Reconceptualisation of Realism in British Postwar Fiction: the Cases of Iris Murdoch, Muriel Spark and John Fowles

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Reconceptualisation of Realism in British Postwar Fiction: the Cases of Iris Murdoch, Muriel Spark and John Fowles RECONCEPTUALISATION OF REALISM IN BRITISH POSTWAR FICTION: THE CASES OF IRIS MURDOCH, MURIEL SPARK AND JOHN FOWLES A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF SOCIAL SCIENCES OF MIDDLE EAST TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY BY BARIŞ METE IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILISOPHY IN THE DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LITERATURE JULY 2011 Approval of the Graduate School of Social Sciences ______________________ Prof. Dr. Meliha Altunışık Director I certify that this thesis satisfies all the requirements as a thesis for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. ______________________ Prof. Dr. Wolf König Head of Department This is to certify that we have read this thesis and that in our opinion it is fully adequate, in scope and quality, as a thesis for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. ______________________ Assist. Prof. Dr. Margaret J-M Sönmez Supervisor Examining Committee Members Assist. Prof. Dr. Nurten Birlik (METU, FLE) ____________________ Assist. Prof. Dr. Margaret J-M Sönmez (METU, FLE) ____________________ Prof. Dr. Meral Çileli (METU, FLE) ____________________ Assist. Prof. Dr. Evrim Doğan (Atılım University, ELL) ____________________ Assist. Prof. Dr. Gülbün Onur (Selçuk University, ELL) ____________________ I hereby declare that all information in this document has been obtained and presented in accordance with academic rules and ethical conduct. I also declare that, as required by these rules and conduct, I have fully cited and referenced all material and results that are not original to this work. Name, Last Name: Barış Mete Signature: iii ABSTRACT RECONCEPTUALISATION OF REALISM IN BRITISH POSTWAR FICTION: THE CASES OF IRIS MURDOCH, MURIEL SPARK AND JOHN FOWLES Mete, Barış Ph.D., English Literature Supervisor: Assist. Prof. Dr. Margaret J-M Sönmez July 2011, 156 pages This study is about British postwar fiction and its canonical reception according to a special categorisation of the novelists who were publishing in Britain during the two decades after the end of the Second World War. The study emphasises that mainstream literary criticism of 1950s and ’60s Britain tended to catalogue the novelists of this period according to a well-established dichotomy between tradition and innovation in which the traditional realist novels, the neorealist works of C. P. Snow, Angus Wilson and Kingsley Amis, were privileged over any other fictional work having modernist innovative characteristics. Therefore, the first published novels of Iris Murdoch, Muriel Spark and John Fowles, novelists belonging to today’s postmodern canon, were first critically recognised as social realist works in Britain. One of the objects of this study is to demonstrate the shortcomings of this classification. Moreover, the main argument of the study is that none of these three novelists should have been classified as a traditional realist novelist. All of these three iv British postwar novelists were reconceptualising traditional realism by self- reflexively including the problem of representation as part of their conventional subject matters in their formal realist novels. Keywords: Realism, Traditionalism, Experimentalism, Modernism, Postmodernism v ÖZ İKİNCİ DÜNYA SAVAŞI SONRASI İNGİLİZ EDEBİYATI’NDA GERÇEKÇİLİĞİN YENİDEN KAVRAMSALLAŞTIRILMASI: IRIS MURDOCH, MURIEL SPARK VE JOHN FOWLES ÖRNEKLERİ Barış Mete Doktora, İngiliz Edebiyatı Tez Yöneticisi: Yrd. Doç. Dr. Margaret J-M Sönmez Temmuz 2011, 156 sayfa Bu çalışma, İkinci Dünya Savaşı’nın sona erişini takip eden ilk yirmi yıl içerisinde eserlerini İngiltere’de yayımlayan romancıların, özel bir eleştirel sınıflandırma sonucu o döneme ait romancılar arasında yerlerini alışları ile ilgilidir. Bu çalışmada, 1950 ve ’60’lar İngiltere’sindeki genel eleştirel görüşün, bu dönemin ronamcılarını, C. P. Snow, Angus Wilson ve Kingsley Amis’in en önemli örneklerini oluşturduğu geleneksel gerçekçi roman türünün, deneysel öğeler içeren Modernist roman türü karşısında ayrıcalıklı tutulduğu bir karşıtlık içerisinde, geleneksel ve yenilikçi olarak sınıflandırdığı tezi vurgulanır. Bu nedenle, günümüzün postmodern romancıları içerisinde gösterilen Iris Murdoch, Muriel Spark ve John Fowles’ın ilk yayımlanan romanları, İngiltere’de sosyal gerçekçi romanlar olarak tanımlanmıştır. Bu çalışmanın amaçlarından bir tanesi, bu tür bir sınıflandırmanın yetersizliğini göstermektir. Bununla beraber, çalışmanın esas tartışması ise, bu romancılardan hiçbirinin bu tür bir sınıflandırma içerisinde geleneksel gerçekçi olarak tanımlanamayacağıdır. Bu üç savaş sonrası İngiliz romancısı da, edebiyatta betimleme sorununa kendi geleneksel vi hikayelerinin bir parçası olarak romanlarında yer vererek, geleneksel gerçekçiliği yeniden kavramsallaştırmışlardır. Anahtar Kelimeler: Gerçekçilik, Gelenekselcilik, Deneyselcilik, Modernizm, Postmodernizm vii To My Wife viii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to express my deepest gratitude first and foremost to my supervisor, Assist. Prof. Dr. Margaret J-M Sönmez, whose constant guidance, encouragement and patience have motivated me to complete this study. My gratitude is also to Assist. Prof. Dr. Nurten Birlik who has always been an academic resource for me with her accurate comments on my study. I am privileged to have had Prof. Dr. Meral Çileli who has thought me literary criticism and theory and has initiated my interest in my field of study. I am grateful to Assist. Prof. Dr. Evrim Doğan whose advice and friendship have made this study possible. My thanks go particularly to Assist. Prof. Dr. Hülya Yıldız Bağçe who has read and commented on my thesis meticulously. My gratitude is also to Assist. Prof. Dr. Gülbün Onur who has guided and supported my study. I am deeply indebted to my family who has always been with me. ix TABLE OF CONTENTS PLAGIARISM ...................................................................................................... iii ABSTRACT .......................................................................................................... iv ÖZ ......................................................................................................................... vi DEDICATION .................................................................................................... viii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .................................................................................. ix TABLE OF CONTENTS ....................................................................................... x CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION ......................................................................................... 1 1.1 The Dichotomy between Tradition and Innovation in Literary Criticism ................................................................................................. 1 1.2 The Change in Literary Criticism towards Recognition of a New form of Writing ................................................................................... 16 1.3 Current Critical Perspective and the Works of Murdoch, Spark and Fowles ........................................................................................... 22 2. IRIS MURDOCH ........................................................................................ 27 2.1 Introduction .......................................................................................... 27 2.2 Under the Net: The Novelist as Unable to Comprehend the Truth ...... 30 2.3 The Black Prince: The Novelist as Unable to Represent the Truth ..... 47 2.4 Conclusion ............................................................................................ 68 x 3. MURIEL SPARK ........................................................................................ 70 3.1 Introduction .......................................................................................... 70 3.2 The Comforters: The Novelist as Discomforted by the Fictional Truth ..................................................................................................... 76 3.3 Loitering with Intent: The Novelist as Comforted by the Fictional Truth ..................................................................................................... 87 3.4 Conclusion ............................................................................................ 97 4. JOHN FOWLES .......................................................................................... 99 4.1 Introduction .......................................................................................... 99 4.2 The Collector: The Novelist as Confronted by the Character ............ 102 4.3 The Magus: A Revised Version: The Character as Confronted by the Novelist ................................................................................... 120 4.4 Conclusion .......................................................................................... 132 5. CONCLUSION ......................................................................................... 134 REFERENCES ................................................................................................... 138 APPENDICES A. CURRICULUM VITAE .......................................................................... 147 B. TURKISH SUMMARY ........................................................................... 148 xi CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1.1 The Dichotomy between Tradition and Innovation in Literary Criticism The critical mood in England has produced a climate in which traditional novels can flourish and anything out of the ordinary is given the denigrating label “experimental” and neglected. The greatest fear of the
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