Wilfrid Laurier University Scholars Commons @ Laurier Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive) 2017 Narrative Pleasures and Feminist Politics: Popular Women’s Historical Fiction, 1990-2015 Victoria Kennedy [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://scholars.wlu.ca/etd Part of the Literature in English, British Isles Commons, Literature in English, North America Commons, Other Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons, Women's History Commons, and the Women's Studies Commons Recommended Citation Kennedy, Victoria, "Narrative Pleasures and Feminist Politics: Popular Women’s Historical Fiction, 1990-2015" (2017). Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive). 1916. https://scholars.wlu.ca/etd/1916 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by Scholars Commons @ Laurier. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive) by an authorized administrator of Scholars Commons @ Laurier. For more information, please contact [email protected]. NARRATIVE PLEASURES AND FEMINIST POLITICS: POPULAR WOMEN’S HISTORICAL FICTION, 1990-2015 by Victoria E. M. Kennedy B.A. English (Hons.), Wilfrid Laurier University, 2011 M.A. English, York University, 2012 DISSERTATION Submitted to the Department of English and Film Studies in partial fulfillment of the requirements for Doctor of Philosophy Wilfrid Laurier University ©Victoria E. M. Kennedy, 2017 i Abstract This dissertation contributes to a developing body of work on women’s historical fiction and its significance to feminist discourse. Building from Diana Wallace’s 2005 study The Woman’s Historical Novel: British Women Writers, 1900-2000, I offer a modified definition of “the woman’s historical novel” and a transatlantic consideration of several of the most popular titles in the contemporary period, including The Other Boleyn Girl (2001), Outlander (1991), A Great and Terrible Beauty (2003), and Scarlett (1991). Several studies have followed Wallace’s, notably Ann Heilmann and Mark Llewellyn’s Metafiction and Metahistory in Contemporary Women’s Writing (2007) and Katherine Cooper and Emma Short’s The Female Figure in Contemporary Historical Fiction (2012). However, these studies are often somewhat highbrow in their scholarship; they examine prize-winning texts by authors like Angela Carter, A. S. Byatt, Michèle Roberts, Margaret Atwood, and Sarah Waters, but often leave the relationship between popular culture and feminist politics in bestselling women’s historical novels undertheorized. On the other hand, while feminist critics like Imelda Whelehan, Susan Douglas, and Andi Zeisler have raised questions about the commercialization and dilution of feminist theory when it appears in popular fiction, film, television, and music, their studies have not addressed historical fiction in detail. Since historical fiction is one of the most prominent genres of the twenty-first century, this dissertation brings together the discourses of feminist pop culture criticism and theories of feminist historiography to address the tensions between narrative pleasures and feminist politics in some of the most recognizable women’s historical novels of the past twenty-five years. I offer a reading of these novels that illuminates how contemporary writers and readers uphold the ii importance of feminist gains when they imagine the past, but also express longing for aspects of traditional femininity that have been made taboo by modern feminist discourse. My study considers the contradictions or tensions between the novels’ feminist themes, such as the importance of female autonomy, women’s education, and sisterhood, and the various pleasures these texts provide, such as romance, erotic content, reverence for traditional gender roles, emphasis on clothes and other material trappings of femininity, and a focus on affluent, white, heterosexual women. Interrogating the various feminist and anti-feminist discourses and ideologies present in these popular, middlebrow novels, I attempt to add complexity and nuance to existing understandings of women’s historical fiction as feminist historiography, and to consider how and why feminist discourse is shaped by nostalgia, romanticization, and exoticism in these texts. iii Acknowledgments “We never know which lives we influence, or when, or why” — Stephen King, 11/22/63 This research was made possible through an Ontario Graduate Scholarship and a Doctoral Fellowship from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. Sections from an early version of Chapter 1 were published as “Feminist Historical Re- visioning or ‘Good Mills and Boon’?: Gender, Genre, and Philippa Gregory’s The Other Boleyn Girl” in Pivot: A Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies and Thought 5.1 (2016): 42- 74. Sections from an early version of Chapter 2 were published as “The Way We Were: Nostalgia, Romance, and Anti-Feminism in Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander Series” in Outlander’s Sassenachs: Essays on Gender, Race, Orientation and the Other in the Novels and Television Series. Ed. Valerie Estelle Frankel. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2016. 160-169. I am grateful to the anonymous peer-reviewers and the editors of those publications for offering close readings and editorial suggestions that, in turn, strengthened the work of my chapters. My sincere thanks to Andrea Austin, Eleanor Ty, and Katherine Bell, whose careful reading, guidance, and encouragement were instrumental to the completion of this dissertation. I would like to thank my parents for their love and support, and for making sure I was surrounded by books from an early age. I also send my heartfelt thanks to Steven Hill: sounding board, cheerleader, shoulder to cry on, maker of caffeinated beverages... this work and I owe you a great deal of gratitude. And to all the many others whose influence led to or shaped this work, thank you. iv Table of Contents Abstract ............................................................................................................................... i Acknowledgements .......................................................................................................... iii Table of Contents .............................................................................................................. iv List of Figures .................................................................................................................. vii Introduction: HISTORY, FEMINISM, AND POPULAR FICTION Historiography and the Historical Novel ........................................................................... 1 Redefining the “Woman’s Historical Novel” .................................................................... 6 Feminism(s) and Feminist Literary Criticism .................................................................. 14 Feminism and Popular Culture: Working Toward a “Politics of Pleasure” .................... 17 Case Studies ..................................................................................................................... 22 Chapter 1: BACK TO FORMULA: GENDER, GENRE, AND PHILIPPA GREGORY’S TUDOR NOVELS History vs. Historical Fiction ........................................................................................... 28 Historical Fiction and Romance ....................................................................................... 34 Blending “History from Below” with Historical Romance ............................................. 39 The Other Boleyn Girl (2001) .......................................................................................... 42 The Boleyn Inheritance (2006) ........................................................................................ 51 The Queen’s Fool (2003) ................................................................................................. 59 The Virgin’s Lover (2004) ............................................................................................... 67 Selling and Selling Out .................................................................................................... 72 Chapter 2: THE PERSONAL IS POPULAR: NOSTALGIA AND THE POLITICS OF FEMALE BODIES IN DIANA GABALDON’S OUTLANDER SERIES “Sing Me a Song of a Lass That is Gone”: History and Women’s Bodies ...................... 77 v Gender and Genealogy in the Outlander Series .............................................................. 83 The Feminist Body in Outlander, Dragonfly in Amber, and Voyager ............................. 87 Nostalgia and Anti-Feminism in Outlander, Dragonfly in Amber, and Voyager ............ 94 Reading the Outlander Series: Politics, Pleasures, and Disappearances ....................... 118 Chapter 3: HISTORY AND THE THIRD WAVE: YA READERS AND THE NEGOTIATION OF FEMINISM AND FEMININITY IN THE GEMMA DOYLE TRILOGY Removing the Corset: Feminism and Fetishization ....................................................... 123 New Historical Modes: Neo-Victorian and Young Adult (YA) .................................... 127 Rebel/Angel: Gemma Doyle and the Tension Between Feminism and the Feminine .. 135 Victorian Undergarments and Third-Wave Sexual Politics ........................................... 142 In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens: Young Women and Matrilineal History .............. 148 Sisterhood Under Siege: The Limits of Solidarity ......................................................... 154 Enlightened Sexism or Empowered Contradiction? ...................................................... 161 Chapter 4: FEMINIST HISTORICAL