Alexandra Mitrea, Julian Barnes and the Sense of History
Rezumat
Julian Barnes and the Sense of History
The present article focuses on three novels which are highly relevant for understanding Julian Barnes’ view on history and historical knowledge. Flaubert’s Parrot, A History of the World in 10½ Chapters and The Sense of an Ending offer illustrative evidence of the writer’s approach to the construction of history which, though highly marked by postmodernism, departs from it in the keenness and passion with which it questions the world and the emphasis it places on ethical issues.
Keywords: postmodernism, history, story, discourse, fabulation, knowledge, historiographic metafiction, social responsibility
Bibliografie
- Barnes, Julian. Flaubert’s Parrot. London: Picador, 1984.
***, A History of the World in 10½ Chapters. London:
Cape, 1989.
***, The Sense of an Ending. London: Cape, 2011. - Groes, Sebastian and Peter Childs (eds.) Julian Barnes:
Contemporary Critical Perspectives. London: Continuum
International Publishing Group, 2011. - Guignery, Vanessa. “History in question(s): An
Interview with Julian Barnes.” Sources (Orléans) 8
(printemps 2000): 59-72. - Hutcheon, Linda. A Poetics of Postmodernism. History,
Theory, Fiction. London and New York: Routledge,
1996. - McHale, Brian. Postmodernist Fiction. London and New
York: Routledge, 2001. - Sesto, Bruce. Language, History and Metanarrative in the
Fiction of Julian Barnes. New York: Peter Lang, 2001.
