Journal archive

Abstract: Two historical novels of Hilary Mantel are under analysis in the essay in the context of the development of historical novel and the dialectics of traditions and innovations. The author tries to show the place which the novels analyzed occupy in the development of the genre of historical novel. The author argues on some essential peculiarities and originality of the artistic world of the novels: its narration, character-making, collisions, genre structure, approach to the history as socio-cultural wholeness, specific interpretation of famous historical facts and figures. In the essay it is shown the ways in which the tendencies of so called ‘plotted history’ and ‘subjectivization of history’ are being realized in the novels about Thomas Cromwell. The main point here is that the bulk of the English history of the XVI century in its decisive moments are poured out into the inner world of the protagonist and as such is presented. The author of the essay argues that Mantel is more interested in cultural movements of the time; that is why she depicts an individual whose role in English history is not only political but socio-cultural. It is stressed in the essay that the figure of the protagonist as the narrative centre of the dilogy is an example of the synthesis of two dominant trends in contemporary English novel — reflexive (self-analitical and self-knowlegeable) and historical.