MASARYK UNIVERSITY Historicity in Peter Ackroyd´S Novels Diploma
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MASARYK UNIVERSITY FACULTY OF EDUCATION DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE Historicity in Peter Ackroyd´s Novels Diploma Thesis Brno 2018 Thesis Supervisor: Author Mgr. Lucie PODROUŽKOVÁ, Ph.D. Mgr. Veronika NEDVĚDOVÁ Declaration I hereby declare I have worked on this diploma thesis entirely on my own, using only the sources listed in the “Works Cited” section. I agree with storing this thesis in the library of the Faculty of Education at Masaryk University and making it available for study and research purposes both in electronic and print form. March 29, 2018 Mgr. Veronika Nedvědová 2 Acknowledgements I would like to express my admiration and gratitude to my supervisor, Mgr. Lucie Podroužková, Ph.D., for her guidance, kind support, invaluable advice as well as her almost superhuman patience which she provided me with during my work on this thesis. Many thanks also go to my friend, my family, colleagues as well as my students for their support. 3 Contents Contents ...................................................................................................................................... 4 1. Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 7 2. Chapter 2 – Theoretical Background ................................................................................ 10 2.1. Postmodern Theory ........................................................................................................... 10 2.2. A Chronicler ...................................................................................................................... 18 2.3. Image of the City ............................................................................................................... 22 3. Chapter 2 – Rewriting the City in Ackroyd´s Novels ....................................................... 27 3.1. The Great Fire of London ................................................................................................. 27 3.2. Hawksmoor ....................................................................................................................... 44 4. Conclusion ........................................................................................................................ 58 5. Works Cited ...................................................................................................................... 61 4 Abstract This Master thesis examines the application and effectiveness of the postmodern genre of historiographic metafiction in writing of the British author Peter Ackroyd and it focuses on the spacialtempotal area of London in his two early novels. This work provides an overview of the notion of London as an intertextualised city building on the postmodern theory. The assertion is that even though Peter Ackroyd rejects postmodern features in his fiction and he emphasises the inherited traditional English approach, his novels demonstrate and Ackroyd´s work is a typical example of the deconstructed image of history which is redesigned as a living material into a new shape. London especially creates the concept of both original and distinct fictional world. The argument this work makes is that the parallel between Ackroyd´s historical writing and the real history provides insight into the historicity of London. The theoretical part discusses the theory of postmodernism and the concept of historiographic metafiction based on the studies of Linda Hutcheon. It also contains a short biography of the author focused on his interest in London. The practical part explores the ways establishing the essential idiosyncratic features such as a sense of place, a representation of the city as a reflection of its inhabitants´ minds, the concept of time challenging the traditional notion of temporal linearity, and the themes of crime and mystery. It examines these characteristics in two novels by Peter Ackroyd, The Great Fire of London and Hawksmoor, and it attempts to confirm their position within the overall system of historiographic metafiction. Anotace Tato diplomová práce se zabývá aplikací postmoderního žánru historiografické metafikce ve dvou raných dílech britského spisovatele Petera Ackroyda a zaměřuje se na oblast Londýna z hlediska času a prostoru. Tato práce vychází z teorie postmodernismu a 5 věnuje se konceptu Londýna, jehož pojetí vychází z techniky zpracování pojmu města založené na interpretaci textu. Tvrzení je opřeno o předpoklad, že ačkoli Peter Ackroyd ve svém díle odmítá používání postmoderních prvků a zdůrazňuje tradiční přístup v anglické literatuře, jeho romány ukazují a jsou typickým příkladem dekonstrukce představy Londýna, který autor přetváří jako živý materiál a dává městu nový tvar. Londýn vytváří dvě představy o fikčním světě: jedná se o původní a osobitý koncept. Argument, na kterém je tato práce založena, je, že paralela mezi Ackroydovým pojetím historie a skutečnou historií poskytuje vhled do historičnosti Londýna. Teoretická část se zabývá teorií postmodernismu a konceptem historiografické metafikce vycházející z prací Lindy Hutcheon. Dále obsahuje krátkou biografii Petra Ackroyda, zaměřenou na jeho zájem o Londýn. Praktická část se zabývá způsoby, které představují charakteristické jevy Ackroydových prací jako je smysl pro místo, reprezentace města jako odrazu mysli obyvatel, koncepce času, která odmítá tradiční pojetí časové linearity, téma zločinu a záhady. Tyto prvky zkoumá ve dvou románech, Velký požár Londýna a Hawksmoor, a potvrzuje jejich postavení v celkovém systému historiografické metafikce. Key Words Peter Ackroyd, London, British literature, historicity, postmodernism, history, historiographic metafiction, The Great Fire of London, Hawksmoor, rewriting the city, intertextuality, sense of place, notion of time Klíčová slova Peter Ackroyd, britská literatura, Londýn, historicita, historie, postmodernismus, historiografická metafikce, Velký požár Londýna, Hawksmoor, přetváření města, interpretace textu, smysl pro místo, pojetí času 6 1. Introduction The first thing which made me interested in the novels of Peter Ackroyd was my previous studies of History and English language and literature. I realised that these two subjects are very close and this gave me the idea to carry out a research into the topic of historicity and novel. My presupposition is that the area of literature and history is rather underestimated. To narrow the wide topic of historicity in literature I have chosen one target which is historiographic metafiction. For this purpose, I chose a contemporary British author Peter Ackroyd since he uses the works of earlier novelists as material for his own works which revolve around themes concerning the city of London. Peter Ackroyd started his writing career in early eighties and London became the unifying element of his novels and biographies. The word "London" requires cautious approach which springs from Ackroyd´s unique and distinctive retrospective vision and the knowledge of unknown (Sinclair, "The Necromancer´s A to Z"). In his works Peter Ackroyd often covers a wide range of individuals whose behaviour, thoughts, or appearance reflect the actual city; London, The Biography becoming the masterpiece in his conceptualization of the city. He is claimed to be a postmodern writer, but the concept of postmodernism and postmodern writing is a rather broad topic and therefore I decided to concentrate only on some elements of Ackroyd´s works dealing with history and rewriting the city of London. The purpose of this thesis is to explore how Peter Ackroyd deals with the place of London in the context of historicity in his historiographic metafiction. The expected outcome is to prove that he destroys literary myths of historical truth and reinvents history to make it different. He intentionally takes and deconstructs the image of history as a living material which can be moulded and so he reveals us the world we live in. More specifically, the core of this thesis is based on a detailed analysis of Ackroyd's novels, namely The Great Fire of London and Hawksmoor, within English historiographic 7 metafiction that brings into focus the importance of history and its literary interpretation. The overall aim is to understand how literature deals with history of London in postmodern context. In the course of time I intended to discuss primary and secondary sources concerning the theory of postmodernism, historiography, historiographic metafiction, urbanism, and representations of London in literature. I went through electronic sources (JSTOR, EBSCO) and I supposed that various sources bring various opinions on my topic. The core of the thesis is to analyse two Ackroyd's novels which are mentioned above. Most of his novels move in the English literary history of postmodernism. The Great Fire of London rewrites Little Dorrit, a classic novel by Charles Dickens, and Hawksmoor is projected into the era of Christopher Wren when London was rebuilt after the Great Fire. Peter Ackroyd´s novels are not widely known in the Czech Republic. Only a few of his novels have been translated into the Czech language so far and there has been little research into his works. Therefore, my aim is to address the gap in the existing empirical research on historicity and historiographic metafiction. The reason behind choosing these two novels is that both of them were written in 1980s and they belong to the earlier works of the writer, and the fact that both of them cover the topic of London´s burning