Postmodernist fiction and the search for possible truths: a theoretical review

Abstract

This article outlines the social and historical conditions that led to a revival of the nineteenth century in the field of English postmodern historical literature between the late twentieth century and the turn to the twenty-first century. I synthetize theoretical assumptions about this recovery of a past era, integrating them into, at the time, disruptive conceptualizations of History and its implications at the narrative level. As we review the way postmodern historical novels were approached by theorists in these decades, we turn to the theories of Linda Hutcheon (1988, 1989), Amy Elias (2001), and David W. Price (1999). Within this framework, this article aims at understanding the desire underlying the writing of possible historical truths which, in my view, was the driving force of the English postmodern novels written in the historical period in question, such as the paradigmatic The French Lieutenant’s Woman by John Fowles (1969) and Possession by A.S. Byatt (1990).