Seaing through the past : postmodern histories and the maritime metaphor in contemporary Anglophone fiction / Joanna Rostek.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

From Daniel Defoe to Joseph Conrad, from Virginia Woolf to Derek Walcott, the sea has always been an inspiring setting and a powerful symbol for generations of British and Anglophone writers. Seaing through the Past is the first study to explicitly address the enduring relevance of the maritime metaphor in contemporary Anglophone fiction through in-depth readings of fourteen influential and acclaimed novels published in the course of the last three decades. The book trenchantly argues that in contemporary fiction, maritime imagery gives expression to postmodernism's troubled relationship with historical knowledge, as theorised by Hayden White, Linda Hutcheon, and others. The texts in question are interpreted against the backdrop of four aspects of metahistorical problematisation. Thus, among others, Iris Murdoch's The Sea, the Sea (1978) is read in the context of auto/biographical writing, John Banville's The Sea (2005) as a narrative of personal trauma, Julian Barnes's A History of the World in 10 Chapters (1989) as investigating the connection between discourses of origin and the politics of power, and Fred D'Aguiar's Feeding the Ghosts (1997) as opening up a postcolonial perspective on the sea and history. Persuasive and topical, Seaing through the Past offers a compelling guide to the literary oceans of today.

Print version record.

Cover -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Table of Contents -- Acknowledgements -- 1 Introduction -- 2 New Histories -- Old Metaphor -- 2.1 New Histories: Postmodernism, Literature, and the Study of History -- 2.2 Old Metaphor: The Maritime Metaphor in Literature -- 3 Wavering Biographies: Remembering Individual Histories -- 3.1 The Odd Discipline of Autobiography: Iris Murdoch's The Sea, the Sea(1978) -- 3.2 Life Course as a Ship's Course: Candia McWilliam's Debatable LAnd (1994)

3.3 Small Men at Big History: Graham Swift's Last Orders (1996) and lan McEwan's On Chesil Beath (2007)3.4 Seaing through Biographies -- 4 Salvaging the Self: Narratives of Personal Trauma -- 4.1 In Search of a Life Line: Yann Martel's Life of Pi (2002) -- 4.2 Plotting a Course in the Sea of Memory: John Banville's The Sea (2005) -- 4.3 Seaing through Trauma -- 5 Influential Sources: Discourses of Origin and the Politics of Power -- 5.1 Historiographic Darwinism and Ark-ology: Julian Barnes's A History of the World in 101/2 Chapters (1989)

5.2 His and Her Stories: Jeanette Winterson's Lighthousekeeping (2004) and Doris Lessing's The Cleft (2007) 5.3 History in the Making: Barry Unsworth's Sacred Hunger (1992) -- 5.4 Seaing through Origins -- 6 Reclaiming the Drowned: Post/Colonial Histories -- 6.1 Rewriting Insular Classics: J.M. Coetzee's Foe (1986) and Marina Warner's Indigo or Mapping the Waters (1992) -- 6.2 The Sea is Slavery: Fred D'Aguiar's Feeding the Ghosts (1997) -- 6.3 Colonialism in a Ship-Shell: Matthew Kneale's English Passengers (2000) -- 6.4 Seaing through Post/Colonialism -- 7 Conclusion

List of AbbreviationsWorks Cited -- Index

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