In taking “historiographic metafiction” as a primary point of reference, I am deliberately locating Beaton in the tradition of the “Canadian postmodern” that Hutcheon delineates. On the whole, her work raises the issue of “what exactly can be said to constitute fact and fiction” only insofar as it cheerfully ignores such categories, crossing traditional borders and boundaries with effortless aplomb. Its aim in so doing is to study how we know the past, how we make sense of it.” This account of metafiction helps clarify Beaton’s method of making and remaking the past in her comics. “Historiographic metafiction,” Hutcheon writes, “questions the nature and validity of the entire human process of writing – of both history and fiction. Her riffs, quips, and satirical re-imaginings exist in the margin between history and fiction, playfully emphasizing and taking advantage of familiar fault-lines and frictions between different kinds of discourse. In The Canadian Postmodern, Linda Hutcheon uses the term “historiographic metafiction” to designate “fiction that is intensely, self-reflexively art, but is also grounded in historical, social, and political realities.” There is a correspondence between the formal and ideological implications of this literary mode, and this correspondence often involves margins or borders, “the place where new possibilities exist.” Through the lens of Hutcheon’s definition, Beaton’s work reveals itself as a particularly parodic strain of historiographic metafiction that is notable for its great variety – not only in terms of its various literary and historical subjects, but also in its wide-ranging approach to parody as such. It is Beaton’s keen sense of absurdity, however, that ultimately animates her literary and historical interventions, yielding work that is not merely clever or jokey but genuinely funny. Her deliberate anachronism produces a history that is constantly folding over on itself. By comparison, Beaton asserts her own point of view in work that is highly visible: through chronological discontinuities, she shows the seams of history. Menard’s project is invisible, seamless: by imagining himself into the mind of Cervantes, he produces an identical Quixote. In “Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote,” Borges lauds the eponymous author for his tremendously ambitious, unfinished, spontaneous word-for-word rewriting of Don Quixote. In some ways, this is a variation of the technique that Jorge Luis Borges attributes to Pierre Menard: deliberate anachronism. In her gleeful re-imaginings of history and literature, Beaton contrasts historical events with a distinctly contemporary sensibility, juxtaposing past and present in a manner that unexpectedly illuminates each.
#HARK A VAGRANT MACBETH ARCHIVE#
Though her short comic strips are regularly published in book anthologies, most of them initially appear online at, where they are generously collected in a thematic archive whose categories include (among others) history, literature, superheroes, Nancy Drew, Lunch Break Comics, and nonsense. In the process, she has become one of the most reliably accessible and compelling popular historians working today, elevating the historical literacy of her readers even as she makes them laugh. I am humorous sometimes, I promise.Canadian cartoonist Kate Beaton has been making fun of history for over a decade, cloaking her deep understanding of the subject with arch humor that often tips into absurdity.
I have delusions about living in the 19th century and talking shop with Dr.
Use caution dears, the Fiction Circus reefs contain language inappropriate for delicate ladies. I could explain to you what exactly that means, but it has already been done much better by Miracle Jones of the Fiction Circus I used to live in Jolly Old E, and that is enough inspiration for any person to write like a Rear Admiral of the Blue.ģ. All the while exercising your Great Guns.Ģ. Upon arrival you sit in port for a few weeks, revel in your success (if you haven't foundered somewhere off the coast of Gibraltar) and then pack up and go somewhere else. You spend a ridiculously long time getting to where you want to be, working hard and facing death at every turn. The British Royal Navy is a fantastic metaphor for University. Why, when I live in humble land-locked Saskatchewan, is my blog so terribly nautically themed? Three reasons:ġ.
0 kommentar(er)
