Seaing Through the Past: Postmodern Histories and the Maritime Metaphor in Contemporary Anglophone Fiction

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From Daniel Defoe to Joseph Conrad, from Virginia Woolf to Derek Walcott, the sea has always been an inspiring setting and a powerful symbol for generations of British and Anglophone writers. ISeaing through the Past/I is the first study to explicitly address the enduring relevance of the maritime metaphor in contemporary Anglophone fiction through in-depth readings of fourteen influential and acclaimed novels published in the course of the last three decades. The book trenchantly argues that in contemporary fiction, maritime imagery gives expression to postmodernism's troubled relationship with historical knowledge, as theorised by Hayden White, Linda Hutcheon, and others. The texts in question are interpreted against the backdrop of four aspects of metahistorical problematisation. Thus, among others, Iris Murdoch's IThe Sea, the Sea /I(1978) is read in the context of auto/biographical writing, John Banville's IThe Sea /I(2005) as a narrative of personal trauma, Julian Barnes's IA History of the World in 10¿ Chapters /I(1989) as investigating the connection between discourses of origin and the politics of power, and Fred D'Aguiar's IFeeding the Ghosts /I(1997) as opening up a postcolonial perspective on the sea and history. Persuasive and topical, ISeaing through the Past /Ioffers a compelling guide to the literary oceans of today.