Narrative and Gender in Literary Histories

Abstract

Literary histories as a rule serve two purposes at the same time. They supply information on individual works of literature and their authors. And they tell the story of literature throughout the ages, relating how it developed and changed, creating ever new styles and worlds. Recently, however, the first function, that of providing information, has all but obscured the second. ‘Narrative gets shouted down by the encyclopedic’, James Wood complains in a review of the twelfth volume of the Oxford English Literary History.1 The verbal links which are used in literary histories in order to convey an impression of coherence with regard to succeeding works and authors are revealing in their monotony and superficiality. In volume twelve of the OELH, simple comparative gestures abound: ‘Comparable views shaped the works of other novelists [. . .]’; ‘Similar views were developed [. . .]’; ‘Similar emphasis appeared [. . .]’.2 One wonders whether students looking for the information thus offered would not be better served by encyclopedias and readers’ companions with their entries arranged for easy reference in alphabetical order. It is my conviction that, while reference books can do full justice to individual works and their authors, literary history should concentrate upon its special task, namely historiography. Theory has not shown much interest in this of late. Discussions tend to be limited to problems of the canon; for example, the question which individual works should be selected for the classroom has aroused considerable controversy. Yet this is only a side issue of literary history proper. Kristevan theories of intertextuality, although they refer to the interrelations between texts, are too unwieldy and one-sided for the practice of writing literary history. They cannot do justice to the human, story-providing aspects of literary