Metafiction and Myth in the Novels of Peter AckroydCamden House, 1999 - 214 páginas Providing detailed analysis of the recurrent structural and thematic traits in Peter Ackroyd's first nine novels, this work sets out to show how they grow out of the tension created by two apparently contradictory tendencies. These are, on the one hand, the metafictional tendency to blur the boundaries between story-telling and history, to enhance the linguistic component of writing, and to underline the constructedness of the world created in a way that aligns Ackroyd with other postmodernist writers of historiographic metafiction; and on the other, the attempt to achieve mythical closure, expressed, for example, in Ackroyd's fictional treatment of London as a mystic centre of power. This mythical element evinces the influence of high modernists such as Ezra Pound and T.S. Eliot, and links Ackroyd's work to transition-to-postmodern writers such as Lawrence Durrell, Maureen Duffy, Doris Lessing and John Fowles. |
Contenido
The Great Fire of London and | 13 |
Hawksmoor Chatterton and First Light | 43 |
English Music and The House of Doctor Dee | 93 |
Dan Leno and the Limehouse Golem | 133 |
Conclusion | 181 |
195 | |
Términos y frases comunes
Ackroyd points ancient anxiety of influence Audrey Skelton believed biography body brings to mind Catholic chapter characters Charles Wychwood Chatterton churches Clement Harcombe Cockney Visionaries cosmos culture Damian Fall Dan Leno death Dee's Dickens Dickens's Doctor Dee dreams Dyer's echoes Elizabeth Cree England English Music evil father fiction Fire of London Golem Goosequill Harcombe Harriet Scrope Hawksmoor historiographic metafiction House of Doctor human imagination Joey John Dee Last Testament Leno Limehouse Limehouse Golem literary literature Little Dorrit living magic Mark Clare Mary Mount Matthew Meredith Milton modernist murders music-hall mythical narrator nature Nicholas Dyer Nicholas Hawksmoor novel Old Barren Onega Oscar Wilde Paradise Lost Peter Ackroyd poem poet poetry portrait Pound Puritan realizes reincarnation royd Satan Spenser Spender spiritual star symbol T. S. Eliot Testament of Oscar textual Thomas Tim's tion tradition tramp transcendental tumulus vision voices Wilde's words writers