Nostalgic Postmodernism: The Victorian Tradition and the Contemporary British NovelRodopi, 2001 - 248 Seiten Why do so many contemporary British novels revert to the Victorian tradition in order to find a new source of inspiration? What does it mean from an ideological point of view to build a modern form of art by resurrecting and recycling an art of the past? From a formal point of view what are the aesthetic priorities established by these postmodernist novels? Those are the main questions tackled by this study intended for anybody interested in the aesthetic and ideological evolution of very recent fiction. What this analysis ultimately proposes is a reevaluation and a redefinition of postmodernism such as it is illustrated by the British novels which paradoxically both praise and mock, honour and debunk, imitate and subvert their Victorian models. Unashamedly opportunistic and deliberately exploiting the spirit of the time, this late form of postmodernism cannibalizes and reshapes not only Victorianism but all the other previous aesthetic movements - including early postmodernism. |
Inhalt
| 5 | |
| 13 | |
depreciation or homage? | 29 |
When Victorian voices invade a whole | 37 |
On the surface of the looking glass | 49 |
Postmodernism as otherness | 87 |
When playfulness becomes a guiding | 97 |
Postmodern strategies of distanciation | 121 |
Nostalgic Postmodernism the paradox | 153 |
Postmodernism and the past | 185 |
Conclusion | 217 |
Works Cited | 225 |
Index | 239 |
Andere Ausgaben - Alle anzeigen
Nostalgic Postmodernism: The Victorian Tradition and the Contemporary ... Christian Gutleben Eingeschränkte Leseprobe - 2021 |
Nostalgic Postmodernism: The Victorian Tradition and the Contemporary ... Christian Gutleben Keine Leseprobe verfügbar - 2001 |
Häufige Begriffe und Wortgruppen
A.S. Byatt aesthetic Alasdair Gray Angels and Insects Ark Baby artist British Brontë's Byatt's Possession canonical characters Charlotte comic contemporary fiction contemporary novels context conventions criticism culture D.M. Thomas Darwinian David Lodge diaries Dickens diegetic discourse English Passengers epigraphs final journey Fowles's French Lieutenant's Woman Graham Swift Hardy's Harmondsworth hero heroine historical Ibid ideological imitation James Miranda Barry Jane Eyre John Fowles journey of Jane Lady's Maid Linda Hutcheon literary literature Lodge's London Margaret Master Georgie Metafiction metaphor modern modernist Morpho Eugenia narrative instance narrative voices narrator neo-Victorian neo-Victorian novels nineteenth-century nostalgic Palliser's parody past pastiche Penguin Peter Ackroyd playful poets Poor Things postmodern Postmodernist Fiction present protagonist Quincunx radical reader realistic Red Kitchen retro-Victorian fiction retro-Victorian novel Robyn satiric seems social story structure subversive Tennyson's Gift twentieth-century University Press Victorian fiction Victorian narrative Victorian novel Victorian novelistic Victorian pastiche Victorian tradition Victorian voices
Beliebte Passagen
Seite 9 - Hence, once again, pastiche: in a world in which stylistic innovation is no longer possible, all that is left is to imitate dead styles, to speak through the masks and with the voices of the styles in the imaginary museum. But this means that contemporary or postmodernist art is going to be about art itself in a new kind of way, even more, it means that one of its essential messages will involve the necessary failure of art and the aesthetic, the failure of the new, the imprisonment in the past.
Seite 20 - Woman is the lesser man, and all thy passions, matched with mine, Are as moonlight unto sunlight, and as water unto wine — Here at least, where nature sickens, nothing.