Studies in 20th Century Literature Volume 10 Issue 1 Article 9 9-1-1985 Language, the Uncanny, and the Shapes of History in Claude Simon's The Flanders Road Lynn A. Higgins Dartmouth College Follow this and additional works at: https://newprairiepress.org/sttcl Part of the French and Francophone Literature Commons This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License. Recommended Citation Higgins, Lynn A. (1985) "Language, the Uncanny, and the Shapes of History in Claude Simon's The Flanders Road," Studies in 20th Century Literature: Vol. 10: Iss. 1, Article 9. https://doi.org/10.4148/ 2334-4415.1177 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by New Prairie Press. It has been accepted for inclusion in Studies in 20th Century Literature by an authorized administrator of New Prairie Press. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. Language, the Uncanny, and the Shapes of History in Claude Simon's The Flanders Road Abstract Asking whether it is possible to read The Flanders Road both as text and as history the essay studies repetitions that structure the novel as they relate to historical events evoked therein, from the Revolution to the Algerian War. The tangled and looped itinerary of a cavalry retreat finds its analog in the narrative "line"; generic variations emerge when (hi)stories are told again and again; these, and even certain kinds of wordplay make the novel, and ultimately history, seem uncanny. But it is the novel's self-conscious strangeness, as it enfolds historical knowledge, that constitutes a commentary on how history is told and even how it is experienced.