Anthem for Marginalised Narratives: The Relationship Between Cultural Memory and Homosexual Narratives in Historical War Fiction
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2025-06-15
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en
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This thesis investigates the relationship between cultural memory and historical war fiction. In order to do so, it focuses in particular on works of historical fiction regarding the First and Second World War that highlight homosexual narratives. Alice Winn’s In Memoriam and Louis de Bernières’ Captain Corelli’s Mandolin are novels that function as examples of such historical fiction. The thesis explores how these selected novels engage with premediations and multi-perspectivity in order to reflect on the established framework of cultural memory regarding warfare, gender, and homosexuality. It aims to demonstrate that In Memoriam and Captain Corelli’s Mandolin practise performativity through their reinterpretation of the canon of cultural memory and traditional forms of cultural memory formation to emphasise their homosexual narratives. Furthermore, this study will show that the novels provide critical reflections upon the exclusionary processes of constructing cultural memory.
Keywords: cultural memory, homosexual narratives, historical war fiction, performativity, remembering, gender
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