicit indicator of the extensive scope of the term 'historical novel'. The range of possible types of novels accommodated by the basic definition (a novel incorporating both real and fictitious past personae and providing a fictitious narration of a real, existing past) is far too expansive to facilitate useful critical discussion. It will therefore be necessary to limit the scope o...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Dedication
• Introduction
• CHAPTER I Theorizing the Historical Novel
• CHAPTER II From Illusionism to Anti-Illusionism
• CHAPTER III Il Consiglio d'Egitto, Leonardo Sciascia
• CHAPTER IV Il sorriso dell'ignoto marinaio, Vincenzo Consolo
• CHAPTER V La chimera, Sebastiano Vassalli
• CHAPTER VI Il nome della rosa, Umberto Eco
• CHAPTER VII Il fuoco greco, Luigi Malerba
• Afterword
• Works Cited
• General Index