ABSTRACT

The historical note is a familiar device in historical fiction. While such devices have begun to attract scholarly attention, the focus has typically been on the way they signal the genre’s relationship to truth. This article proposes instead to look at how historical notes rework an understanding of the story and its source material by breaking the frame between events retold in fiction, and narrative history. Frame breaking, or metalepsis, is the preserve of experimental fiction, and usually consists of authors placing themselves in their work, or characters engaging with their author. Behind this playful inversion lies a preoccupation with the porous boundaries established between ontologically distinct worlds. I contend that the same destabilising effect can be found in the transition from story to historical note, with the reader carrying ideas from the story into the world of narrative history, and vice versa. Rather than separating the story from ‘what actually happened’, historical notes perform the opposite function. Drawing on examples from literature, film, and TV, I argue that frame breaking in historical fiction inserts the ambiguities of art into a mode of historical representation that remains a popular means of disseminating the truth.

摘要

历史笔记是历史小说中熟悉的装置。尽管这类装置已开始引起学术界的关注，但通常着眼点在于它们发出这种类型与真实关系的信号。相反，本文建议看一下历史笔记如何通过打破小说中复述的事件和叙事历史之间的框架来重新构造对故事及其原始资料的理解。断框或成骨症是实验性小说的保留，通常由作者置身于作品中或与作者互动的角色组成。在这种有趣的反转背后，是对本体论不同世界之间建立的多孔边界的关注。我认为从故事到历史笔记的转变中也会发现同样的破坏作用，读者将故事中的思想带入叙事历史世界，反之亦然。历史笔记不是将故事与“实际发生的事情”分开，而是起到相反的作用。我以文学，电影和电视中的例子为例，我认为历史小说的框架断裂将艺术的含混性插入了一种历史表现形式，这种形式仍然是传播真相的一种流行手段。