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Author: Martin Horstkotte
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : English fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 226
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Book Description
This study looks at the complex relationship between postmodernism and the fantastic in contemporary British fiction and shows that a new type of the fantastic arises in postmodernism. Arguing against interpretations that view postmodernism as inherently fantastic, it seeks to define the postmodern fantastic as a narrative mode that is influenced by certain traits both of the traditional fantastic and of literary postmodernism but does not simply conflate both. In the first theoretical part, a number of theories of the fantastic and of postmodernism are used to set the fantastic apart from other non-mimetic forms of literature and to create a model of the postmodern fantastic that postulates the totalisation of the fantastic in postmodernism. In the second part of this study, this model is applied to a number of contemporary British texts which are particularly susceptible to this form of the fantastic due to several characteristics such as their muted kind of postmodernism and their frequent construction of parallel worlds. The analysis of these texts focuses on four thematic fields of the postmodern fantastic: the figure of the other as defined by Bernhard Waldenfels, time and history, text and textuality and the development of the Todorovian pure fantastic. Finally, the question of the death of the fantastic in postmodernism is examined.
Author: Martin Horstkotte
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : English fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 226
Get Book Here
Book Description
This study looks at the complex relationship between postmodernism and the fantastic in contemporary British fiction and shows that a new type of the fantastic arises in postmodernism. Arguing against interpretations that view postmodernism as inherently fantastic, it seeks to define the postmodern fantastic as a narrative mode that is influenced by certain traits both of the traditional fantastic and of literary postmodernism but does not simply conflate both. In the first theoretical part, a number of theories of the fantastic and of postmodernism are used to set the fantastic apart from other non-mimetic forms of literature and to create a model of the postmodern fantastic that postulates the totalisation of the fantastic in postmodernism. In the second part of this study, this model is applied to a number of contemporary British texts which are particularly susceptible to this form of the fantastic due to several characteristics such as their muted kind of postmodernism and their frequent construction of parallel worlds. The analysis of these texts focuses on four thematic fields of the postmodern fantastic: the figure of the other as defined by Bernhard Waldenfels, time and history, text and textuality and the development of the Todorovian pure fantastic. Finally, the question of the death of the fantastic in postmodernism is examined.
Author: Patricia Garcia
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317581334
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 204
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Book Description
Arising from the philosophical conviction that our sense of space plays a direct role in our apprehension and construction of reality (both factual and fictional), this book investigates how conceptions of postmodern space have transformed the history of the impossible in literature. Deeply influenced by the work of Jorge Luis Borges and Julio Cortázar, there has been an unprecedented rise in the number of fantastic texts in which the impossible is bound to space — space not as scene of action but as impossible element performing a fantastic transgression within the storyworld. This book conceptualizes and contextualizes this postmodern, fantastic use of space that disrupts the reader’s comfortable notion of space as objective reality in favor of the concept of space as socially mediated, constructed, and conventional. In an illustration of the transnational nature of this phenomenon, García analyzes a varied corpus of the Fantastic in the past four decades from different cultures and languages, merging literary analysis with classical questions of space related to the fields of philosophy, urban studies, and anthropology. Texts include authors such as Julio Cortázar (Argentina), John Barth (USA), J.G. Ballard (UK), Jacques Sternberg (Belgium), Fernando Iwasaki (Perú), Juan José Millás (Spain,) and Éric Faye (France). This book contributes to Literary Theory and Comparative Literature in the areas of the Fantastic, narratology, and Geocriticism and informs the continuing interdisciplinary debate on how human beings make sense of space.
Author:
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9401208301
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 261
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Book Description
Contemporary works of art that remodel the canon not only create complex, hybrid and plural products but also alter our perceptions and understanding of their source texts. This is the dual process, referred to in this volume as “refraction”, that the essays collected here set out to discuss and analyse by focusing on the dialectic rapport between postmodernism and the canon. What is sought in many of the essays is a redefinition of postmodernist art and a re-examination of the canon in the light of contemporary epistemology. Given this dual process, this volume will be of value both to everyone interested in contemporary art—particularly fiction, drama and film—and also to readers whose aim it is to promote a better appreciation of canonical British literature.
Author: Christian Gutleben
Publisher: Rodopi
ISBN: 9789042012974
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 254
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Book Description
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.
Author: Robert Duggan
Publisher: Manchester University Press
ISBN: 1526112043
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 320
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Book Description
The grotesque in contemporary British fiction reveals the extent to which the grotesque endures as a dominant artistic mode in British fiction and presents a new way of understanding six authors who have been at the forefront of British literature over the past four decades. Starting with a sophisticated exploration of the historical development of the grotesque in literature, the book outlines the aesthetic trajectories of Angela Carter, Martin Amis, Ian McEwan, Iain Banks, Will Self and Toby Litt and offers detailed critical readings of key works of modern fiction including The Bloody Chamber (1979), Money (1984), The Child in Time (1987), The Wasp Factory (1984), Great Apes (1997) and Ghost Story (2004). The book shows how the grotesque continues to be a powerful force in contemporary writing and provides an illuminating picture of often controversial aspects of recent fiction.
Author: Stephen Benson
Publisher: Wayne State University Press
ISBN: 9780814332542
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 220
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Book Description
Considers the profound influence of fairy tales on contemporary fiction, including the work of Margaret Atwood, A.S. Byatt, Angela Carter, Robert Coover, Salman Rushdie, and Jeanette Winterson. Recent decades have witnessed a renaissance of interest in the fairy tale, not least among writers of fiction. In Contemporary Fiction and the Fairy Tale, editor Stephen Benson argues that fairy tales are one of the key influences on fiction of the past thirty years and also continue to shape literary trends in the present. Contributors detail the use of fairy tales both as inspiration and blueprint and explore the results of juxtaposing fairy tales and contemporary fiction. At the heart of this collection, seven leading scholars focus on authors whose work is heavily informed and transformed by fairy tales: Robert Coover, A. S. Byatt, Margaret Atwood, Angela Carter, and Salman Rushdie. In addition to investigating the work of this so-called fairy-tale generation, Contemporary Fiction and the Fairy Tale provides a survey of the body of theoretical writing surrounding these authors, both from within literary studies and from fairy-tale studies itself. Contributors present an overview of critical positions, considered here in relation to the work of Jeanette Winterson and of Nalo Hopkinson, suggesting further avenues for research. Contemporary Fiction and the Fairy Tale offers the first detailed and comprehensive account of the key authors working in this emerging genre. Students and teachers of fiction, folklore, and fairy-tale studies will appreciate this insightful volume.
Author: L. Driscoll
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 0230622488
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 247
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Book Description
This trenchant book argues that the cultural attempt to erase class during the period from Margaret Thatcher to Tony Blair has only generated its return as a troubling subterranean element in British literature and theory. Driscoll critiques the way postmodern theory idealizes contemporary British literature as a space of fluid, flexible decentered subjects, arguing that beneath this ideology are clear evasions of class. Offering critical readings of canonized middle-class authors from Martin Amis to Graham Swift, Driscoll makes the compelling argument that the contemporary British novel, assisted by "class blind? postmodern literary theory consistently works to control the problem of class.
Author: Martyn Colebrook
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 1476602921
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 207
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Book Description
This collection of 12 new essays brings together prominent literary experts to explore the importance of Scottish writer Iain (M.) Banks, both his mainstream and science fiction work. It considers Banks as a habitual border crosser who makes things fresh and new by subversive and transgressive strategies. The essays are divided into four thematic areas--the Scottish context, the geographies of his writing, the impact of genre and a combined focus on gender, games and play--and will be of particular interest to scholars of contemporary literature, Scottish literature and science fiction.
Author: Nick Bentley
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
ISBN: 0748630376
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 264
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Book Description
This critical guide introduces major novelists and themes in British fiction from 1975 to 2005. It engages with concepts such as postmodernism, feminism, gender and the postcolonial, and examines the place of fiction within broader debates in contemporary culture.A comprehensive Introduction provides a historical context for the study of contemporary British fiction by detailing significant social, political and cultural events. This is followed by five chapters organised around the core themes: (1) Narrative Forms, (2) Contemporary Ethnicities, (3) Gender and Sexuality, (4) History, Memory and Writing, and (5) Narratives of Cultural Space.
Author: Suzanne Keen
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
ISBN: 9780802086846
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 310
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Book Description
A detailed examination of the growing genre of British fiction featuring archives and archival research, from A.S. Byatt's Booker Prize-winning Possession to the paperback thrillers of popular novelists.
