University of Wollongong Research Online University of Wollongong Thesis Collection University of Wollongong Thesis Collections 2009 Material pleasures: the still life in the fiction of A. S. Byatt Elizabeth Hicks University of Wollongong Recommended Citation Hicks, Elizabeth, Material pleasures: the still life in the fiction of A. S. Byatt, Doctor of Philosophy thesis, , University of Wollongong, 2009. http://ro.uow.edu.au/theses/3546 Research Online is the open access institutional repository for the University of Wollongong. For further information contact Manager Repository Services: [email protected]. MATERIAL PLEASURES: The Still Life in the Fiction of A. S. Byatt There are . things made with hands . that live a life different from ours, that live longer than we do, and cross our lives in stories . (Byatt, A. S. “The Djinn in the Nightingale’s Eye” 277) Elizabeth Hicks ABSTRACT This thesis explores the ways in which English writer A. S. (Antonia) Byatt’s veneration of both realism and writing informs her use of ekphrasis, investigating the prominence of the still life in her fictional output to 2009. In doing so it distinguishes between visual still lifes (descriptions of real or imagined artworks) and what are termed for the purposes of the study ‘verbal still lifes’ (scenes such as laid tables, rooms and market stalls). This is the first full-length examination of Byatt’s adoption of the Barthesian concept of textual pleasure, demonstrating how her ekphrastic descriptions involve consumption and take time to unfold for the reader, thereby elevating domesticity and highlighting the limitations of painting. In locating what may be termed a ‘Byattian’ aesthetic, this study combines several areas of scholarship, particularly literary criticism of Byatt and others, food writing, and feminist and postmodernist criticism. It investigates the ways in which Byatt’s still lifes demonstrate her debt to both French writer Marcel Proust and the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood of nineteenth-century Britain. The study also shows how, in her depictions of paintings by artists such as Henri Matisse, Byatt subtly engages with the issue of female representation. Further, it explores similarities between her writing and that of English modernist author Virginia Woolf. The study reads a number of Byatt’s verbal still lifes as semiotic markers of her characters, particularly with regard to economic status and class. Further, it reveals how her descriptions uniting food and sexuality are part of her overall representation of pleasure. Finally, it discusses Byatt’s use of vanitas iconography in her portrayals of death, and shows how her fiction’s recurring motif of Keats’s “Ode on a Grecian Urn” teases out the still life’s inherent tension between living passion and ‘cold’ artwork. ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This thesis would not have been possible without the generosity and assistance of my family, especially my husband Warren and children Iris, David, James and Thomas. Their love, patience and constant support have been invaluable throughout my study. I also wish to thank my sisters Kate Lyons-Dawson and Jo Lyons for their excellent proof-reading skills and consummate professionalism. In addition, I am indebted to my parents Kevin and Eilis Lyons, and my other siblings, Terry, Fiona, Jen and Pat, who have all given me encouragement, academic and otherwise, throughout my life. This study has been considerably enhanced by the opportunity to present my research at the Virginia Woolf Society Conference at Lewis and Clark College, Portland, Oregon, in 2005. I wish to acknowledge my appreciation of the Arts Faculty of the University of Wollongong in contributing financially to my attendance at the conference. I would also like to thank the Willa Cather Foundation, and Dr. Robert Thacker in particular, for the excellent organisation of the 2007 Cather conference at Tarascon, France, during which I had the privilege of hearing and meeting Dame Antonia Byatt. I also wish to acknowledge Ms. Byatt’s generosity in responding so readily and generously to my e-mail query. My supervisor, Dr. Louise D’Arcens, has contributed substantially to this thesis, providing detailed reading and insightful commentary. In particular, I am grateful for her suggestions regarding the vanitas still life and the Proustian direction. I also wish to thank my co-supervisor, Dr. Anne Collett, for encouraging my inclusion of Woolf. In addition, I would like to acknowledge both the assistance of my initial supervisor, Dr. Cath Ellis, and the considerable insight gained from Dr. Dorothy Jones’s seminar on food memoirs at the University of Wollongong in April 2007. Finally, I wish to thank Professor Gerry Turcotte for his encouragement when this thesis was merely an idea. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT ........................................................................................................................................ ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ............................................................................................................. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS ................................................................................................................. iv LIST OF ARTWORKS .................................................................................................................... vi INTRODUCTION.............................................................................................................................. 1 The Still Life and Ekphrasis ................................................................................................ 17 Previous Scholarship ........................................................................................................... 29 Methodology ........................................................................................................................ 40 PART 1 THE LIFE OF ART ...................................................................................................... 46 CHAPTER 1 AESTHETIC PLEASURE .................................................................................. 47 The Proustian Vision ........................................................................................................... 48 The Pre-Raphaelite Influence .............................................................................................. 70 The Bourgeois Interior ......................................................................................................... 81 The Life of Art ..................................................................................................................... 90 CHAPTER 2 POSTMODERN PLEASURE ............................................................................. 99 Framing the Artworks ........................................................................................................ 102 Framing the Narrative ........................................................................................................ 115 PART 2 THE ART OF LIVING............................................................................................... 129 CHAPTER 3 DOMESTIC PLEASURE.................................................................................. 130 The Woolfian Heritage ...................................................................................................... 131 Female Representation ....................................................................................................... 154 The Art of Living ............................................................................................................... 159 iv CHAPTER 4 MORTAL PLEASURE ..................................................................................... 182 Food as Symbol and Ritual ................................................................................................ 183 Food and Sexuality ............................................................................................................ 203 Food and Death — the Vanitas .......................................................................................... 214 CONCLUSION .............................................................................................................................. 230 WORKS CITED............................................................................................................................. 233 v LIST OF ARTWORKS Fig. 1. Johannes Vermeer, View of Delft, Mauritshuis, The Hague ......................................... 51 Fig. 2. Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin, The Skate, Louvre Museum, Paris ............................. 56 Fig. 3. Édouard Manet, Bunch of Asparagus, Wallraf-Richartz-Museum, Cologne ............... 61 Fig. 4. Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones, The Beguiling of Merlin (Merlin and Vivien), Lady Lever Art Gallery, Liverpool ................................................................................................... 72 Fig. 5. Vincent Van Gogh, Fishing Boats on the Beach at Saints-Maries, Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam ............................................................................................................................... 82 Fig. 6. Henri Matisse, Luxe, Calme et Volupté, Musée D’Orsay, Paris ................................... 86 Fig. 7. Henri Matisse, Le Nu Rose, Baltimore Museum of Art................................................ 96 Fig. 8. Diego Velázquez, Kitchen Scene with Christ in the House of Martha and Mary, National Gallery, London .....................................................................................................