AEGAEUM JOURNAL ISSN NO: 0776-3808

Metafiction and Historical Metafiction in the Three Contemporary Novels of

By, Hanan Ali Hussein English Literature, Directorate of Education Babylon, Iraq

Introduction We cannot define postmodernity so that we have a clear and reasonable idea of the meaning of modernity. Although the term itself is used in many senses and contexts, it cannot be clearly defined. Critics and literary theorists have a fairly good idea of what they mean by modernity: a movement that began in the early 20th century, specifically after the First World War. This applies to some imaginative and poetic techniques, stylistic devices, methods of writing experimental procedures, the use of spatial form, the dominance of metaphor, and the striking juxtaposition of image and style. It is defined as a style or trend that emerged in the post-World War II period. Postmodernism is a reaction against the enlightenment thinking and the modernist approach to literature. Postmodern literature rejects any comprehensive interpretations of reality, both external models of realism. Postmodernists focus on environmental and social problems. Postmodernists try to reconnect with the world by encouraging direct political participation. Postmodern book production term. Imagination or fiction, the self-reference fantasy of the possibilities, limitations and tools of writing, draw attentions to its place as archeological tool to ask question about the relationships between fantasy and reality. Metafictional literature allows the artist to abandon narrative control to form compositions. The fictional world is built in a cooperative effort with the reader. Do all these novels, but in the science of terminology is done consciously and with the reader's full knowledge. Because the reader focuses on the text, the author's global process is suspended. The author pulls the power out of collaborative effort, leaving the reader to fill the void. Also, authors often produce historical history as a term originally formulated by literary theorist Linda Hutchon. "Postmodern stories suggest that rewriting or reintroducing the past in the fictions and in history, in both case, is to open it to the present, to prevent it from being conclusive," says Linda Hutchison. - Representation of the past, historical metafiction, "play on the truth and lies in the historical records.

John Fowles: John Robert Fowles (1926-2005) was an English novelist and was in a critical position between modernity and postmodernism. He was appointed by the Times as one of Britain's 50 greatest writers since 1945. So the BBC described Powell as closing the gap between the authors of modernity and postmodernism. John Fawles, a post-World War II award-winning novelist, was of great importance. John Robert Fowles was born in London. He joined the London Preparatory School, a 14-year-old school in Bedford. He then served as a lieutenant in the Royal Marines for two years, but World War II ended before the actual fighting took place. He was educated at Oxford University and then lectured in English at the Universities of Greece and the United Kingdom. The success of his first novel, , (published 1963), allowed him to devote all his time to writing. (1979), Daniel Martin (1977), (1982), (1982) 1985). John Fowles was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1999. Fowles spent the last decades of his life on the southern coast of England in the small seaside town of Lyme Regis until his death in 2005.

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The Magus John Fowles's The Magus (1965-1977) is a compensatory novel that addresses the fundamental issues of human existence and, at the same time, provides a critical perspective on its own creation process. It is a man of the middle class, single and white. Nicholas Orvey, a young Oxford University graduate, magician, smart and cruel. Falls in love with Allison. Allison is an Australian girl. Nicholas meets her at a concert in London. Their relationship becomes serious but their relationship fails, so Allison leaves to accept a job as an English teacher at Lord Byron's school, on Greek island of Frakos. Nicholas thinks of suicide, then takes a very long hiking. On one of these walks, he met a wealthy English-born Greek named Maurice Conchis, who may or may not have collaborated with the Nazis during the war and now lives as if he had retreated from his home on the artistic island of the island. The waiting room, here Nicholas is introduced into the mysteries of the views of Conchis contradictory about life and its exotic mosques which Nicholas later known as the "godgame". John Fowles's The Magus designed an alternative world as Metafiction. The reader is warned not to do the same. The character of Fowles's Conchis is derived explicitly from Shakespeare (Prospero Jung), which appears repeatedly in metafiction novels. The distinctive use of the literary and mythic touch enhances the idea of imagination and the reader's awareness of building alternative worlds. In the second part of the novel, when Conchis remembers and tells his experience during the war, the story becomes a long and complex story of history. This part of the novel may be seen as a piece of history.

Lady French Lieutenant The French Lieutenant Woman (1969) by John Fowles is a postmodern historical story. In 2005, the novel was selected by Time Magazine as one of the top 100 English novels from 1923 to the present. The novel explores the charged relationship between the esteemed Lord Charles Smithson and Sarah Woodruff. Charles is in love, but Sarah is a disgraceful woman, and their romantic relationship will challenge all the suffocating conventions of the Victorian era. The French lieutenant, is a satisfactory example of metafiction because he produces his innovations under the guise of a Victorian novel. The reputation of the novel is based on its ideal manifestation of postmodernist concerns through themes dealing with manipulation and history. Fowles explores his concepts of reality, freedom, history and their relationship to fantasy. This metafictional novel successfully reveals the difference between fantasy and reality by breaking its frames and placing them naked. Moreover, it is clear that the Fowles in The Lieutenants Woman, enjoy a great deal of freedom as the metafiction process is the first to break into a person and that the alternative ends prove it. Fowles wrote "The French Lieutenant" as a parody of a Victorian historical narrative by exposing its conventions.

And Maggot Maggot was written by Fowles in 1986. Fowles chooses a historical period to adjust his plot. It is written in the form of a detective novel of the eighteenth century presents the characteristics of metafiction and historical metafiction with its self-reflection and self- awareness and dialogue. The author defines the word "maggot" in the first sentence of the introduction as follows: The larval stage of a winged creature compares it with the written text. Then adds the second and more ancient meaning of the word after that: fancy or fancy, which means sudden desire or idea will soon end. In the novel, four men and a woman, all traveling by assumed names, cross the Devonshire countryside on their way to a mysterious junction in the spring of 1736. But Volume 8, Issue 4, 2020 http://aegaeum.com/ Page No: 2023

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nothing seems to happen. Before the end of their violent and mysterious journey, one will be hanged, one will disappear, and others will face a murder trial. Maggot is simultaneously an exciting and compelling 18th-century editorial to the future. The meta-aspects of A Maggot periodically inform the reader that the book is a fabricated artifact, a product of the imagination of one man, not a transition to real events involving real people. But this knowledge has a paradoxical effect. Instead of destroying our ability to enjoy and discover the importance of human drama represented, sensitivity to A Maggot is what explains the interpretations of stories, and ultimately enhances our happiness with them.

Objectives  To examine the presence of postmodern metafiction and historical metafiction in Johon Fowles’s novel ‘The Magus’.  To analyze postmodern metafiction and historical metafiction in Jhon ‘Fowles’s novel ‘The French lieutenant’s women’  To find out postmodern metafiction and historical metafiction in Jhon Fowles’s novel ‘A Maggot’.

Justification The purpose of this study is to identify two outstanding aesthetic features of postmodern literature that present different areas of our lives in the twenty-first century. It also aims to understand the postmodernist approach to visualize historic historical events or personalities that make references to the old civil war and various real problems common to political and social life. Metafiction permits its readers a better grasp of the fable constructions yet provides an unerring mannequin because perception the current trip concerning the world so a sequence regarding built-in systems as like properly as much a metafiction historiographic to that amount deck bridge the hole between historical then fictional workshop by reintegrating the two. It is a valuable resource for theory and critical analysis that is useful to future research scientists and novelists in shaping new dimensions of their writings. Method and Materials: This is my descriptive research. The three published novels by The Magus, A Maggot and French Lieutenant Women, as well as various sources such as articles, books, magazines and websites about the author and his novels. Consider this study. Literature review:  Linda Hutcheon remarked so postmodern tale suggests as in imitation of re-write then after re-present the past in narrative yet into history, of each cases, to originate such up according to the present, according to stop it beside being eventual or teleological.  Patricia Waugh (1984) supplied a complete setting by way of describing metafiction as like fictional literature as self-consciously yet systematically draws interest in accordance with its repute as much an artifact in rule after posture questions as regards the affinity of story yet reality.  Jefferson (1986) argued that the hassle is so Waugh can't hold it both ways, and existing metafiction each as an natural characteristic on tale fable yet namely a report in imitation of the contemporary associative or cultural vision.  Patricia (1984) stated so much the Metafiction is Fictional writing who self- consciously toughness then permanency durability systematically durability stability attracts attention in accordance with its popularity as like an artefact of kilter according to attitude Volume 8, Issue questions4, 2020 in regard to the relationship into story then reality. http://aegaeum.com/ Page No: 2024

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 Mark Currie (2001) highlighted modern metafiction’s self-critical cast by depicting that as much a borderline discourse, a sort regarding composition who places itself regarding the border in story yet criticism, as takes the answer as its subject.  Abrams (1993) illustrated that Historical metafiction no longer solely takes its placing then partial characters and occasions out of history, but makes the historical activities then problems indispensable because the central characters or narrative.  Currie, Mark (1995) advised as metafiction lets in its readers a better grasp of the indispensable buildings over tale while supplying an correct model because of perception the modern-day ride regarding the ball so a sequence created systems.  Barth, John (1995) concisely described metafiction as much a fresh to that amount imitates a novel as a substitute than the actual world.

References

1. Currie, Mark, ed. Metafiction. New York: Longman, 1995. 2. Jefferson. Ann. “Patricia Waugh, Metafiction the Theory and Practice of Self- Conscious Fiction.” Poetics Today, 1986. 3. Hutcheon, Linda.”The Pastime of Past Time”: Fiction, History,Historiographic Metafiction.” GENRE XX, Fall Winter, 1987.

4. Ommundenson, Wenche. Metafictions? Reflexivity in Contemporary Texts, Australia: Melbourne UP, 1993. 5. Waugh, Patricia. Metafiction: The Theory and Practice of Self-conscious. Fiction. London: Methuen, 1984. 6. Salami, Mahmoud, John Fowles's Fiction and the Poetics of Postmodernism, Associated University Presses, 1992. 7. Aubrey, James R. "The Fiction of John Fowles."In his John Fowles: A Reference Companion. New York: Greenwood Press, 1991. 8. Booker, M.Keith. “What We Have Instead of God: Sexuality, Textuality and Infinity in the French Lieutenant's Woman.” Novel: A Forum on Fiction. 1991. 9. Fowles, J. The Magus, Great Britain: Triad/Granada, 1983. 10. Foster, T. C. Understanding John Fowles, USA: University of South Carolina, 1994.

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