DOCSLIB.ORG

Epistemological Provisionality As a Generic Feature of the British Novel

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Epistemological Provisionality As a Generic Feature of the British Novel EPISTEMOLOGICAL PROVISIONALITY AS A GENERIC FEATURE OF THE BRITISH NOVEL MARCUS CONLEY Thesis submitted to the University of Nottingham for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy SEPTEMBER 2010 i Abstract This thesis attempts to identify a particular epistemological stance as a trans-historical generic feature of the British novel, seeking theoretical commonalities across readings of four novelistic texts. Drawing upon conventional critical reliance on realism as a definitive feature of the novel, chapter one examines the dialectical interplay of empiricism and scepticism in the intellectual climate and public discourse of eighteenth- century Britain as an influence on realistic literary modes and proposes that the novel as a genre is preoccupied with problems of epistemology. Chapter two considers Jane Barker’s Galesia trilogy as an example of novelistic engagement with a common theme in the empiricism/scepticism dialectic: the epistemological complications entailed by individual subjectivity. Barker’s thematic emphases on uncertainty, multiplicity, and fallenness coincide with a generically entrenched, and thus novelistic, orientation toward open-endedness and unfinalizability, as articulated in the work of Mikhail Bakhtin. Chapter three associates realism with mimesis, a figure whose tendency toward duplicity and reversibility align it with Jacques Derrida’s concept of pharmakon. Mimesis-as-pharmakon is considered in the context of Tobias Smollett’s The Adventures of Roderick Random. Chapter four shifts critical focus to contemporary fiction -- Martin Amis’s Money: A Suicide Note -- and examines how postmodernist literary techniques, particularly the metafictional inclusion of an author figure, reiterate the novelistic portrayal and exemplification of epistemological provisionality that underlies eighteenth-century texts. Chapter five, with analysis of Ian McEwan’s Saturday and reference to the philosophy of Iris Murdoch, suggests that the problems of knowledge entailed by situated individual subjectivity, as represented by the novel, ii privilege a corresponding ethical posture of deference and openness to the other. In an afterword, these ethical implications are extended to suggest a possible political significance to the genre. iii Acknowledgements Whatever merit I might claim for this thesis I owe in part to the kind assistance of my supervisor, Dr Mark Robson, who, in addition to patiently executing the usual duties of such a position, was unrivalled in his ability to decipher what I meant when I could articulate nascent ideas with little more than mixed metaphors and wild gesticulations. I would also like to express my gratitude to my friends and colleagues at the University of Nottingham, in particular the academic and support staff and the postgraduate students of the Department of English Studies, whose generosity and scholarship have been reliable sources of encouragement and inspiration throughout my postgraduate studies. Further, I would like to recognize the contributions of the Conley and Anderson-McBride families, whose material, emotional, and intellectual support have been indispensable to this project. Above all I thank my wife, Elyse, for more than can be put into words. v Contents Abstract p. i Acknowledgements p. iii Preface p. vii 1. A real genre: Identifying the novel p. 1 2. ‘Discoveries of our own Ignorance’: p. 47 Jane Barker’s Galesia fictions 3. Mimetic duplicity and ‘the Devil’s tennis ball’ p. 117 4. Amis’s Money: ‘A realism problem’ p. 175 5. Helplessly culpable: Ian McEwan’s Saturday p. 229 Afterword p. 285 References p. 291 vii Preface The substance of this thesis is wide-ranging and somewhat eclectic, and so a remark on methodology is due. My aim is not to provide a complete image of the novel, a task better suited to a character from Borges, but rather to assemble a diverse collection of propositions about the novel in Britain and its contexts and to seek out connections, influences, and resemblances within that collection.1 The underlying assumption of such a project is that the various historians, theoreticians, and philosophers whose work contributes to the study are all considering more or less the same thing. In other words, this thesis begins with a double leap of faith, presupposing that ‘the novel’ exists, and that when people talk about the novel, they are discussing either a coherent entity or at least complementary, overlapping concepts. These propositions are by no means certain, and to interrogate them is a worthy goal. Here, however, the existence and potential self-identity of the novel will be axiomatic. This presumption of the novel’s self-identity has also guided the selection of the fictional texts that come under analysis here as examples of novels. If these fictions are novels, they should be amenable to the application of the theoretical and descriptive frameworks that have been created with novels in mind. There is consequently a degree of arbitrariness in the selection of novels to be analyzed -- any novel, to the extent that it is a novel, should do. Nevertheless, the limited length of the thesis, not to mention the limited research capacity of a lone postgraduate, requires a small sample of texts, and so the diversity of 1 It is beyond the remit of this study to take into account the traditions of Continental novels, which involve distinct but not altogether independent interactions with their respective social, intellectual, and historical contexts. viii such a sample is its principal strength. As such, the four novels considered here are distinct from each other both in technique and historical context. All of them resist, to some extent, definitions of the novel drawn from a nineteenth-century Realist template. A hostile critic could excommunicate them all: the first is strictly not a single text at all; the second could be considered a European-style picaresque; the third is an unrealistic assemblage of postmodernist wordplay; and the fourth, with its spare characterization and genre-fiction plot, is an overgrown short story. However, precisely because of the pressures they exert on prescriptive definitions, these texts provide useful instantiations of the novel, or -- as I will resort to writing many times in the coming pages in order to dissociate genre from form -- the ‘novelistic’ mode.2 This is why I have made the decision to overlook the nineteenth- century novel. The fictions I have selected function as outliers, helping to establish the perimeter of the novelistic field, as it were, in a way that an indisputably prototypical novel might not. This is not to claim that nineteenth-century fiction is irrelevant to the theorization of the novel, quite the contrary. The majority of the critical and theoretical materials on the novel that support this thesis rely, whether explicitly or implicitly, on nineteenth-century models. In this thesis, therefore, I am interested in how well those conceptions of the novel might be applied beyond their prototypical foundations. Again, to the extent that the fictions under consideration are novels, such theorizations should apply. The emphases and continuities that arise in the course of this application are the focus of the thesis. The secondary sources are themselves a diverse collection, but their diversity is not intended to suggest seamless integration. No single 2 Further comment on the instrumentality of these fictions to the overall aims of the thesis can be found in the opening paragraphs of the respective chapters. ix field of academic endeavour is host to tranquil unanimity, and to make leaps between them as I do -- sampling, for example, literary historicism, post-structuralism, and ethical philosophy -- is undeniably to take liberties. However, the aim of my eclecticism is not to reconstruct these approaches, to contest them, to pit one against another, or even to claim to reconcile them. Instead I attempt to sketch a sort of cross-section of statements that can be made about the novel, constrained by a concern with generic identity and its epistemological consequences, and to extrapolate from this disparate composite a flexible generalization. As in the selection of literary sources, this method explores connections within variety rather than attempting comprehensiveness, with the objective of plausibility rather than certainty. In sum, the method of this thesis is to seek out the entailments of a proposition: if we assume that the novel as it has been theorized is ‘real’, what might its presence reveal about the way humans understand experience (or perhaps experience understanding)? I hope, therefore, to make some small contribution to the ongoing dialogue about what the novel is, and in doing so perhaps also to make a gesture toward the importance of literary generic concerns in cultural currents that extend beyond literature. 1 Chapter 1 A real genre: Identifying the novel As syntheses of prescription and description, definitions tend toward circularity. Such certainly is the case with definitions of the novel, which arise from the characteristics of the very texts they classify. To posit generic traits requires tracing the commonalities between particular novels, and so defining the novel begins only after some provisional drawing of boundaries is already in effect. (Indeed, using the definite article -- ‘the novel’ -- already betrays such presumption.) The result is a pervasive sense that novels are always slightly beyond the scope of full delineation. The Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms, for
Load more

Recommended publications
  • The Routledge History of Literature in English
    The Routledge History of Literature in English ‘Wide-ranging, very accessible . highly attentive to cultural and social change and, above all, to the changing history of the language. An expansive, generous and varied textbook of British literary history . addressed equally to the British and the foreign reader.’ MALCOLM BRADBURY, novelist and critic ‘The writing is lucid and eminently accessible while still allowing for a substantial degree of sophistication. The book wears its learning lightly, conveying a wealth of information without visible effort.’ HANS BERTENS, University of Utrecht This new guide to the main developments in the history of British and Irish literature uniquely charts some of the principal features of literary language development and highlights key language topics. Clearly structured and highly readable, it spans over a thousand years of literary history from AD 600 to the present day. It emphasises the growth of literary writing, its traditions, conventions and changing characteristics, and also includes literature from the margins, both geographical and cultural. Key features of the book are: • An up-to-date guide to the major periods of literature in English in Britain and Ireland • Extensive coverage of post-1945 literature • Language notes spanning AD 600 to the present • Extensive quotations from poetry, prose and drama • A timeline of important historical, political and cultural events • A foreword by novelist and critic Malcolm Bradbury RONALD CARTER is Professor of Modern English Language in the Department of English Studies at the University of Nottingham. He is editor of the Routledge Interface series in language and literary studies. JOHN MCRAE is Special Professor of Language in Literature Studies at the University of Nottingham and has been Visiting Professor and Lecturer in more than twenty countries.
    [Show full text]
  • Redgrove Papers: Letters
    Redgrove Papers: letters Archive Date Sent To Sent By Item Description Ref. No. Noel Peter Answer to Kantaris' letter (page 365) offering back-up from scientific references for where his information came 1 . 01 27/07/1983 Kantaris Redgrove from - this letter is pasted into Notebook one, Ref No 1, on page 365. Peter Letter offering some book references in connection with dream, mesmerism, and the Unconscious - this letter is 1 . 01 07/09/1983 John Beer Redgrove pasted into Notebook one, Ref No 1, on page 380. Letter thanking him for a review in the Times (entitled 'Rhetoric, Vision, and Toes' - Nye reviews Robert Lowell's Robert Peter 'Life Studies', Peter Redgrove's 'The Man Named East', and Gavin Ewart's 'The Young Pobbles Guide To His Toes', 1 . 01 11/05/1985 Nye Redgrove Times, 25th April 1985, p. 11); discusses weather-sensitivity, and mentions John Layard. This letter is pasted into Notebook one, Ref No 1, on page 373. Extract of a letter to Latham, discussing background work on 'The Black Goddess', making reference to masers, John Peter 1 . 01 16/05/1985 pheromones, and field measurements in a disco - this letter is pasted into Notebook one, Ref No 1, on page 229 Latham Redgrove (see 73 . 01 record). John Peter Same as letter on page 229 but with six and a half extra lines showing - this letter is pasted into Notebook one, Ref 1 . 01 16/05/1985 Latham Redgrove No 1, on page 263 (this is actually the complete letter without Redgrove's signature - see 73 .
    [Show full text]
  • Illusion and Reality in the Fiction of Iris Murdoch: a Study of the Black Prince, the Sea, the Sea and the Good Apprentice
    ILLUSION AND REALITY IN THE FICTION OF IRIS MURDOCH: A STUDY OF THE BLACK PRINCE, THE SEA, THE SEA AND THE GOOD APPRENTICE by REBECCA MODEN A thesis submitted to the University of Birmingham for the degree of MASTER OF PHILOSOPHY (Mode B) Department of English School of English, Drama and American and Canadian Studies University of Birmingham September 2011 University of Birmingham Research Archive e-theses repository This unpublished thesis/dissertation is copyright of the author and/or third parties. The intellectual property rights of the author or third parties in respect of this work are as defined by The Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 or as modified by any successor legislation. Any use made of information contained in this thesis/dissertation must be in accordance with that legislation and must be properly acknowledged. Further distribution or reproduction in any format is prohibited without the permission of the copyright holder. ABSTRACT This thesis considers how Iris Murdoch radically reconceptualises the possibilities of realism through her interrogation of the relationship between life and art. Her awareness of the unreality of realist conventions leads her to seek new forms of expression, resulting in daring experimentation with form and language, exploration of the relationship between author and character, and foregrounding of the artificiality of the text. She exposes the limitations of language, thereby involving herself with issues associated with the postmodern aesthetic. The Black Prince is an artistic manifesto in which Murdoch repeatedly destroys the illusion of the reality of the text in her attempts to make language communicate truth. Whereas The Black Prince sees Murdoch contemplating Hamlet, The Sea, The Sea meditates on The Tempest, as Murdoch returns to Shakespeare in order to examine the relationship between life and art.
    [Show full text]
  • `The Campus Novel`: Kingsley Amis, Malcolm Bradbury, David Lodge – a Comparative Study
    `The Campus Novel`: Kingsley Amis, Malcolm Bradbury, David Lodge – a comparative study Lucie Mohelníková Bachelor Thesis 2009 ***scanned submission page 2*** ABSTRAKT Hlavním zám ěrem této práce nebylo pouze p řiblížit žánr “univerzitního románu” a jeho nejznám ější britské autory, ale také vysv ětlit a ukázat, pro č se univerzitní romány Kingsleyho Amise a jeho následovník ů Malcolma Bradburyho a Davida Lodge t ěší tak velké popularit ě. Každý z t ěchto autor ů m ěl sv ůj osobitý styl psaní a vytvo řil nezapomenutelný satirický román. Klí čová slova: rozlobení mladí muži, Hnutí, Jim Dixon, Stuart Treece, Phillip Swallow, Morris Zapp, univerzitní román ABSTRACT The main intention of this thesis is not only to introduce the genre of “campus novel” and its most known British authors but also to explain and demonstrate why the campus novels by Kingsley Amis and his successors Malcolm Bradbury and David Lodge are that much popular. Each of these authors had his own individual style of writing and created an unforgettable satiric novel. Keywords: Angry Young Men, The Movement, Jim Dixon, Stuart Treece, Phillip Swallow, Morris Zapp, campus novel ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank my supervisor Mgr. Barbora Kašpárková for her kind help and guidance throughout my thesis. DECLARATION OF ORIGINALITY I hereby declare that the work presented in this thesis is my own and certify that any secondary material used has been acknowledged in the text and listed in the bibliography. March 13, 2009 …………………………………… CONTENT 1 CAMPUS NOVEL ........................................................................................................9
    [Show full text]
  • Poetic Madness in Malcolm Bradbury's Eating People Is Wrong
    Poetic Madness 5 ___ 10.2478/abcsj-2021-0002 Poetic Madness in Malcolm Bradbury’s Eating People Is Wrong NOUREDDINE FRIJI King Abdulaziz University, Saudi Arabia Abstract This article addresses the age-old correlation between poetic genius and madness as represented in Malcolm Bradbury’s academic novel Eating People Is Wrong (1959), zeroing in on a student-cum-poet and a novelist- cum-poet called Louis Bates and Carey Willoughby, respectively. While probing this unexplored theme in Bradbury’s novel, I pursue three primary aims. To begin with, I seek to demonstrate that certain academics’ tendency to fuse or confuse the poetic genius of their students and colleagues with madness is not only rooted in inherited assumptions, generalizations, and exaggerations but also in their own antipathy towards poets on the grounds that they persistently diverge from social norms. Second, I endeavour to ignite readers’ enthusiasm about the academic novel subgenre by underscoring the vital role it plays in energizing scholarly debate about the appealing theme of poetic madness. Lastly, the study concedes that notwithstanding the prevalence of prejudice among their populations, universities, on the whole, do not relinquish their natural veneration for originality, discordant views, and rewarding dialogue. Keywords: academic novel, genius, poetic madness, Malcolm Bradbury, originality, critical thinking Much Madness is divinest Sense – To a discerning Eye – Much Sense – the starkest Madness – ’Tis the Majority In this, as All, prevail – Assent – and you
    [Show full text]
  • Doktori Disszertáció
    Eötvös Loránd Tudományegyetem Bölcsészettudományi Kar DOKTORI DISSZERTÁCIÓ Székely Péter The Academic Novel in the Age of Postmodernity: The Anglo-American Metafictional Academic Novel Irodalomtudományi Doktori Iskola, A doktori Iskola vezetője: Dr. Kulcsár Szabó Ernő Modern Angol és Amerikai Irodalom Program, A program vezetője: Dr. Sarbu Aladár A bizottság tagjai és tudományos fokozatuk: Elnök: Dr. Kállay Géza PhD., dr. habil., egyetemi tanár Hivatalosan felkért bírálók: Dr. Fülöp Zsuzsanna CSc., egyetemi docens Dr. Sarbu Aladár DSc., egyetemi tanár Titkár: Dr. Farkas Ákos PhD., egyetemi docens További tagok: Dr. Bényei Tamás PhD. CSc., dr. habil., egyetemi docens Dr. Péteri Éva PhD., egyetemi adjunktus Dr. Takács Ferenc PhD., egyetemi docens Témavezető és tudományos fokozata: Dr. Dávidházi Péter DSc., dr. habil., egyetemi tanár Budapest, 2009 Contents INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................................ 4 I. WHAT IS AN ACADEMIC NOVEL? .......................................................................................... 11 1.1. NOMENCLATURE ................................................................................................................................. 11 1.2. THE DIFFICULTIES OF DEFINING ACADEMIC FICTION ................................................................................ 12 1.2.1. THE STEREOTYPICAL NOTION OF THE ACADEMIC NOVEL ............................................................................ 12 1.2.2.
    [Show full text]
  • Malcolm Bradbury and the Creation of Creative Writing at UEA ABSTRACT When Did Creative Writing Cour
    Lise Jaillant Myth Maker: Malcolm Bradbury and the Creation of Creative Writing at UEA1 ABSTRACT When did creative writing courses really appear in the UK? The usual story is that the first creative writing programme was launched in 1970 at the University of East Anglia, under the leadership of Malcolm Bradbury. Ian McEwan is often presented as the first student in creative writing, a role he has always rejected – insisting that he studied for an MA in literature with the option to submit creative work for the final dissertation. As Kathryn Holeywell has shown, creative writing was already offered for assessment at UEA in the 1960s. This article tells a more complete history of creative writing in Britain, a history that takes into account the experimentations of the 1960s and the rise of literary prizes in the 1980s – without ignoring Bradbury’s important role. KEYWORDS: Creative writing in literature courses; literary prizes; celebrity; writing communities The story is familiar and goes something like this: in 1970, the young Ian McEwan saw an announcement for a new postgraduate course in creative writing at the University of East Anglia. He gave a call to Professor Malcolm Bradbury, sent a writing sample, and became the first (and only) student of the first MA in creative writing in the UK. McEwan, of course, went on to become one of the most successful British writers of literary fiction. And Bradbury was knighted in 2000, shortly before his death, for his services to literature. This is a good story, which emphasises the extraordinary luck of both McEwan and Bradbury.
    [Show full text]
  • The Short Story Anthology: Shaping the Canon Lynda Prescott
    33 The Short Story Anthology: Shaping the Canon lynda prescott One of the ways in which short stories are like poems (rather than like novels) is that they lend themselves to being collected for publication in anthologies. According to the Oxford English Dictionary the original mean- ing of ‘anthology’,inancientGreek,was‘acollectionoftheflowers of verse, i.e. small choice poems, esp. epigrams, by various authors’.Infact, ‘flowers’ and ‘choice’ areappropriatetermsforthefirst literary anthologies in Britain that appeared during the publishing boom of the second quarter of the nineteenth century: these were gift-books, containing a mix of poetry and prose that would be suitable for young women readers. Annuals such as The Keepsake were designed as elegant, illustrated gift-books, published each autumn in time for Christmas and New Year present-giving. The Keepsake, which ran from 1828 to 1857, enjoyed enor- mous sales figures and included in its roster of contributors some of the best-known writers of the day, including Walter Scott, Harrison Ainsworth and Mary Shelley (most of Shelley’s short fiction was first published in this way). The concept of annual short story anthologies has remained an important one in the development of the genre: sifting and circulating stories in yearly compilations helps to maintain the genre’s visibility in the literary marketplace as a form of writing which is ‘of the moment’.But there are numerous cross-currents in the tide of anthologies that regularly wash the shorelines of bookshops, classrooms or the virtual fringes of the Internet, and more specialized collections range across named periods, places,themesorsub-genres.Although the majority of short story anthologies are commercially oriented, often featuring specificgenres such as fantasy or ghost stories, literary anthologies can occupy influential spaces in terms of helping to shape tradition.
    [Show full text]
  • LIVING with a WRITER Also by Dale Salwak
    LIVING WITH A WRITER Also by Dale Salwak KINGSLEY AMIS: A REFERENCE GUIDE JOHN BRAINE AND JOHN WAIN: A REFERENCE GUIDE JOHN WAIN A. J. CRONIN: A REFERENCE GUIDE LITERARY VOICES: INTERVIEWS WITH BRITAIN’S ‘ANGRY YOUNG MEN’ A. J. CRONIN THE LIFE AND WORK OF BARBARA PYM (editor) CARL SANDBURG: A REFERENCE GUIDE PHILIP LARKIN: THE MAN AND HIS WORK (editor) KINGSLEY AMIS: IN LIFE AND LETTERS (editor) BARBARA PYM: A REFERENCE GUIDE MYSTERY VOICES: INTERVIEWS WITH BRITISH CRIME WRITERS KINGSLEY AMIS, MODERN NOVELIST ANNE TYLER AS NOVELIST (editor) THE WONDERS OF SOLITUDE THE WORDS OF CHRIST THE WISDOM OF JUDAISM THE LITERARY BIOGRAPHY: PROBLEMS AND SOLUTIONS (editor) THE POWER OF PRAYER A PASSION FOR BOOKS (editor) LIVING WITH A WRITER Edited by DALE SALWAK Professor of English Citrus College California Chapter 1 © Malcolm Bradbury Estate 1988 Selection, editorial matter, Preface and Conclusion © Dale Salwak 2004 Individual chapters (in order) © Ann Thwaite; Paul Theroux; Edmund Morris; Michael Holroyd; Margaret Drabble; William Golding Ltd and Judy Carver; John Halperin; George Howe Colt; John Updike; David Updike; Catherine Aird; Brian Aldiss; Kathleen Symons; Frances H. Bachelder; James J. Berg; John Bayley; Felix Licensing BV and Nadine Gordimer 2004 and by permission of Russell & Volkening as agents for the author; Amanda Craig; Anne Bernays and Justin Kaplan; Jeffrey Meyers; Mary Ann Caws; Laurel Young; Betty Fussell; Rob Rollison; Hershel Parker 2004 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2004 978-1-4039-0476-8 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1T 4LP.
    [Show full text]
  • The Record 2019/20
    The Record 2019/20 The Record 2019/20 contents 5 Letter from the Warden 6 Fellows and Academic Staff 9 Fellowship Elections and Appointments 10 Non-academic Staff 13 JCR and MCR Committees 14 Matriculation 20 Undergraduate Scholarships 22 College Awards and Prizes 24 Academic Distinctions 27 Higher Degrees 28 Fellows’ Publications 36 Sports and Games 40 Clubs and Societies 41 The Chapel 41 Parishes Update 41 Bursar’s Update 42 Gifts to the Library and Archive 43 Fellows’ Obituaries 46 Alumni Obituaries 62 News of Alumni letter from the warden When I wrote this letter last year we had just had the official opening of the H B Allen Centre by HRH the Duke of Cambridge at the beginning of what we expected to be a marvellous year of celebration of the College’s 150th anniversary. The impact of COVID-19 means that this year’s perspective is gloomier. Over the summer we initiated a redundancy programme for our non-academic staff in response to the financial impact and the operational consequences of the pandemic. We also spent a great deal of time planning for the return of students for Michaelmas Term with as much attention to sustaining the positive aspects of their experience as public health restrictions will allow. Unsurprisingly there is an atmosphere of uncertainty about how the external context will influence what happens. We recognise that we are unlikely to see a full return to anything like our previous normality in the course of this academic year. However, I do need to record changes in the Fellowship in the usual way.
    [Show full text]
  • The “Small World” of Malcolm Bradbury
    Marija Č. Letić*1 https://doi.org/10.18485/analiff.2020.32.1.2 University of East Sarajevo 821.111.09-31 Faculty of Philosophy Originalni naučni rad English Language and Literature Department Primljen: 10.02.2020. Prihvaćen: 15.05.2020. THE “SMALL WORLD” OF MALCOLM BRADBURY Malcolm Bradbury’s novel The History Man (1975) represents one of the most famous campus novels in English. His interest in the university setting started in the fifties with his first novel Eating People is Wrong (1959) and it was finalized with his most famous university novelThe History Man. In this paper we will pay attention to Bradbury’s satirical perspective on the university life. Key words: campus novel, satire, humour, university. Introduction When the name of Malcolm Bradbury (1932-2000) is mentioned, one remembers his famous scholarly works on literary history, such as The Modern American Novel (1983), The Modern British Novel (1993), or the study of modern fiction called No, Not Bloomsbury (1997). Moreover, he was a university professor for more than three decades, which provides him with an excellent point of view on university issues. So, the famous historian of literature, university professor, and writer tells a story about a reformed university in England. Our aim is to see the university life in the novel The History Man (1975) through the lens of “a writer in an age of challenged humanism” (Knapp 345: 1989), as Bradbury referred to himself. The title of the paper “small world” we borrowed from David Lodge’s article “Lord of Misrule.” Lodge, a theoretician of literature and a novelist himself, implies that this novel should be put in historical context because its “small world of the university is a stage for the dramatization and examination of larger issues” (Lodge 2008, internet).
    [Show full text]
  • Τhe Explicitness of a Language Teacher in Literary Criticism
    March 2015 Social Sciences ΤHE EXPLICITNESS OF A LANGUAGE TEACHER IN LITERARY CRITICISM. MALCOLM BRADBURY AND THE LANGUAGE OF CRITICISM Elena BRAN1 ABSTRACT: MALCOLM BRADBURY WAS ONE OF THE MOST PROLIFIC BRITISH WRITERS, WHO SUCCESSFULLY MANAGED TO COMBINE WRITING LITERARY CRITICISM, FICTION, SCRIPT ADAPTATION AND TEACHING. THE OBJECTIVES OF THIS PAPER ARE TO EMPHASIZE THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE LANGUAGE OF A TEACHER AND THE MAIN CHARACTERISTICS OF BRADBURY’S LANGUAGE IN CRITICISM. THE MAIN STRATEGY OF REACHING THESE AIMS IS TO APPLY A COGNITIVE STYLISTICS APPROACH ON HIS WORKS OF CRITICISM, AND TO TRY TO REFER TO THE THEORY OF COGNITIVE SCHEMATA WHEN DEALING WITH HIS TEACHING EXPERIENCE. THE FIRST PREMISE THAT INSPIRED THIS PAPER GOES BACK TO BRADBURY’S FIRST YEARS OF WRITING, WHEN HE WROTE HUMOROUS SKETCHES, AND THIS HAD AN IMPACT OVER THE WORK THAT WAS TO COME. BY MEANS OF COGNITIVE STYLISTICS, WE GO BACK TO THE TEXT ANALYSIS AND WE SHALL IDENTIFY SOME OF THE MAJOR CHARACTERISTICS OF HIS STYLE, AS A CRITIC. WE DECIDED TO DEAL WITH LITERARY CRITICISM AS BRADBURY’S EFFECTIVENESS OF EXPLANATION AND COMIC PERSPECTIVE OVER THE NOVEL DIFFERS FROM WHAT IS USUALLY EXPECTED FROM A LITERARY CRITIC. WE CONSIDER THAT THIS HAPPENED BECAUSE OF HIS TEACHING BACKGROUND, WHICH REQUIRED HIM CERTAIN EXPLICITNESS AND CLARITY OF SPEECH AND THOUGHT. KEYWORDS: THE LANGUAGE OF A TEACHER, COGNITIVE SCHEMATA, LITERARY CRITICISM I. WHO WAS FIRST: THE TEACHER OR THE LITERARY CRITIC? All throughout his career, Malcolm Bradbury manifested a keen interest in the recent critical theories, which at times raised the debate over the expression of criticism in the novels.
    [Show full text]