The Prorpectus The present day reader does not give much ...shodhganga.inflibnet.ac.in/bitstream/10603/297/6/06_chapter1.pdf · The Prorpectus The present day reader does not give

Chapter One

The Prorpectus

The present day reader does not give much critical attention to the

historical romance; for him it is a literature that does not cater much to

the modern taste. This research aims at a reassessment of the genre from

the perspective o f 'historical poetics." It is also an at tempt t o bring

into comparison the representative works of two well-known practitio-

ners o f the genre--Sir Walter Scott and C . V . Raman ~ i l l a i * - - t w o writers

of different nationalities and cultural milieus.

The historical romance is mainly known by the name of Sir Walter

Scott, the pioneer of the tradition. A proper understanding of the genre,

therefore. necessitates an understanding o f the works o f Scot t and the

other writers of his tradition. In the long course of literary history, the

historical romance underwent many adaptations and influences, in the hands

o f diverse individuals, in different places and per iods . H o w e v e r , t h e

departures were not of a massive scale: the members o f the genre have

always maintained family likeness. Hence, a work of the genre can be

better understood, when it is placed in relation with the important works

of the writers of the highest calibre who occupy the highest pedestals in

the genre . On this meeting ground o f intellectual peers, the different

aspects of their works engage in dialogue, bringing out their family like-

ness as well a s differences. The inferences a lso help us recognize the

features that these works shared with the works of o ther great minds

H c n c e f o r ~ a r d the namc 1s abbrcv~atcd as (' V.

Roland Barthes avers that it is impossible to study all the narra-

tives within a genre. Hence he recommends a deductive procedure which

would help t o devise a "hypothetical model of description" (Sontag 253).

Such a method o f description what American linguists call 'theory,' will

help us to study the different narrative species that "at once conform t o

and depart from the model"(253). Victor Shklovrki has acknowledged

this tendency of different narrative species t o be "in parallel with and

in opposit ion t o some model" (q td . in I t ~ t r o d v c t i o n to Poe t i cs 2 3 ) .

Bakhtin also has pointed out this artistic feature. t i e writes:

The element o f the so called reaction t o the foregoing lit-

erary style which is present in every new style is in its way

an inner polemic or , s o t o speak, a hidden anti-stylization

of the other style. and often combines with an obvious parody

of that style. . . . For the prose art is t the world is full of

the words o f other people, among which he orients himself

and for the specific characteristics o f which he must have a

keen ear . (P rob lems of L)osroevsky's P o e t i c s 163-66)

All these observations show how new genres emerge and how the exist-

ing ones undergo evolution.

In the present century, the theory o f genre does not appear at the

centre of literary activities. Rene Wellek, in the following passage, points

out the reason for this:

. . . in the pract ice o f almost all writers o f our time genre

dist inct ions mat ter lit t le: boundaries a r e being constantly

transgressed. genres combined or fused, old genres discarded

or t ransformed, new genres created t o such an extent that

the very concept has been called in doubt. (L)iscriminatiotis

225)

In his ltitroductioti lo a la Literature h'at~taslique, Ivan Todorov

discusses the problems involved in the study o f literary genres. He ob-

serves that each literary work "modifies the whole se t of possibilities.

Each new work changes the species" (q td . in Structuralism in Literature

1 2 8 ) ' Sharing this view o f Todorov, Scholes avers that "literary study

must operate by proceeding from a set o f possibilities towards the indi-

vidual work, o r from the work toward a set o f possibilities, which is,

in fact. a generic concept" (128) . These two different approaches t o

literature represent two distinct generic concepts which he calls ' theo-

retical genres' and 'historical genres ' respectively. Theoretical genres

a re generic deductions from a general theory o f literature, and historical

genres are deductions based on the direct observation of literature. Hence

the traditional generic concepts such as lyric, epic, dramatic etc. are theo-

retical genres. "A major task o f poetics," according to this theory, "is

to work out the precise mesh between complex ' theoretical genres' and

the actual genres which we find in the world of literature" (128). In short,

Todorov suggests that the genres that we find in literary itistory must be

subjected t o an analytical study in the light of a coherent theory.

Scott himself anticipates the modern genre theories when he says.

"there may exist compositions which it i s d~f t i cu l t to assign precisely or

exclusively t o the one class o r the other; and which, in fact, partake of

the nature o f both" (qtd. in Dekker 21). He had tried to classify works

o f the romance tradit ion by drawing a parallel between 'Temporal Ro-

mances' (Chivalric romances) and 'Spiritual Romances' (saints' legends).

There he comes very close to the method of fictional analysis of Northrop

Frye. He could ant ic ipate Frye 's method by suggest ing t h e in ter -

changeability o f "the monsters, dragons and enchantments" of temporal

romances and the "'ancient dragon himself' of spiritual romances" (Dekker

20). Scott's practice inspired many to look at the modern prose romance

from a different perspective. Henrich Heine declared that "Scott 's great

achievement was t o d o for the modern age what Cervantes had done for

Renaissance" ( 2 1 ) . "Calling a novel a 'historical romance,"' Dekker

writes, "is t o direct attention t o its extraordinarily rich, mixed, and even

contradictory o r oxymoronic character" (26). Scott had understood the

principle o f 'displacement' that forms the basis o f Frye's theoretical strat-

egy.

The term 'historical, ' when applied t o the novel, reminds us of a

roll of some great masters of literature--Scott, Manzoni, Hugo, Dumas,

Pushkin. Flaubert, Thackeray, Kingsley, Tolstoy, Cooper, Sienkiewicz e t

al All historical novels of the first half o f the nineteenth century a re

based on Scott 's principles. Scott 's historical writing has been a source

of ~nspira t ion for writers all over the world.

Is the historical romance a relic of the past? The twentieth cen-

tury modern novel includes many eminent representatives of this genre

each of which "transcend the limitations o f qenre conventions" (Massie

39) . The historical novel o f the modern age shows two approaches for

the 're-creation' of the historical subject in the form of fiction--the one

which deals with 'grand politics' of a particular time, in a scrupulous way,

and the other which allows the reader a lot of freedom as if history were

a myth. To the former of these approaches belong the American writer

Gore Vidal and the South African, Mary Kenault. Kenault, in her tril-

ogy that deals with the story o f Alexander, a t tempts to give a scrupu-

lous description of the disintegration of the empire, after the death o f

Alexander. Antony Burgess ' s The K i r ~ ~ d o n r (!/ ' the Wicked, and Will-

iam Golding's trilogy, Riles of Passage, are other examples o f this type

of historical novel . Novelists like Robert Nye and John Banville, be-

long to the second category o f historical novelists. Nye's i~blstqff((1976)

is this type o f novel which at o n c e pays homage t o Shakespeare , and

presents "a comic portrayal of the waste land created by politics" (Massie

40) John Banville's ('oppertricus (1987) and Kepler (1983) deal with

the birth o f modern science during the late Renaissance period. Peter

Vansi Hart 's The Death of Robin H o o d (1981) and Parsifal (1988) deal

with the theme o f the persistence o f myths such as the Green Man and

the Grail L.egend through the centuries.

Scott had his followers in India t o o . In 1862, Bhudeb Mukherji

p o r t ~ a y c d i n his Atrguriyuvittimay, Shivaji, the great national f igure o f

India This is believed t o be the first historical novel in India. Later,

k. another Bengali writer, Bankim Cnandra Chatterji , pictured in his novels

the wars between the Rajput kings and the imperial Muslim powers. His

L)trrgest~attdini appeared in 1 865.

Kerala, the southernmost s ta te o f the Indian peninsula, could not

remain uninfluenced by this new tradition. All the major trends in Ma-

lavalam literature. during i t s early period, had been products o f its as-

sociation with English literary tradition. P.K. Parameswaran Nair writes

in his book Malayala Sahitya Charitham: "Novel, short-story, drama,

essay. criticism, history, biography, travel accounts. autobiographies--all

these branches of the prose medium--are greatly indebted t o English lit-

erature" ( 122).

The first noteworthy experiment in Malayalam literature, in the area

of the novel, w a s made by Appu Nedungad i . However , his book ,

Ku,rdalotha (1887). cannot be said t o possess all t h e fea tu res o f the

genre. The next important contribution t o the novel from Malayalam lit-

erature was Chandu Menon's I~idulekha (1888). This social novel brings

out and criticizes many evils o f the society during i t s time o f produc-

tion. Another important work of Chandu Menon was the incomplete social

novel. Sarada. C.V. was influenced by the tradition o f Scot t . The fol-

lowing remark establishes his indebtedness t o Scot t :

Marthat~do Varma is wr i t ten on t h e model o f Scot t ' s his-

torical novels, with the history o f a bygone age forming its

b a c k g r o u n d . (Parameswaran Nair, Malayala Sahithyu

Charithrarn 125)

In the "Preface" t o Marthanda Varma,' C.V. himself acknowledges

his indebtedness to the English tradition. He writes: "This book is written

with the intention o f creating in Malayalam a book on the model of the

English literary tradition known as historical romance" (52). Thus, C.V.'s

historical novels observe the tradition established by Scot t .

MY. C.V.'s first historical novel that is based on the history o f

the state of Travancore, appeared in 1879 The novel deals with the po-

litical struggle between Marthanda Varn~ii, the prince, and his enemies.

The prince's enemies make a claim of the throne, on the strength of which

they conspire against him. The story ends with the suppression of the

prince's enemies. Twenty years later appeared his second historical novel,

Dharmarajah (1913) which is based on the history of the rule of Dharma-

rajah, the successor o f Marthanda Varma. The third novel, Rama Ra ja

Bahadlrr (1918-19) , deals with a still la ter period in t h e history o f

Travancore, and the incidents o n the wake of Tippu Sultan's a t tack on

Travancore. In addition t o the novels of C.V., Malayalam literature had

a few more significant w o r k s o f the tradit ion--Appan Thampuran 's

Bhoorharayar, Ambadi Narayana Pothuval 's K e r a l a Purhran, T. Raman

Nambeesan's K e r a l e s w a r ~ ~ . K . M . Panicker ' s Purtarkotttr Swaroopam,

Paro t~k ipudaya l i et a 1 The period that immediately followed this was

a time of temporary setback for the historical novel. However, this period

was marked by the development o f the social novel . Many, like A.

Balakrishna Pillai, openly criticized the poor literary quality of the Ma-

* Henceforth this title is abbreviated as MV.

layalarn novels o f this period, and introduced t o Malayalam readers and

wri!ers the modern European wr i t e r s - -8a lzac . Maupassan t , F lauber t ,

Chekhov, lbsen e t a l . The changes in tas tes and t rends that such criti-

cism brought about . led t o the bir th o f a new t radi t ion o f Malayalam

novel which found i ts best expression in the novels of Thakazhi, Kesava

Dev. Basheer. S . K . Pot takkadu, P.C. Kutt ikrishna Marar et al

Sir Walter S c o t t ' s lvanhoe ( 1 8 1 9 ) and C . V . Raman Pil lai ' s MY

( 1 8 9 1 ) a r e popularly known a s historical romances . Ivanhoe i s s e t in

twelfth century England and MY in seventeenth century Travacore. Ivanhoe

deals with the following historical subject: The king o f England, Kich-

arc! t h e Lion-Hearted, on his way back home from Palest ine, a f t e r t h e

crusade, is made captive and imprisoned by the Austrian rulers . Later,

having escaped from Austria, he comes to his country only to see his throne

usurped by his b ro the r John . H e l ives in d isguise t o watch the crue l ,

unjust and frivolous ways o f his brother. The conflict between the two

races, Saxons the natives and Normans the conquerors , forms the social

backdrop to the story. The situation worsens when King John begins t o

help the Normans in the confl ict . Living in disguise, Richard a t t empts

t o relieve the tension between the t w o races, and cont ro ls the ways o f

his brother . In t h e end, in a decisive confl ict , t he king suppresses his

opponents , and establ ishes peace and harmony between t h e t w o races .

Scott ' s picture o f the Middle Ages does not overlook the licentiousness

and corruption among the clergy in that period. Scot t presents all these

evils in his book from the standpoint o f a social critic L.ike Scott, C . V ' s

main source o f inspiration was history. t l is M I . that appeared about sixty

five years af ter the publication o f Iva t lhor , d raws its historical subject

from the eighteenth century history o f Travancore, concentrat ing on the

theme o f political turbulence following the death o f Rama Varma Maha-

raja , t he then k ing o f Travancore . In an a tmosphere o f v io lence and

conspiracv, Prince Marthanda Varma, the successor o f the deceased king

(by the svstem o f 'marumakkathayam' which makes the king's nephew

the next successor t o the throne) , by living in disguise. escapes t h e at-

tempts on his life, and finally succeeds in es+ablishiny peace and harmony

in the s t a t e by eliminating all his enemies. All t h e three historical nov-

els o f C.V. - -MI . . , Dharmara jah , and Kama R a j a t iahadur-- deal with the

history o f the same dynasty. Similarity may be found in their events, sub-

plots. charac ters and a lso in their narrat ive techniques.

A compar ison o f ivatrhoe and MI.' reveals tha t be tween t h e

two works there is much correspondence U that is neither

slisht nor casual. Both deal with chivalry (of course there are cultural

differences) , and they have much similarity tjetween them in their

s e t t ings Bo th s t o r i e s begin with expos i to ry desc r ip t ions o f f o r e s t s

(Sherham woods in Ir-utthoe and Kalliyam Cadu in MV) that a re s tr ik-

insly similar In both books the fictional heroes--1vanhoe o f Scot t and

Anantha Pathmanabhan o f C.V. --are wounded in similar mysterious cir-

cumstances, and they appear in disguise. In each work the fictional hero

comes to the rescue o f the historical hero f rom a very cr i t ical s i tua-

t i o n For Ivat lhor 's important women fictional characters , Rowena and

Rebecca , in ML', t h e r e a r e f ic t ional e q u i v a l e n t s in P a r u k k u t t y and

Subhadra . 'The ordea ls o f t h e heroines a re similar in t.he t w o s to-

ries. In Ivarrhoe D e Bracy enters Rowena's chamber and offers t o make

her his wife. As a parallel t o this , in MC'. S r e e Pathmanabhan Thampi

en te r s Parukkut ty ' s room and w o o s her. For Cedr ic , t h e Saxon noble

who is the father o f Ivanhoe. in My there is Thirumukhathu Pillai, Anantha

Pathmanabhan's father. For the theme of lvanhoe's disinheritance which

resu l t s in h is leaving home , in C . V . ' s novel , t he re is t h e mys te r ious

disappearance of Anantha Pathmanabhan, here he is believed t o be dead .

Both novels are profuse in nocturnal adventures o f their heroes and others.

C V ' s Hakkim i s a f ic t ional equivalent for Sco t t ' s Jew--Isaac o f York.

In b o t h novels t h e r e i s t h e t h e m e o f wonder fu l c u r e o f w o u n d s . I n

I ~ u t ~ h o u , i t is Rebecca, Isaac 's daughter , who t r ea t s and nurses t h e fic-

t ional hero back t o health; whereas. in C .V . , it i s Hakkim himself w h o

per forms t h e magic o f cure . When Rebecca. Isaac 's daughter , feels an

inexpressible love for Ivanhoe. Sulekha, Hakkim's niece, loves t h e tic-

tional hero, Anantha Pathmanabhan. When Scott introduces Jews as money

lenders, the Muslim family o f Hakkim are introduced a s merchants. Like

Isaac the Jew who is an avaricious money lender, C .V . ' s Hakkim is "not

satisfied with the money he has; he desires t o make more o f it by doing

business" (ML7 215; C h . 16 ) . Fo r t h e theme o f wonderfu l a rchery ex -

hibited bv Locksley in Ivarrhoe. in C.V. 's novel there is similar perfor-

mance by Chulliyil Chadachi Mar thanda Pillai . In place o f t h e mas-

s ive oak o f t h e She rwood fores t in ivanhoe, in MV, the re i s t h e mas-

sive Jack tree that shelters the prince. The final siege is a common feature

of these books . In each work the counterpar t o f the hero's chivalry is

t he chastity of the heroine . Referr ing t o the parallel be tween lvanhoe

and MI', Kainikara Kumara Pillai writes in his preface to C V ' s Hamaraja

BahuJlrr:

C V ' s first novel, Marthartda l a rma had similarities t o the

novels o f Scot t , especially t o Jvumhoe But this similarity

is found only in the conception o f plot Here, he presents

an atmosphere. life and characters that are exclusively Keralite

I t does not have the arid and s ta le emptiness tha t i s

commonly found in artificial imitations I t s political and

social se t t ing has the s t ampof , ru th and reality T h e ap-

pearance. t ra i t s and behaviour o f his c

Indian. (19)

Language is no man's personal property, it i , , ."

has the right t o use whichever uni ts o f language he

it is o f immense critical interest, when the work o f a writer acknowledges

the 'imprint o f previous usage . ' Such ' imprints ' and relations between

works , whether acknowledged o r n o t , a r e encompassed by the te rm

intertextuality. Cases o f intertextuality may be fognd at the level of theme,

~ d e o l o g y and language Hence i t is only reasonable t o consider li terary

relat ions f rom the point o f view o f inter textual i ty. There are cases of

"extended intertextuality" and "restricted intertextuality." In the formor

case the relat ionship would be be tween a work and works o f different

authors. and in the latter case the relationship would be between a work

and o the rs by the same author ( Evans 67-118) .

K . K . Ruthven, in his book Cr i t ica l Assumptions quotes the fol-

lowrne remark by Johnson. "Modern writers are the moon o f literature,

they shine with reflected light borrowed from the ancients" (25). Here

Ruthven is not speaking disparagingly of the writers who shine "with light

borrowed from the ancients," rather, he seems to share the following

view o f Dryden on the idea o f imitations:

We ought not t o regard a good imitation as theft, but a s a

beautiful idea of him who undertakes t o imitate, by form-

ing himself on the invention and work o f another man; fo r

he enters in t o the list like a new wrestler, t o dispute the

prize with the former champion. This sort of emulation, says

Hesiod. is honorable, 'this strife is wholesome to men,' when

we combat for a victory with a hero, and a r e not without

g lory even in o u r over throw. Those great men whom we

propose t o ourselves as pat terns o f our imitation serve us

as a torch. which is lifted u p be fore us t o enlighten o u r

passage; and often elevate our thoughts a s high as the con-

ception we have o f our author 's genius. ( q t d in Rulter a n d

Alastor, 7i)prcs in Cri l ic ism)

The historical novel is general ly corrsidered a s a dist inct g e n r e

because of the new feeling or attitude it embodies towards the past. But

manv critics. to name a few, Lukacs, Ricoeur, Dekker et al. have ques-

tioned this kind of generic d iv i s ions3 Scott himself was very suspi-

cious about the powers o f historiography, and this suspic ious view o f

historiography is the hallmark of his historicism. His antiquarian researches

were not a means t o excavating the dry bones o f antiquity, but t o make

it lovely and beautiful with the help of his creative imagination Harold

A Basilius expresses the same view on Feuchtwanger 's conception o f

history and historicism:

. . . history and historiography are wish projections of cer-

tain periods, and cultures, and individuals. There is no such

thing as authentic, objective, scientific history. The histori-

cism o f the nineteenth century was an illusion, now qui te

g e n e r a l l y a b a n d o n e d e v e n by a c a d e m i c h is tor ian ' s .

(Feuchtwanger 7)

The advent o f a common theory fo r both history and l i te ra ture

offered by narratologists obliterates the distinction between history and

fiction. Laurence Learner wri tes : "Historical reality is only a special

case o f fiction, a s speech is a special case o f writing, sexual intercourse

a special case o f masturbation, and nature a special case o f cu l tu re . "

(Learner 12). Learner again writes:

. . . if we read a life o f Napoleon, who really lived, and

a novel about Julien Sorel, who didn't . we can ignore that

difference and study the two discourses: if there is no tran-

scendental signified, no origirlary source of the trace, then

there is no real111 in which N a p o l e o ~ l exis ts and Julierl

doesn' t , for such a realm would be tlie hors-text which

Derrida denies. Both charactors are signifieds on the text

on which they depend, and il 'wc grant a different ontologi-

cal status t o Napoleon, that is because we handle this case

in a different way. The historical is a special case of fic-

tional. (12)

The traditional criticism of the historical novel centres around ques-

tions like what constitutes realism in the historical novel, and how can

many fictitious events be called historical. If we share the view of Learner,

that "the historical is a special case o f fictional" the question o f his-

torical-fictional distinction ceases to be significant in the study of the histori-

cal novel. Then what else has t o be sought after in it? John Frow, in

his book Marxism a t ~ d Literary History. proposes that "for a literary-

theoretical study, the best angle o f approach is through Lukacs's con-

ception o f genre" ( 9 ) . For Lukacs the ar t o f the novel is a process of

'discoverv' which is, fo r him, "a dialectic of form giving and mimesis"

which is "a rule governed activity" (Bernstein xx). This activity is struc-

tured by a subject/object dualism which manifests i tself in the novel

a s the distinction between narrative and narration: between story and

its telling. In literary theory this problem is most often dealt with in

terms o f "questions relating to , for example, point o f view, first per-

son narration versus omniscient narrators and the like" (Bernstein xxi).

It is this dualism that forms the basis o f the distinction between 'con-

tent ' and 'achieved content: March Schorer writes in his article "Tech-

nique as Discovery:" "The difference between content, or experience,

and achieved content, or art, is technique" (Scholes, Approaches lo

the Novel 141). For him, the technique is the means t o express the

content. This view does not approve of the practice of reading the novel

as though the content were primary and the technique only of second-

ary importance. This has been a problem for literary critics from the

time of Aristotle onwards. This aspect of fiction is generally identi-

fied as mimesis. which Victor Skhlovsky calls defan~iliarization. He writes:

Habitualization devours objects, clothes, furniture, one's

wife, and the fear of war. . . . Art exists t o help us re-

cover the sensation of life; it exists to make us feel things,

to make the stone stony. The end of art is t o give a sen-

sation of the object as seen, not as recognized. The tech-

nique of art is to make things 'unfamiliar,' to make forms

obscure, so as to increase the difficulty and the duration of

perception. (qtd. in Scholes, Srructurulism in Literature

83-84)

Shklovsky is of the view that 'defamiliarization' is the fundamental

technique of mimetic art. and that it is the primary justification for its

existence. By defamiliarization he means the technique of fiction such

as point-of-view, style, plotting, or rearrangement of story events and such

other fictional means that are used, in such a way that conventions are

put to test and techniques generate counter techniques.

Lukacs's theory of genres operates on two levels--the temporal

order that gives meanings t o experience, and those faatures of the novel

that remain stable in spi te o f the variat ions o f content . When w e a re

conscious about the 'form' w e notice also deviatiorls from those formal

norms leading t o the development o f sub-genres t i e calls the ~rovel

' temporal adventure' because the various elements of the narrative cre-

ate the impression o f 'empirical life,' only when they are 'schematized'

in a temporal order. This arrangement o r schematization is "form-giv-

ing" (Bernstein 109).

Francois Jos t , in h is Introduction t o Comparative Literature,

mentions four important approaches o f comparative literature: s tudy o f

'organic affinities' between works, influence studies, study of analogies

between works, and the study of cultural, philosophical, sociological and

linguistic aspects (viii). This dissertation that aims at a "re-examination

and re-evaluation" of the historical romance, and attempts t o show how

the historical romance emerged as a genre, and how it underwent evolu-

tion. makes use of all the approaches that Jost mentions in his theory.

It compromises "analyses o f literary works from the point o f v iew o f

their inner and outer forms, their genre" (Jos t viii). Here the genre

is subjected to a study in the light o f literary theory: it is concerned

with aspects o f l i terature, such as form, genre, style, and technique.

Application o f theory on novels may appear unilluminating because the

process demands t h e exclus ion o f many aspec t s o f the theory while

concentrating o n a few. However, it should be kept in mind that this

principle o f exclusion is an important and unavoidable principle when

judging the quality o f a work.

This comparative study attempts t o bring out the correspondences

between Scott and C.V. mainly a t the level of the fictional and narrative

modes of their works and t o show that under the seeming lack of form

of the nineteenth century historical romance, of which lvurrhoe is a typical

representative work, lies hidden, a formal and structural similarity which

contributed much for the development of the modorn novel and its di-

versification in various directions. The study becomes relevant for the

fact that the many volumes o f narrative that belong to this category have

not yet been studied from the perspective o f aspects such as form and

structure. About the shift o f interest in English novel criticism from the

works o f modernity t o the works o f earlier period, Stanzel writes:

For some time, those critics of the novel interested in ques-

tions of form and structure occupied themselves chiefly with

works written with great formal consistency, such as the

novels of the older James or those of Faulkner, Hemingway,

Virginia Woolf and of course o f Joyce. Recently, however,

cr i t ics o f the novel interested in the theoretical aspects o f

form and structure are turning their attention more and more

toward the ' large loose baggy monsters , ' a s James once

called the great Victorian novels, which at first glance seem

sa lacking in form. . . . there are indications that under the

seeming lack o f form of s o many Victorian novels a formal

and structural regularity lies hidden which has not yet been

studied sufficiently. ( A Theory of Literature 6 3 )

These words of Stanzel apply also t o the major perspectives of the present

study.

Chapter two, of this work "Wherein Are the Origins?" traces the

genesis and evolution of the historicat romance and its gradual growth

by drawing selectively from history, adding to it more and more realism,

still maintaining i ts affinities with the old romance tradition. The chap-

ter also traces Scott 's career and the way he and his genre influenced

other practitioners of prose fiction. Chapter three, "The Tradition Pa-

rades: Scott and C.V.." attempts a comparison of Scott and C.V. on the

basis of their major fictional strategies. Here the focus would be mainly

on their representative works, Ivanhoe and M E This chapter sets the

backdrop for the chapters that follow by highlighting certain important

aspects o f the fictional practice of Scott and C.V. Chapter four, "To-

wards a Theory of Fictional Modes," examines the two novels in the light

o f the theories o f Frye, Scholes et a l . 'I'he chapter also critically ex-

amines Scholes's theory, and attempts t o show how it fails to accom-

modate Scott's "mixed," "oxymoronic" fiction. Chapter five, "The Staples

o f a Tradition: Narrative Modes Compared," searches into the novels for

their dominant narrative modes and techniques, and for the manner in

which, in them, various 'conceptual forms' are transformed into 'achieved

c o n t e n t . Chapter six, "Do the Fictional Clocks Differ?" examines the

"temporal reorganization" o f the novels and the dominant 'time shapes'

in them. The study also reveals how Scott 's interesting formula comes

under a t tack and modification from his successor , C . V . Raman Pillai.

This work devotes comparatively much greator space t'or the work

of Sir Walter Sco t t than it a l lows for the work of' ( : .V , because in the

study o f the historical romance genre. Scot t , the o ~ i y i n a t o r o f the tradi-

t ion, and his work , requi re grea ter at tenion than what is given t o any

other writer o r his work. While pursuing the progression of the genre one

can look at C.V. only in the context o f Sco t t and his work .

N o t e s

' Historical poetics i s concerned mainly with genre studies.

See lvan Todorov's I~troduct ion to Poetics, trans. Richard Howard (Sus-

sex: The Harvester Press Ltd . , 1981).

* lvan Todorov, Introduction a la i,irfera/iire Fan las l i q~~e (Paris:

Seuil, 1970) trans. by Richard Howard and published by the Case Western

Reserve Press in 1973. (Rober t Scholes quo tes from this book in his

Structurulism in Literature ( New Haven and London: Yale UP, 1974)

128).

' The t ex t s alluded t o a re Georg Lukacs, ?'he Historical Novel

(Middlesex: Penguin Books. 1962); Paul Ricoeur, li'me and Narrative

(3 vols.. Chicago & London: The University o f Chicago Press, 1984);

Georg Dekker. 7'he American Historical Homunce (Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press, 1987).