Vulgar Fiction, Impure History: The Neglect of Historical Fiction

Abstract

Historical novels have always been a problem for literary critics because they have long been unable to decide their status. For most part, scholars have simply ignored them. As Harry Henderson observed, the historical novel has not been a concern of student of literature because it is considered to have two salient features: impurity and vulgarity (I). On one hand, charge of impurity stems from attempt of historical fiction to bridge gap between aesthetic and historical experience. Borrowing its form from aesthetic conventions of novel and its content from pages of history books, historical fiction appears as both history and literature, information and entertainment; however, neither discipline of History nor English accepts this impure and mixed form as a legitimate expression of its discipline's demands. On other hand, historical novel is considered to be vulgar because it is an immensely popular form. Both James Fenimore Cooper and Sir Walter Scott dominated best-seller lists in America for most of nineteenth century (see Mott 305-06). Historical fiction dominated bestseller lists until 1920 and, Russell Nye points out, remains one of top three most popular types of American fiction. Nye writes, ten percent of all books published in paperback are historical romances or variants thereof (33, 46). Each year since 1920, several historical novels have been among top ten best sellers, making one of most popular in America. While we might expect literary critics to ignore historical fiction because of its immense popularity, it is surprising that few critics of popular culture have addressed genre. Many of classic works in field ignore genre. In Mass Culture: The Popular Arts in America, editors, Bernard Rosenberg and David Manning White, failed to include anything on historical fiction-all that can be found on subject is one paragraph excerpted from Frank Luther Mott's Golden Multitudes on best-seller formula. In The Unembarrassed Muse, Russel Nye sites detailed statistics about great popularity of historical novels, yet while including chapters on detective science and western, he writes virtually nothing about historical novels. In Adventure, Mystery, and Romance, John Cawelti does not discuss historical novels except for a few slight remarks about how historical melodramas intersect with social melodramas. Unlike other popular genres, Journal of Popular Culture has not dedicated an issue to historical novels, and only rarely has Popular Culture Association National Convention dedicated sessions to historical fiction. The claim of neglect is a familiar lament for those who study historical novels. Bemoaning a lack of both scholarly and critical interest in popular historical fiction, R. Gordon Kelly points out that libraries have not established research collections of historical novels and not much interest is shown by private collectors as with such forms as comic books, detective novels, and children's literature (182). Kelly goes on to explain that last seventy-five years have been a period of unremitting critical contempt for genre and thus many historical novelists have felt obliged to defend (190). One obvious reason for neglect is sheer physical size and weight of most historical novels. With novels reaching several thousand pages in length, it is difficult to do large scale analyses that are common in popular culture studies. Yet another reason is less obvious but much more important. What I want to argue is that scholarly neglect of historical fiction by historians, literary critics, and popular culture critics stems primarily from institutional pressures and biases, pressures and biases that are complexly woven into historical fabric of how we define history, literature, and popular. Popular fiction critics have tended to be compilers of historical novels, relying on standard definitions to assemble their lists. …