Hilary Mantel’s Negotiations: A new historicist approach to the reconstruction of Thomas Cromwell / 希拉里·曼特尔的协商 ——新历史主义视角下托马斯·克伦威尔形象的重塑

Abstract: "Hilary Mantel has recently aroused the interest of many readers and scholars with her Tudor series，a trilogy about the rise and fall of Thomas Cromwell. Even though the last instalment of the trilogy is still in progress，the published two instalments，Woif Hall and Bring Up The Bodies，have gained Mantel two Booker Prizes in 2009 and 2012 respectively, and made her the first English woman to win the award twice．She then makes an immediate stir in English—speaking countries and contributes to the craze of Tudor tales．With all increasing amount of academic studies on her Tudor series in recent years，Mantel’s reconstruction of Thomas Cromwell is becoming widely praised．But this promising field is still in want of mining and leaves large areas for pioneers to explore.
This thesis attempts to seek the contemporary significance of Mantel’S portrayal of Cromwell with Greenblattian‘‘negotiation”．Borrowed from economic disciplines by Stephen Greenblatt，negotiation now becomes a key term for New Historicism．Greenblatt believes that literary works are the products of collective negotiations and exchanges．To produce literary works，writers have to negotiate with various powers in an occult social network．The concept of negotiation provides a unique approach to study the relation between literary work and its cultural situation，and explore the contemporary manipulation in historical novels This thesis consists of three chapters，besides an introduction and a conclusion. The introduction comprises a brief introduction to Hilary Mantel and the first two instalments of her Tudor trilogy,and a literature review..."