“Between the dead paragraphs of history”. On historicity in the fiction of Eça de Queirós

Abstract

This article problematizes the notion of historicity, working this pro­blematization towards an axial category of narrative texts, i.e., literary characters, as well as the terms through which these characters experience historical events. As such, this article discusses the historical dimension of literature without privileging a historicist reading of literary narrative texts understood as mere epiphenomena of History. In regards to Eça de Queirós, particular attention is given to his fictional texts and other non-fictional texts, to approach the ways through which historicity or fictional modes of being historical are manifest. I discuss different historical references, the level of knowledge (or awareness) of History in Eça de Queirós’s fiction and also the inference of historical information that is not explicit, all contributing to define the characters and the settings in which they exist. Furthermore, Eça’s doctrinal texts represent elements of historicity that run through all of his work and that anticipates or confirms the presence of History, either explicitly or implicitly, in fiction.