The Fictive Romance

A.S. Byatt (1936-) is a famous contemporary British female writer and literarycritic. Her novel Possession was published in1990, which won her the highest prizeof British Literature, the Booker Prize. Possession spans from the Victorian era to thecontemporary times. It starts from the contemporary literary researcher Roland’sdiscovery of the love letters in the ancient book collection, and then leads the readersinto a mythical imaginary world gradually by following the footprint of the famousVictorian poet Ash. As soon as Possession was published, it has become the focus ofthe critics.The previous studies of Possession mainly focus on its post-modernity,historicity, feminist characteristics, theme, art of narrative techniques, characters,mythical prototypes, etc., so far few researchers have interpreted the novel from theperspective of historiographic metafiction. According to the theory of historiographicmetafiction put forward by the Canadian literary theorist Linda Hutcheon, this thesisanalyzes the historiographic metafictional characteristics which are embodied inPossession. Byatt puts the real historical figures and events in the fiction, and parodiesthe classic fairy tales as well as different literary genres, hence the novel is shuttlingbetween truth and fictionalization. Meanwhile, the novel exposes its fictivenessthrough its metafictional narrative techniques. Thus, the nature of historiographicmetafiction is revealed in the novel, namely, being both historical and self-reflexive.Apart from introduction and conclusion, the thesis includes four parts:Introduction concentrates on Byatt’s life and works, a summarization of hermasterpiece Possession and the existing researches on Possession at home and abroad.Then it points out the significance of the thesis.Chapter one clarifies the theory of historiographic metafiction and its mainaspects, namely, the relation between history and fiction under the postmodern context,the intertextuality of history and the role of parody in historiographic metafiction.Chapter two illustrates the incredibility of historiography reflected in Possession.It analyzes the integration of history and fiction in the novel, the reality mingles withfictiveness, thus blurs the relationship between history and fiction. In addition, itpoints out that different narrators are affected by their own limited points of view,their descriptions of the same historical event are different, which questions the credibility of the grand historical narration. It also reveals the intertextuality of thehistorical texts from the representation of the characters’ blonde hair and the repetitionof female images in the past and present.Chapter three analyzes metafictional characteristics of Possession, namely thewriter exposes its writing techniques and creative process in writing. This chapterelaborates the fictiveness of the romance Possession respectively from three aspects:the third person omniscient narrator’s intrusion, the readers’ involvement in thenarrative and an open ending.Chapter four expounds the parodies in the novel, including the parody of famoushistorical literary figures such as Robert Browning and Emily Dickinson, and parodiesof different genres like romance, detective stories and the bildungsroman. Thushighlights the important status of parody in historiographic metafiction, and furtherreflects the fictive sense of Possession.Conclusion gives a summary of the whole thesis. Through the analysis of thehistoriographic metafictional characteristics embodied in Possession by LindaHutcheon’ theory of historiographic metafiction, this thesis provides a new angle forthe study of Possession. In the verisimilar history writing, the readers see a fantasticfictive romance. This shows a paradox of poetics of Possession as a historiographicmetafiction.