The realization of the concept of the features of the historical novel by Walter Scott on the example of Barry Unsworth's novel "Moralite"

Abstract

The article examines the features of the concept of the historical novel by Walter Scott on the example of Barry Unsworth's novel "Morality Play". The purpose of this article is to identify the features and principles of the historical method. The great merit of the outstanding Scottish writer Walter Scott (1771-1832) is that he introduced the principle of historicism into literature and wrote a number of brilliant historical novels. In them, readers see a picture of the struggle of contradictory and complex interests of various social groups, parties, and religious sects. His historical novels provided a better understanding of contemporary issues. He combined historical truth with fiction, explaining the validity of such a connection by saying that “the most important human passions in all their manifestations, as well as the sources that feed them, are common to all classes, states, countries and epochs; hence it invariably follows that although this state of society affects opinions, way of thinking and the actions of people, these latter are extremely similar in their very essence. Walter Scott was the founder of the historical novel in its modern sense. In the XIX century, he developed the principles of the historical method, which made it possible to create fascinating novels, freed from excessive archaization of language and at the same time fully conveying the originality and recognizable imprint of the described epoch. In the 19th century, along with the tradition dating back to Walter Scott, another form of aesthetic insight into the past also asserted itself. Real historical characters in such works are optional, although their presence is not excluded. The "hero" for the writer is not a historical event, but an "epoch". The author of such a work creates his own self-sufficient world, achieves credibility not by more or less accurately following historical material, but by the reality of the psychological experience of the characters, the reality (often illusory) of everyday life. The novel "Morality Play" is a historical detective novel by British writer Barry Unsworth, was published in 1995, and was first published in Russian in 2005. The novel is an example of a fruitful combination of two updated genres: new historical fiction and metaphysical detective.