Transgression and stability in Graham Swift's 'Waterland'

The present article analyses the appearance of two related themes - science and history - in Graham Swift's Waterland. The starting hypothesis of this article is that, since the meanings of history and science converge to a large extent, the joint appearance of these two themes in the novel will exert pressures on the presentation of each of them. After pointing out the shared meaning of science and history, the article will try to show how - notwithstanding the reductive presentation of science in the novel - this pressure results in a creative interplay between stability and transgression, appropriation and alienation, which is characteristic of historiographic metafiction.