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Block Six: Literature and history

There is a significant relationship between literary texts and contemporary reality. The aim of thisblock is to problematize the relationship between literature and history. The literary texts dealt with

in this block address specific historical events such as the "Stalinist tyranny of 1936-1939, the Irish

'troubles', or the rise and fall of the Japanese empire in the Far East."

Interest in such literary works come into play especially as there is a constant questioning of

"official history," by "oral history, people's history, black history and women's history."

There is a difference between the past and history. Interpretations of history are constantly

changing.

The historical moment in which we write may (or may not) also be assumed to affect how and

what we write. How you read what has been written will also depend upon the moment in which

you do so.

Prose fiction and history

Bearing Witness:

A sub-genre of literature called 'bearing witness' addresses the need for a kind of literature thatcommunicates to the present about a past that is unthinkable. The witness writer creates an archive

which would 'contribute to [his people's] constitution'. What exactly does the genre of bearing

witness entail? It is obvious that the past figures prominently in bearing witness as it is focused on

a tragic past event that has a clear impact on the present. The poet or writer takes on 'the role of

guardian of the society's historical past, its memory'. The witness writer is writing about his

people's suffering, documenting it and producing an archive that would prove necessary for a mass

witnessing. The renowned Irish poet Seamus Heaney comments on the nature of the witness writer:

He represents poetry's solidarity with the doomed, the deprived, the victimized, the under-privileged. The witness is any figure in whom the truth-telling urge and the compulsion to identify

with the oppressed become necessarily integral with the art of writing itself.

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Two critics:

Laurence Lerner: "History and Fiction"

Lerner identifies three contexts to any text: 'its ideology, its strategies of writing, and social reality'.

To eliminate any of these completely 'is a dogmatic oversimplification'.

Hayden White: "Introduction to Metahistory"

White argues that while historians believe their narratives to be objective, their narration itself

cannot escape the implications of 'textuality': that is, of the medium of language. By analyzing, or

'deconstructing', historians' texts, White claims to show how they are silently organized according

to familiar narrative and hence fictive patterns, such as 'plot'.

Poetry and history

The genre of poetry can both magnify the momentous events of history in this century and reviseand challenge our ideas of how history permeates literature.

The poetry of Akhmatova, Holub and Heaney bears witness. Akhmatova sees herself as doing this

explicitly in 'Requiem' in bearing witness to the Stalinist reign of terror, while Holub's irony works

more obliquely, to ridicule the orthodoxy of the Communist Party in Czechoslovakia after the

abortive uprising of spring 1968 in Prague and the subsequent repression of artistic and intellectual

freedom. Heaney demonstrates vividly how a poet not only engages with a particular historical

experience, in his case that of the Troubles in Northern Ireland since 1969, but more fundamentally

with an Irish literary tradition that has meditated on the uneasy relations between Britain andIreland over the centuries.

Seamus Heaney

"Ocean's Love to Ireland"

In this poem, Ralegh's victory over Catholic forces sent by Philip II of Spain to assist an Irish

revolt against the English is used to represent the finally successful English conquest of Ireland

which extended over much of Elizabeth I's reign. Like the conquering Vikings who roamed the

seas, Ralegh 'is water, he is ocean'. This is an image that combines the sense of an irresistible

natural force with a pertinent allusion to English naval power which was essential to the defeat ofthe Spanish Armada and, in later years, to the development of English world-imperial power.

This poem neither laments the vanquished, nor celebrates the victories; it does not take sides about

the issues settled by these contests. Each records them as 'history', as what happened.

The theme of poetry is explicit in "Ocean's Love to Ireland'. The poem deals with the English

conquest of Ireland as a sexual ravishing. The Irish poets writing in their own language were

rendered sterile by the 'iambic drums' of English poetry. (The iambic measure first became widely

used by English poets and dramatists during the Elizabethan period.)

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Comment on Heaney's poetry: There is no simple taking of sides about the contemporary conflict.

Where does Heaney stand? He looks for a "healing alternative in a pagan Neolithic culture, away

from conflict torn centuries of Christianity. Pagan culture will heal and pacify tensions on both

sides. Pagan culture will alter consciousness.

"Casualty"

This poem is about two funerals: the first the coffins of Catholics, an actual occasion which gives

birth to communal strength, but also severe restriction. The second funeral is of the fisherman who

was killed for breaking with the complicity of the tribe.

This poem about the fisherman who broke with "our tribe's complicity" speaks for both communal

loyalty and for qualities that challenge it. The fisherman nonetheless expresses the best qualities of

the community.

Anna Akhmatova's "Requiem"

The Bolsheviks criticized Akhmatovasee page 27. Also more criticism on page 29 from the

Soviet state: Akhmatova's subject is utterly limited: it is the poetry of an overwrought upper-class

lady who frantically races back and forth between boudoir (which is a woman's bedroom or private

sitting room) and chapel.

"Requiem" addresses the predicament of Russia during Stalin's Terror and the responsibilities of

the writer at such a time.

Lev, Akhmatova's son, was imprisoned for 17 months.

In Akhmatova's "Requiem," history and the future are framed within the Christian idea that

although mother and child suffer great agony, the resurrection will follow.

The strongest image in the poem is the monument of herself, an idea which does not represent

hubris on her part, but a genuine acknowledgement of her role as the voice of her people, to

emphasize the importance of remembering. The whole poem is committed to this idea.

The poem begins: "I stand as witness to the common lot,/survivor of that time, that place"

The importance of gender to the representation of history in "Requiem" has already been discussed

in terms of the collective suffering of the mothers waiting for their sons outside then prison, and

the grief of the biblical women at Christ's crucifixion.

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