Historical Fiction in Dialogue with History and Fiction

I have always like the idea of having texts "talk" to one another.  When I was an undergrad, I was excited to see the ways in which The Chronicles of Narnia, which I had read a hundred times, echoed the literature I was reading.  I liked the idea of "reading backwards"--reading contemporary allusions first, and discovering the originals, almost as commentary on the later works.  It was a perspective thing.  Later, I taught an Intro to Lit course using parallel ancient Greek and later British and American works--not really my best course concept (a bit sophomoric)--and also a course on "retellings."  So while this is nothing new--for me, or perhaps for anyone, I still like the idea of teaching contemporary texts alongside their historical counterparts. (I also like having a few "revealing" novels to illustrate historical social movements as the basis for British literature survey courses, but while related, that's sort of different.)

Today I am thinking about the way survey courses integrate background material and even literary criticism.  I have not met too many undergraduates (translate: none) who relish reading journal articles about literary works, and lecturing on the historical period is not my favorite way to pass the time.  It's too much work for too little return, and really? there has to be a better way to get students to get a sense of a historical period.

Take historical fiction, for example.  Writers of good historical fiction do their homework--they have to!  They immerse the reader in the historical period, and even when they take liberties, those liberties can be interesting topics for discussion, as in my reactionary moments posts on the Outlander novels.  They tell us something about history, but they might tell us more about our own historical moment and how we regard the past.  That they do so in the guise of fiction is perhaps a boon, since though there is the tendency to view historical fiction as historical, there is more of a tendency to view historical nonfiction as TRUTH.  And in truth, that's a bit of a gamble sometimes, especially when the critical method falls into certain ideological categories.  So regarding historical fiction as a type of literary criticism can actually give a healthy perspective on how we regard criticism--with some skepticism.  This in turn teaches critical thinking and active reading.

In addition to Outlander, which I think could serve to jump-start a course on 18th Century literature and history, Steampunk provides some good material to use when looking back on the 19th Century.  Consider Gail Carriger's Parasol Protectorate.  Nothing but fun there.  It shatters, in a way, the notion that the Victorians were nothing-but-stuffy while playing up that stuffiness at the same time.  Most Steampunk novels that I've read include little bits of commentary about how Victorians regarded class and objects.  This is one of the best, from Carriger's Soulless:

Everything was perfectly clean and chosen with utter precision, each object occupying the space it had been given with immense dignity. (83)

Also consider:

Miss Tarabotti could not help but compare it to the Duchess of Snodgrove's palatial residence.  Here there was more real affluence and grandeur, the kind that did not need to display itself openly--it simply was. (82)

In a book I decided not to read after downloading a sample, I noted the distinction between antique white-and-blue china, and the mass-produced variety that social climbing households acquired to imitate the upper crust.  These few fictional moments replace at least three intolerably dull, overtheorized and overwrought articles I had to read in grad school.  Having read the latter, I can recognize the former.  But wouldn't it be fun to tell students--see?  This is a commentary on a real fact of Victorian social climbing.  This kind of thing comes to a head in expat Henry James's 20thC novel The Spoils of Poynton, which, when we read it, will seem even more dull and Henry James-ish by comparison.