Revisiting Noah’S Ark in Julian Barnes’ A History of the World in 10 ½ Chapters

• Authors: Liana Muthu
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

Considering that intertextuality is the text’s property of being connected to other previous texts, Julian Barnes’ novel, “A History of the World in 10 ½ Chapters”, rewrites the Biblical story of Noah’s Ark. Besides the narration accounted in the Bible, new elements are encountered here: e.g. the Ark wasn’t a simple vessel, but a small fleet; Noah butchered the animals from the Ark, animals selected initially to be saved from the Deluge; the woodworms, creatures that symbolize decay, were also present on the Ark, etc. Then, new versions of the Biblical story, all having connections with Noah, the Ark and the Sea are present. Therefore, Julian Barnes fructifies Noah’s story, readjusting it to other spaces and historic times.

Keywords

EN

fabulation; historical knowledge; historiographic metafiction; intertextual relations; Noah’s Ark; subjectivity

• Publisher: Sciendo
• Journal: Romanian Journal of English Studies
• Year: 2014
• Volume: 11
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 98-102

Dates

published

2014-03-01

online

2014-05-01

Contributors

author

Liana Muthu

• Babeş-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca

References

• Bahtin, Mihail. 1982. “Discursul în roman” în Probleme de literatură și estetică, translated by Nicolae Iliescu, București: Univers, pp. 111-291.
• Barnes, Julian. 2009. A History of the World in 10 ½ Chapters, London: Vintage Books.
• Cooper, J.C. 1992. An Illustrated Ecyclopaedia of Traditional Symbols, London: Thames and Hudson, Ltd.
• Finney, Brian. 2003. “A Worm’s Eye View of History: Julian Barnes’ A History of the World in 10 ½ Chapters” in Papers on Language and Literature, 39 (1), pp. 49-71.
• Guignery, Vanessa. 2009. “History in Question(s). An Interview with Julian Barnes” in Conversations with Julian Barnes. Vanessa Guignery and Ryan Roberts (Eds.). Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, pp. 59-72.
• Hutcheon, Linda. 2004. A Poetics of Postmodernism. History, Theory, Fiction, London & New York: Routledge.
• Kelly, Lionel. 1993. “The Ocean, The Harbour, The City: Julian Barnes’ A History of the World in 10 ½ Chapters” in Études Britanniques Contemporaines, no. 2, Montpellier: Presses universitaires de Montpellier, pp. 1-10.
• Pătrașcu, Ecaterina. 2009. Realitate istorică și imaginație. Romanul britanic și american postmodern, Iași: Institutul European.

Identifiers

DOI

10.2478/rjes-2014-0012