Witnessing the past : history and post-colonialism in Australian historical novels - Meinig, Sigrun (Tübingen : Gunter Narr Verlag, 2004)
Machine derived contents note: 1. Fictions of Australian History 9 -- 1.1. Australian History: Icons and Types 13 -- 1.2. Australia and Post-Colonial Studies 19 -- 1.3. Post-Colonial History and Historical -- Understanding 26 -- 1.4. Representing History in Historical Novels 39 -- 1.4.1. The Genre: Historical Novels 40 -- 1.4.2. A Descriptive Framework for the Narrato- -- logical Characterisation of Historical Novels 45 -- 1.5. Two Groups of Australian Historical Novels -- in the Light of Materiality and Myth 51 -- -- -- Analysing Materiality: Meaning and Fixity 57 -- 2. History in Principles: Henry Handel Richardson's -- The Fortunes of Richard Mahony (1930) 69 -- 2.1. The Colony and Its Past in Detail 72 -- 2.2. Binary Oppositions and Principles: -- Flight from History 81 -- 2.3. Metonymy: Hide and Seek 97 -- -- 3. History as Stories and Thistles: Peter Carey's -- Jack Maggs (1997) and Oscar and Lucinda (1988) 109 -- 3.1. The Bookkeeping of History: Jack Maggs 112 -- 3.1.1. The History of a Story: Jack Maggs -- and Intertextuality 113 -- 3.1.2. Tokens and Exchanges, Possessions -- and Secrets 123 -- 3.1.3. Intertextual Materiality: History -- and Origins 133 -- 3.2. The Gamble of History: Oscar and Lucinda 143 -- 3.2.1. A History of Individuals and Instances 144 -- 3.2.2. 'The White Man's Dreaming': -- Materiality, Tokens, and Symbols 156 -- 3.2.3. The Cultural Material of History: -- Truth, Order, and the Gamble of Metaphors 167 -- 3.3. Thistles 186 -- -- -- -- -- Analysing Myth: Narrative and Time 189 -- 4. Prophetic History: Patrick White's The Tree of Man (1955) -- and A Fringe of Leaves (1976) 205 -- 4.1. History in Constants: The Tree of Man 209 -- 4.1.1. 'Filling the Void': The Mythical Method -- and Australian History 210 -- 4.1.2. Generating History 219 -- 4.1.3. Illuminating History 230 -- 4.2. History in Captivity: A Fringe of Leaves 237 -- 4.2.1. The Roles of a Colonial Myth 238 -- 4.2.2. Caught in a Fringe 254 -- 4.2.3. Suffering Cannibalism 262 -- 4.3. The Passivity of Prophesy 276 -- -- 5. History as Memory, Myth, and Mystery: -- Rodney Halls's Yandilli Trilogy (1994) 279 -- 5.1. Framing History: Patterns and Psyche 282 -- 5.2. Visions: The Second Bridegroom 293 -- 5.2.1. A Myopic Bridegroom 293 -- 5.2.2. Fences 302 -- 5.2.3. Forgery 309 -- 5.3. Sacrifices: Captivity Captive 319 -- 5.3.1. Mystery 319 -- 5.3.2. Incest 326 -- 5.3.3. The Spiralling of Trauma 342 -- -- 6. The Literary Art of Witnessing the Australian Past: -- The Ethical and Political Potential of Historical Novels 349 -- 6.1. Synopsis: Representing Australian History 350 -- 6.1.1. The Light of Materiality and Myth 350 -- 6.1.2. Re-minding and Re-membering: -- Two Groups of Australian Historical Novels 355 -- 6.1.3. Memory, The Future of History, and -- the Rhetoric of Past and Present 360 -- 6.2. Understanding History: Fictional Witnessing -- of the Past and Its Moral Resonances 365 -- -- References 379.
Includes bibliographical references (p. [379]-394)
Keywords: Historical fiction, Australian -- History and criticism; Literature and history -- Australia; Postcolonialism in literature; Postcolonialism -- Australia; Australia -- In literature