Representation of National Identity in Successful Historical Novels

Abstract

Study of aesthetic success is one of the core topics in empirical aesthetics (Martindale, 1990; Petrov, 1992; Simonton, 1986). Instead of going into complexities of what makes aesthetic objects permanently or temporarily successful, this study outlines a hypothesis which, in accord with Vygotsky (1971), claims that aesthetic success partly depends on the object's capacity of fulfilling social needs. More specifically, it is assumed that successful historical novels represent an almost ritual history of a national group in a subtle way, thereby providing generations of their readers with historical continuity and a sense of positive identity. By analyzing the two most successful Hungarian historical novels, the study identifies social psychological patterns of narrative composition, which seem to be more or less general at least for Western civilization. Results also reflect some idealized features of the Hungarian national identity.

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Assmann

(1992). Das kulturelle Gedächtnis. Schrift, Erinnerung und politische Identität in frühen Hochkulturen [Cultural memory. Writing, remembering, and political identity in ancient high cultures]. München: Verlag C. H. Beck.

Breakwell

(1993). Social representation and social identity. Papers in Social Representations, 2, 198–217.

Bruner

, & Fleischer-Feldman

(1996). Group narrative as a cultural context of autobiography. In Rubin

D. C.

(Ed.), Remembering our past: Studies in autobiographical memory (pp. 291–317). New York: Cambridge University Press.

Elias

(1982). The civilizing process. State formation and civilization. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.

Lászlö

(1997). Narrative organization of social representations. Papers in Social Representations, 6, 155–172.

Lászlö

Ehmann

, & Imre

(2002). Les représentations sociales de l'histoire: La narration populaire historique et l'identité nationals [Social representation of history: Historical folk narratives and national identity]. In Laurens

& Roussiau

(Eds.), La mémoire sociale. Identités et représentations sociales [Social memory. Identity and social representations]. Rennes: Université Rennes.

Lászlö

, & Rogers

W. Stainton

, (Eds.) (2002). Narrative approaches in social psychology. Budapest: New Mandate.

Martindale

(1990). The clockwork muse: The predictability of artistic change. New York: Basic Books.

Moscovicl

(1961). La psychoanalyse, son image et son public [Psychoanalysis in images and in the public]. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.

10.

Petrov

V. M.

(1992). Evolution of art and brain asymmetry: A review of empirical investigations. In Cupchik

G. C.

& Lászlö

(Eds.), Emerging visions of the aesthetic process: Pysychology, semiology, and philosophy (pp. 255–268). New York: Cambridge University Press.

11.

Ricoeur

(1984-85). Time and narrative, Vol. I-II. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

12.

Ricoeur

(1991). L'identité narrative. Revues des Sciences Humaines, 221, 35–47.

13.

Rubin

D. C.

(1995). Oral tradition. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

14.

Simonton

D. K.

(1986). Aesthetic success in classical music: A computer analysis of 1935 compositions. Empirical Studies of the Arts, 4, 1–17.

15.

Sperber

(1990). The epidemiology of beliefs. In Fraser

& Gaskell

(Eds.), The social psychological study of widespread beliefs (pp. 22–44). Oxford: Clarendon Press.

16.

Vygotsky

L. S.

(1971). The psychology of art. Cambridge: MIT Press. (Originally published 1925.)