In the Space between History and Fiction -- the Role of Walter Scott's Fictional Prefaces. (Literature)

Sir Walter Scott for a long time had functioned in literary criticism a novelist who facilitated development of novel towards its realist form. This is not to say that he was regarded a great realist writer; on contrary, his deviations from realism had been frequently pointed to him. On whole, however, it is valid to say that literary criticism valued him as an accurate depictor of (Kerr 1989: 1) and ignored those aspects of his novels that undermined realistic illusion that he had first created. After invalidation of realist tradition critics began to notice that Scott's fiction apart from more or less accurate pictures of past offers also a self-conscious commentary on relationship of history and fiction. Contemporary criticism thus focuses on metafictional devices in novels. The reevaluation of Scott's novels is accountable by fact that distinction between history and fiction has become in twentieth century blurry it was in eighteenth and early nineteenth century. Historians, literary critics and novelists alike draw attention to parallels between literature and history. Hayden White (1999: 6) argues that [l]iterary discourse may differ from historical discourse by virtue of primary referents, conceived imaginary rather than real events, but two kinds of discourse are more similar than different since both operate language in such a way that any clear distinction between their discursive form and their interpretative content remains impossible and points to applicability of literary theory to study of historical of writing. In his seminal study Metafiction (1973) historian analysed nineteenth-century histories according to modes of emplotment: Romance, Tragedy, Comedy, and Satire (1973: 7). The same theme is present in literary criticism. Linda Hutcheon (1991: 105) argues, for instance, that separation of literary and historical ... is now being challenged in postmodern theory and art, and recent critical readings of both history and fiction have focused more on what two of writing share than how they differ. Historiographic metafiction, which is a contemporary variety of historical novel, emphasises common points of literature and history, pointing to equal reliance on verisimilitude of two discourses, their linguistic constructedness and intertextuality (Hutcheon 1991: 105). The aim of this article is to demonstrate how Scott showed interplay between fact and fiction in prefaces to first editions of his novels. What distinguished these prefaces from those written for reeditions of Waverley Novels (usually referred to Magnum Opus edition) was that they were signed by fictitious personae. The description of careers of putative authors of prefatory material will serve to illustrate how leaky boundaries between textual, paratextual, and extratextual entities are and how broad is space between reality and fiction. The easiness with which fictitious characters penetrate boundary between text and paratext and empirical figures assume textual form within a fictional composition seems to be Scott's most vivid commentary on workability of rigid distinction between fact and fiction. It points to intermediary spaces between two entities, proving that they are but poles of a spectrum rather than mutually exclusive alternatives. The history of reception of Scott's novels clearly demonstrates that their significance to literature is estimated on basis of how neatly they fit within realist tradition, that is that tradition that recognises nineteenth-century novel a height of development of genre and looks upon earlier texts on its stages. Contemporary critics, however, emphasise that Scott's historical novel may well be the direct continuation of great social novel of eighteenth century, Luckacs described it (1962 [1989]: 31), and a forerunner of Victorian novel, but what traditional critics ignored, or considered its deficiency was a great degree of self-consciousness, most apparent in prefaces with which Scott supplied most of his texts. …