A Study Of Artistic Expression Of Historical Consciousness In A.S.Byatt's Possession

Byatt's engagement with history is displayed in The Virgin in the Garden and Still Life. Her historical preference is also evident in her quartets. But none of these novels probe into Byatt's historical consciousness as thoroughly as Possession does, which weaves a complex set of relationships between the nineteenth century past and the twentieth century present. The juxtaposition of two historical eras reveals Byatt's historical thought.This thesis investigates Byatt's historical consciousness from four perspectives:the present possessed by the past, the past to be unraveled by the present, the present influenced by the past and the past missed by the present. By the first three parts, Byatt emphasizes the continuity and causation between the past and the present, an idea in line with traditional historical view. The fourth part explores Byatt's postmodern historical view, which advocates that historical truth is inaccessible. Such a paradoxical view reveals Byatt's serious meditation on history. The conclusion is that Byatt acknowledges the traditional historical view on the whole but notices the difficulty of getting access to the absolute truth. Though the absolute truth is impossible, Byatt still believes that at least part of such truth is accessible to us today.