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Regional Redemption: Graham Swift's Waterland and the End of History
Author(s) -
Tange Hanne
Publication year - 2004
Publication title -
orbis litterarum
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.109
H-Index - 8
eISSN - 1600-0730
pISSN - 0105-7510
DOI - 10.1111/j.0105-7510.2004.00797.x
Subject(s) - swift , perspective (graphical) , subject (documents) , history , environmental ethics , literature , art history , philosophy , art , computer science , visual arts , library science , programming language
The essay suggests a Scottish approach to Graham Swift's 1983 novel Waterland . Using the Scottish critic Cairns Craig's “Out of History” paradigm as my theoretical basis, I argue that Swift's protagonist, the historian Tom Crick, is compelled to abandon his subject because traditional history has failed to answer his need for explanations. To compensate for this, Crick adopts an English regionalist discourse. Through his emphasis on Fenland geology, landscape and tradition, Crick overcomes the breakdown of history, exchanging a conventional, centralist perspective for an alternative, peripheral vision.