本文是一篇英语文学论文，本论文试图探讨小说中后罗马时代的英国历史重构所反映的现实问题。通过对该时期的战争史和宗教史的重构，尤其是不列颠人和撒克逊人之间的战争循环以及他们的宗教冲突，本论文探讨了在国家建立和国家维持这两个方面上的现实问题。
CHATER I INTRODUCTION
1.1 Introduction to Kazuo Ishiguro
Kazuo Ishiguro(1954--)is a renowned Japanese-British novelist who hasreceived many awards and honors.He is regarded as one of the three distinguishedimmigrant writers in the contemporary British literary world,along with V.S.Naipauland Salman Rushdie.Furthermore,he is honored as“one of the fifty Greatest BritishWriters since 1945”by The Times in 2008.He has been nominated for the BookerPrize three times and eventually got it in 1989.In 2017,he became the winner of theNobel Prize for literature,which further enhanced his international reputation.Exceptfrom being a novelist,he is also a screenwriter.He not only makes acclaimed filmssuch as The Saddest Music in the World(2003)and The White Countess(2005),butalso adapts his own novels into eminent films,including The Remains of the Day(1989)and Never Let Me Go(2005).In his views,novel writing and film writing aretwo“complementary artistic endeavors”(Shaffer 5).
In 1954,Ishiguro was born in Nagasaki,Japan.Nevertheless,he was raised andeducated in Britain.His father,a Japanese oceanographer,was invited to work for theBritish government in 1960,and thereby his family left Japan and moved to Guildford,Surrey when he was merely six years old.
1.2 Introduction to The Buried Giant
Published in 2015,The Buried Giant is Ishiguro’s seventh full-length novel,andhis first novel in decade.It is a controversial novel,and the comments about it are in astate of polarization.Some critics dismiss it as a huge failing.For example,David L.Ulin regards it as a“misbegotten novel,”arguing that it is“too thin,too narrow in itsvision...not fully imagined”(“Review:In Ishiguro’s The Buried Giant,MemoryDraws a Blank”).On the contrary,in the views of Sara Danius,the lifelong secretaryof the Swedish Academy,and the novelist David Mitchell,this novel is Ishiguro’s bestwork so far(Chen 17).Besides,because of its employment of the fantastical elementssuch as magic,dragons,ogres and elves,the novel has always been categorized as afantasy fiction.However,Ishiguro refuses to classify it as a fantasy,suggesting thathis engagement with fantastical elements in the novel is partly for its openness andtolerance.
In the interview with Chikako Ishiguro,Ishiguro mentions that the cruel ethnicwar between the Serbs and the Croats after the dissolution of Yugoslavia in the 1990surges him to write this novel(106).Instead of a realistic historical setting,the storiesare set in a fantastic,ancient Britain where the inhabitants are inflicted by collectiveamnesia.The novel revolves around an elderly couple of Britons,Axl and Beatrice,who sets out on a journey to find their long-lost son through this fantastic land.In thepassage,they meet with Wistan,a Saxon warrior with frightening strength,Edwin,aSaxon boy with unusual warrior’s potentials,and Gawain,an old knight of KingArthur.As the journey progresses,the cause of mass amnesia is revealed.
CHAPTER II LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 Studies Abroad
The foreign researches on The Buried Giant can be roughly divided into twocategories consisting of thematic studies and genre studies.As for thematic studies,there are history,memory and identity.As far as genre studies are concerned,scholarsand critics abroad tend to categorize it either as a fantasy novel or as a global novel
History theme is the most abundant among the thematic studies of the novel.In“Conjectural History in Kazuo Ishiguro’s Novels:A Pale View of Hills,When WeWere Orphan,and The Buried Giant,”El Habib El Hadari explores“the conjecturaldimension of history use”in these three novels,arguing that Ishiguro makes use ofhistorical events and“paint[s]them with a tinge of fiction”(7).The narrative structureof Ishiguro’s novels,as he maintains,is basically formed through the memories ofcharacters,especially the first-person narrators.In“Looking out into the Fog:Narrative,His
