A Study On Arthur & George From The Perspective Of New Historicism

Arthur & George embodies Julian Barnes' basic viewpoint that history and literature are inseparable.Though there have been insightful researches on the novel centering upon postmodern principles,particularly parody,relevant studies from the perspective of New Historicism remains strengthen.The present author approaches the novel in light of New Historicism and analyzes meticulously how new historicist principles—the plurality of history,subversion and containment and self-fashioning are manifested in Arthur & George.Discriminated from traditional historicism,new historicists usually substitute histories and her-stories for grand “History”.Following the suit,Barnes highlights diversity of history,reconstructs and retells women's and colored people's histories,supposedly unknown but still inconspicuously traceable in historical records.The present author,examining Barnes' subversion and containment of judicial power discourse and how he describes marginalized people's reconstruction of individual identity under the indispensable interaction between the external world and the internal world,elucidates the significance of plurality of history represented in literature as a display of the textuality of history.