Fictional Literature as a Source for the History of Experience

Abstract

In this chapter, we introduce different approaches to analysing literary fiction as a source for the history of experience. Novels, short stories, and poems can serve as fruitful materials for examining the relationship between individuals and society, as well as the Zeitgeist of particular historical periods. Fictional characters are multilayered, socio-emotional representations of individuals, created within specific temporal and spatial contexts. Historians can interpret these representations as part of broader cultural scripts or discourses that illuminate how social experiences and emotions are produced, circulated, and shared within communities, and at times challenged. Moreover, fiction offers glimpses into the “borders of imagination” of different epochs. Historians may also emphasise the agency of the author in shaping these representations. Our examples concern the working-class experience portrayed in working-class literature. How can literature written by and for a particular social class reveal broader societal phenomena?