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Gore Vıdal's Hıstorıographıc Metafıctıons in the Narratıves Of Hacettepe University Graduate School of Social Sciences Department of American Culture and Literature FACT, FICTION, FACT-IN-FICTION: GORE VIDAL’S HISTORIOGRAPHIC METAFICTIONS IN THE NARRATIVES OF EMPIRE Saniye Çancı Çalı şaneller Ph. D. Dissertation Ankara, 2013 FACT, FICTION, FACT-IN-FICTION: GORE VIDAL’S HISTORIOGRAPHIC METAFICTIONS IN THE NARRATIVES OF EMPIRE Saniye Çancı Çalı şaneller Hacettepe University Graduate School of Social Sciences Department of American Culture and Literature Ph. D. Dissertation Ankara, 2013 iii To my beloved Tarkan… iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Writing a dissertation is a collective effort, and I have been privileged in having had Assoc. Prof. Dr. Bilge Mutluay Çetinta ş as my advisor without whom this dissertation could not have been written. Her knowledge in the field has greatly nurtured this study. Her unending support, tolerance, and patience kept me going in the course of writing my dissertation. I would also like to extend my sincere gratitude to Prof. Dr. N. Belgin Elbir who has contributed a lot to my work; to Assoc. Prof. Dr. Meldan Tanrısal who has continuously encouraged and helped me in this process; to Assoc. Prof. Dr. Nur Gökalp Akkerman who has always been generous in providing full support for me; and to Assoc. Prof. Dr. Ufuk Özda ğ for her contributions to my academic life. I am also thankful to Assist. Prof. Dr. Barı ş Gümü şba ş, Assist. Prof. Dr. Ayça Germen, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Tanfer Emin Tunç, Dr. Özge Özbek Akıman, and Res. Assist. Merve Özman for their support. I also wish to extend my deepest thanks to Assoc. Prof. Dr. Özlem Uzundemir, Assist. Prof. Dr. Meltem Kıran-Raw, Assist. Prof. Dr. Laurence Raw, Dr. Özkan Çakırlar, Dr. Defne Ersin-Tutan, Prof. Dr. Carol DeBoer-Langworthy, Dr. Pürnur Uçar Özbirinci, and Res. Assist. Gül şah Dindar for their support, encouragement, and friendship. I am always grateful to Esin A ğao ğlu for her never ending support and help at all stages of my life. I am thankful to Dr. Berkem Gürenci Sa ğlam who once again had the misfortune of sharing the same office with me, where our conversations led to many fruitful resolutions in my dissertation. I am obliged to Assoc. Prof. Dr. Mary Corbin Sies, Prof. Dr. Nancy Struna, and Assoc. Prof. Dr. Psyche Williams-Forson who generously contributed to my research at the University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA. I owe my parents, Suzan and Ali, for their endless love, support, and unshaken belief in me. Last but not least, I am deeply grateful to my husband, Tarkan. His undivided love, interest, patience, and affection have always kept me chasing rainbows. v ÖZET ÇANCI ÇALI ŞANELLER, Saniye. Olgu, Kurgu, Kurguda Olgu: Gore Vidal’in Gayri Resmi Amerikan Tarihi Serisindeki Tarihyazımcı Üstkurmaca Romanlar, Doktora Tezi, Ankara, 2013. Tarihyazımının algılanı ş biçimi tarihsel roman ve tarihyazımcı üstkurmaca türlerinin olu şumunu da etkilemi ştir. Tarih alanını kendilerine konu edinen bu iki tür benzer görünmekle birlikte birbirinden kesin çizgilerle ayrılır. Tarihsel roman geçmi şi anlatırken gerçeklik duygusu yaratmaya çalı şır. Oysa tarihyazımcı üstkurmaca tarih olarak temsil edilen geçmi ş gerçekli ğin nasıl kurgulandı ğını sorgular. Tarihsel roman ve tarihyazımcı üstkurmacayı ayırt etmek, ilgili eserlerin vurguladı ğı temel amacı kavramak açısından önemlidir. Ça ğda ş Amerikan yazarı Gore Vidal’in Gayri Resmi Amerikan Tarihi s erisi böyle bir tartı şmanın merkezinde yer alır. Yedi romandan olu şan bu seride, Vidal resmi Amerikan tarihini yeniden yazar ve 1770’lerden 2000 yılına uzanan zaman diliminde Amerikan tarihinde yer alan bazı önemli olay ve ki şileri ele alarak kurmaca bir tarihsel anlatı olu şturur. Tarihyazımı ve edebiyatın bir arada kullanıldı ğı bu romanların sorunsalla ştırdı ğı konu ise geçmi şin tarih olarak temsilidir. Dolayısıyla bu romanlar tarihi bir üst anlatı olarak sorgular. Akademik çevrelerin göz ardı etti ği Vidal’in Gayri Resmi Amerikan Tarihi serisi, sınırlı sayıdaki ele ştirmen tarafından tarihsel roman olarak sınıflandırılmaktadır. Ancak, Gayri Resmi Amerikan Tarihi serisi, Lincoln romanı dı şında, tarihsel romanın özelliklerinden farklı özellikler ta şımaktadır. Bu romanlarda Vidal, Amerikan tarihini, edebiyat, tarih ve kuramın iç içe geçti ği tarihyazımcı üstkurmaca çerçevesinde sorunsalla ştırır ve bir üst anlatı olarak sorgular. Bu tezin amacı, Gayri Resmi Amerikan Tarihi serisindeki romanların tarihyazımcı üstkurmaca olarak de ğerlendirilebilece ğini savunmaktır. Bu sav do ğrultusunda, tarihsel romanların ve tarihyazımcı üstkurmacının özellikleriyle birlikte bu türlerin olu şumunu etkileyen tarihyazımı anlayı şları incelenecektir. Anahtar Sözcükler Gore Vidal, Gayri Resmi Amerikan Tarihi Serisi, Tarihyazımcı Üstkurmaca, Tarihsel Roman. vi ABSTRACT ÇANCI ÇALI ŞANELLER, Saniye. Fact, Fiction, Fact-in-Fiction: Gore Vidal’s Historiographic Metafictions in the Narratives of Empire , Ph.D. Dissertation, Ankara, 2013. The conceptualization of history has influenced historical novels and historiographic metafiction, which focus on history as their subject matters. Although these two literary forms seem similar, they are radically different from each other in ideology and style. The historical novel aims to create a sense of past reality through historical faithfulness. However, historiographic metafiction questions how history as past reality is constructed. Historiographic metafiction calls attention to the fact that history, like fiction, is subjected not only to the conventions of narrative and language, but also to ideological motivations. This dissertation analyzes Gore Vidal’s novels Burr, 1876 , Empire , and Hollywood in the Narratives of Empire series within the framework of historiographic metafiction. The Narratives of Empire consists of seven novels, Burr , Lincoln , 1876 , Empire , Hollywood , Washington, D.C. , and The Golden Age . Vidal rewrites American history in the Narratives by focusing on particular periods and important historical figures in American history from the 1770s to the end of twentieth century. Although these novels, left almost untouched by the academic world, are classified as historical novels by few critics who studied Vidal’s texts, they fall into the category of historiographic metafiction, with the exception of Lincoln , because the representation of the past as the official history is questioned in these works. The novels in the Narratives explicitly problematize the writing of history, and question American history as a grand narrative in line with the premises of historiographic metafiction where literature, history, and theory are combined to ruminate on the writing of history. In this context, Vidal’s novels are evaluated as historiographic metafictions to emphasize their critical approach towards history writing. The characteristics of the historical novel and historiographic metafiction are examined, and the changes in the conceptualization of history are traced since those paradigm shifts have influenced the formations of the aforementioned literary forms. Key Words Gore Vidal, Narratives of Empire , Historiographic Metafiction, the Historical Novel. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS KABUL VE ONAY ………………………………………………………………........ i BİLD İRİM ……………………………………………………….………...…...…….. ii DEDICATION …………………………………………………………………....…... iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ………………………………………………………...... iv ÖZET …………………………………………………………………………………... v ABSTRACT ……………………………………………………………………....…... vi TABLE OF CONTENTS ………………………………………………………......... vii INTRODUCTION ……………………………………………………………...….….. 1 CHAPTER 1 …………………………..…………………………………………....….. 8 1.1. PERSPECTIVES TOWARDS HISTORIOGRAPHY ………………...…. 8 1.1.1. History as Rhetoric ……………………………………………….. 8 1.1.2. History as Science …………………………………….…………. 10 1.1.3. History as Discourse ………………………………….……….… 16 1.1.4. History as Literary Artifact …………………………...…….….. 29 1.1.5. New Historicism …………………….……………………….…... 47 1.2. HISTORY AND FICTION ………………………….……………………. 50 1.2.1. Historical Novel ………………..………………………………… 50 1.2.2. Historiographic Metafiction ……………...…………………….. 67 CHAPTER 2 …………...…………………………………….………………..……… 88 2.1. BURR …………………………………...……….………………..……... 88 2.2. 1876 .……………………………………………………………....……... 132 2.3. EMPIRE … ………………………...……………………………..…….. 166 2.4. HOLLYWOOD ……………………………..………………..………… 199 CONCLUSION ……………………………………...……..……………………….. 227 NOTES ……………………………………………...…………………..………….... 245 WORKS CITED …………………………………………..…………….………….. 254 1 INTRODUCTION Gore Vidal, who was born in 1925 in West Point, New York, and died in 2012 in Los Angeles, was a versatile writer whose work ranges from novels to short stories, to plays and screenplays, and to essays and reviews. Although extraordinarily productive, 1 Vidal, mostly credited for his essays rather than his fiction, has not received much attention from academia. 2 As critic Harold Bloom notes in his article “The Central Man: On Gore Vidal’s Lincoln ,” Vidal’s “narrative achievement is vastly underestimated by American academic criticism” (228). Likewise, scholar Jay Parini in his essay entitled “Gore Vidal: The Writer and His Critics” claims that “Vidal has in fact been written about a good deal. The problem is with the quality, not the quantity, of this attention. Much of the writing about him takes the form of light magazine profiles and ephemeral reviews, since Vidal has been a celebrity from the beginning” (1). Vidal’s exclusion from the academic world has been a subject of curiosity, and Jay Parini tries to figure out the reasons for such an absence. According to Parini, one “straightforward
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