"HAD THEY BUT BEEN ABLE TO SEE INTO THE FUTURE!": THE POST-MODERN FICTION AND THE RELATIONSHIP OF THE LITERARY AND HISTORICAL NARRATIVES IN THE FRENCH LIEUTENANT'S WOMAN, BY JOHN FOWLES

The debates over narrative in literary and historical theories have undergone profound changes in the course of the last years, in detriment, above all, of the emergence of the so-called postmodernism. From this movement, the language began to be perceived through a new look and both the literary making and the historical making began to understand it in its intrinsic relation with society and with art as a whole. From studies in the field of literature, with Linda Hutcheon as the main exponent, and in the area of history, with Hayden White, literature and history, fiction and non-fiction began to move together towards the construction of a greater reflection on the presence of the past in the present. Thus, this essay aims to analyze how the novel The French Lieutenant's Woman (1969), by John Fowles, articulates certain characteristics of the postmodernist movement in its text, taking into account, mainly, the construction of the narrative in articulation with literary and historical discourses. After the analysis, it was realized that literature and history are intertwined in John Fowles' narrative constructing a possibility to read the past from the present.