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Counterfactual Literary Theory

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 December 2018

Extract

The occasion for this collection of responses to Telling It Like It Wasn't is a conference titled “Novel Theory.” Given this conjuncture, it seems only obvious to pose the question: What does a counterfactual theory of the novel look like? Of course, there is no single theory of the novel, but there is a book and a thinker most closely associated with the phrase, “theory of the novel,” and that is Georg Lukács. And while Theory of the Novel is the obvious text to revisit to counterfactually historicize and/or theorize, it seems more worthwhile for the history of Europe's counterfactual historical imagination to turn to Lukács's other great text, one that features somewhat prominently in Gallagher's book—namely, The Historical Novel.

Type
Roundtable: Telling It Like It Wasn't, by Catherine Gallagher
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2018 

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References

Works Cited

Gallagher, Catherine. Telling It Like It Wasn't: The Counterfactual Imagination in History and Fiction. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2018.Google Scholar
James, C. L. R. The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L'Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution. 2nd. ed. New York: Vintage, 1989.Google Scholar
Lukács, Georg. The Historical Novel. Translated by Hannah Mitchell and Stanley Mitchell. London: Merlin, 1962.Google Scholar