A Tale of Three Genres: History, Fiction, and the Historical Detektiv

Abstract

True history began with Sir Walter A. J. P. Taylor wrote, provocatively (as always). (1) Undeniably, Scott had an enormous influence on historians: Thomas Babington Macaulay for one, Thomas Carlyle for another. Macaulays admiration fixed on Scott's style of narration, which Macaulay applied in his own work with almost indiscriminate vigor. His romantic excess earned him contempt of latter-day historiographers like G. P. Gooch, who quipped: Truth bartered for telling phrase. (2) Yet according to Carlyle, Scott taught him to look upon past as peopled by living men, abstractions ... not diagrams and theorems; [a rebuke to men of Enlightenment] but men in buff coats and breeches, with color in their cheeks, with passion in their stomachs and idioms, features, and vitalities of very men. (3) This was stuff of social history. Across Atlantic, Scott was, according to Peter Novick, the most popular and imitated author in early nineteenth century. George Bancroft, Francis Parkman, William H. Prescott, and other amateur drew inspiration from Scott's florid style, style in sense given by art historians and anthropologists as vehicle of expression within group, communicating and fixing certain values. (4) In Russia, Scott also enjoyed a popular vogue. The similarity of his historical approach to that employed by Nikolai Karamzin in his monumental 12-volume history has often been commented on, although there is no direct evidence of his influence. As for Pushkin's writing in a historical vein, relationship is well established if complex. (5) It should be recalled that both Karamzin and Pushkin approached writing of history as poets. Karamzin perceived this as a double advantage: history provided dramatic incidents poet could exploit, and there was poetic charm in what was remote in time. (6) No doubt these were among reasons Pushkin relied on Karamzin's work for his historical detail and defended him against his critics. But Pushkin was searching for appropriate genre in which he could best work through his historical imagination: drama (Boris Godunov, 1824-25), historical novel (the unfinished Arab of Peter Great, 1827), romantic poem (Poltava, 1828-29), historical poem (The Bronze Horseman, 1833), historical monograph (History of Pugachev Rebellion, 1834) and again, after eruption of Scott's novels on Russian scene, historical novel (The Captains Daughter, 1836). In each of these genres Pushkin found different possibilities for combining dramatic, lyrical, romantic, and historical elements. That he ended up with historical novel reflects, in view of Jurij Striedter, his appreciation through reading Scott of an emerging new historical consciousness. This was, in his view, best way to solve problem of how to retain a sense of historical distance and yet narrate events as a story. (7) His multiple experiments in genre gave inspiration to Russian writers (although not historians) like Dostoevskii and Tolstoi, who invented new genres that departed from novel as it was evolving in West European literature. (8) Undeniably influenced by Scott, did these writers of history and their spiritual descendants err in crossing line between fact and fiction? David Hackett Fischer thinks so. In his lengthy list of historical fallacies, he defines aesthetic fallacy by making oblique reference to Scott as one who subordinated historical precision to demands of character and plot. Hackett seals verdict by invoking Virginia Woolf's stern but in his view sound maxim that of fact and truth of fiction are incompatible. (9) But are they? The most notable recent theoretical attempt to close gap, although not one greeted enthusiastically by many historians, was Hayden White's Metahistory. White argued that deep structural content of history, at least in 19th century, was generally poetic, and specifically linguistic; its narrative was emplotted and its explanatory argumentation imitated literary conventions. …