The Rise of the Biographical Novel and the Fall of the Historical Novel

Abstract

The biographical novel has supplanted the classical historical novel. What has caused this is a shift in our contemporary theories of consciousness, which radically impact the way we understand and do history. Traditional historical novelists have a positivist approach to history, so they picture the external factors that objectively shape and determine consciousness and thereby make historical collisions possible. Biographical novelists believe that there is a surreal dimension to consciousness, so they shift the focus from the objective external world to the subjective internal world in order to picture the forces that have given birth to major historical collisions.

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