Conclusion

Summary

In a tradition going back to Aristotle's formulation, the distinction between history and fiction has been drawn along the lines of factuality: whereas the former represents what was, the latter is preoccupied with what might have been (Southgate 2014: 2). To a certain extent, historical fiction blurs the division by imposing evidential constraints on the invented component. However, historical fiction written in the present tense constitutes yet another variation on the manifold encounters between history and fiction – it tries to represent the past as if it were the unfolding present reality.

Whereas present-tense narration is a relatively new trend in fiction, the intention to offer the contemporary reader an illusion of immediate access to the past that underpins the present-tense historical novels in fact harks back to the origins of the genre as defined by Georg Lukacs (1963: 42; cf. de Groot 2010: 27). Indeed, this traditional model of the genre accords with what readers of historical fiction expect. The Historical Fiction Survey conducted by M.K. Tod in 2013 revealed that the feeling of authenticity in the recreated world and the sense of immersion in time and place continue to be the principal qualities sought in historical novels. “Bringing the past to life,” especially the lives of people, was quoted as the chief reason why readers appreciate historical fiction (Polack 2016: 28–29).

The use of the present tense to narrate the past is yet another means of achieving the effect of bringing the past back to life, within the realm of fiction. Irrespective of the fact that the departure from the widely adopted narrative past tense and the historical narrative's customary reliance on retrospection constitute formal innovations, in present-tense historical fiction realistic, immersive representation takes precedence over self-reflexivity and metafictional components. Thus, paradoxically, the new direction that the historical novel has embarked on may also be seen as returning to some of the stipulations that shaped the genre at its inception. Owing to the predominantly simultaneous narration, showing prevails over telling while the explanatory power of narrative gives way to the dramatisation of the past as an incomplete, ongoing and uninterpreted flux of events.