“THE MYSTICAL CITY UNIVERSAL” : REPRESENTATIONS OF LONDON IN PETER ACKROYD’S FICTION A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF SOCIAL SCIENCES OF MIDDLE EAST TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY BY BERKEM GÜRENCİ SAĞLAM IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN ENGLISH LITERATURE OCTOBER 2007 Approval of the Graduate School of Social Sciences ____________________ Prof. Dr. Sencer Ayata 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. ____________________ Prof. Dr. Nursel İçöz Supervisor Examining Committee Members Prof. Dr. Nursel İçöz (METU, FLE) ____________________ Yrd. Doç. Dr. Margaret Sönmez (METU, FLE) ____________________ Yrd. Doç. Dr. Nazan Tutaş (Ankara U, DTCF) ____________________ Dr. Deniz Arslan (METU, FLE) ____________________ Dr. Özlem Uzundemir (Başkent U, FEF) ____________________ 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, Surname: Berkem Gürenci Sağlam Signature: iii ABSTRACT “THE MYSTICAL CITY UNIVERSAL” : REPRESENTATIONS OF LONDON IN PETER ACKROYD’S FICTION Gürenci Sağlam, Berkem Ph.D., Department of English Literature Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Nursel İçöz October 2007 Most of Peter Ackroyd’s work takes place in London, and the city can be said to be a unifying element in his work. Even those of his novels that do not use London as a setting are about London and Londoners, in history and in the present. London, in Ackroyd’s work, is represented by multiple points of view – firstly that of a historical personage and secondly of a researcher in the present day. Through the use of such a structure, Ackroyd parodies biography writing (by rewriting and distorting the life of a historical Londoner), and detective fiction (by making the contemporary researcher ineffectual and underqualified). These narratives, while being clearly separate and linear in themselves, focus on London, which acts as a bridge between the characters and themes in the separate centuries, culminating in their merge at the end. Thus, methods of rewriting in Ackroyd’s work come together in the ulterior aim of rewriting the city of London. The main aim of this dissertation is to account for the various types of rewriting and parody that becomes evident in Ackroyd’s fiction. In the light of the discussions on parody of detective fiction and biography in each chapter, this dissertation will attempt to view Ackroyd’s fiction as a chronological metamorphosis of London itself, through rewriting its artists and their texts as productions of London. Key Words: Peter Ackroyd, London, Parody, Rewriting iv ÖZ PETER ACKROYD’UN ROMANLARINDA LONDRA Gürenci Sağlam, Berkem Doktora, İngiliz Edebiyatı Bölümü Tez Yöneticisi: Prof. Dr. Nursel İçöz Eylül 2007 Peter Ackroyd üç romanı dışında tüm eserlerinde mekan olarak Londra’yı kullanır. Ackroyd’un Londra’da geçmeyen romanlarında dahi, Londra, karakterlerin ağzından tanıtılarak söylemin bir parçası haline gelir. Yazarın bütün romanlarında gerek Londra’ya gerek Londra’da yaşamış ünlü kişiliklere göndermeler yapılır. 1399 Londra’sında geçen The Clerkenwell Tales romanından başlayarak Ackroyd Londra tarihini yeniden yazmayı amaçlamıştır. Yazar şehrin tarihini yeniden yazarken, aynı zamanda Londralı yazarlar ve eserler hakkında da yazmaktadır. Ackroyd eserlerinde yeniden yazımcılık teknikleri arasında sayılan yaşam öyküsü ve dedektif hikayesi parodisi ile metinler arasılığı kullanmaktadır. Bu tezin amacı, Ackroyd’un yeniden yazımcılık tekniğini nasıl kullandığını incelerken, bu tekniğin asıl hedefinin şehri yeniden yazmak olduğunu savunmaktır. Bu tekniklerin kullanımı postmodern dönemde arttığı ve Ackroyd da postmodern bir yazar olarak tanındığı için, adı geçen teknikler postmodern söylem öğeleri olarak tanımlanacaklardır. Anahtar Kelimeler: Peter Ackroyd, Londra, Parodi, Yeniden Yazım v For Müşerref Gürenci and Süheyla Sağlam vi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I am deeply grateful to my advisor Prof. Nursel İçöz for providing me with everything and more, that a student could only hope to wish for – encouragement, friendship, support, loyalty, and guidance. I thank her especially for the readiness and incredible speed in reading my work, and for her hardwork and sincerity regarding it. To Dr. Özlem Uzumdemir, who has had to put up with me as a student for over 10 years now, I owe the deepest gratitude. The optimism, kindness and sympathy that emanates from her has always encouraged me to continue working with a sense of purpose. She will always remain the greatest mentor and role model in my life. I would like to thank my husband and best friend Uğur Sağlam for his love and patience while I was writing this. Most of all I would like to thank him being so lovable, amusing, and adorable that I am able to be myself with him as I am with no one else. I thank my friends Esin Ağaoğlu and Saniye Çancı for their enduring faith in my capabilities, their friendship, and their support. I also thank Pürnur Uçar for unselfishly giving me encouragement even perhaps when she needed it more. My parents Bereke Acun, Peter Crowe and Nuray and Aykut Sağlam have always stood by me with their endless love and patience, and I owe them my deepest gratitude for doing so. Special thanks to Dr. Özkan Çakırlar and Assist. Prof. Meltem Kıran-Raw for their loyalty, respect, love and faith in me. I would also like to thank Prof. İsmail Erdem, Prof. Victoria Lipina, Assist. Prof. Mary Louise Hill, Assist. Prof. Laurence Raw, Assist. Prof. Margaret Sönmez, Dr. Defne Tutan, Dr. Nil Korkut and Gülbin Kıranoğlu for their contributions to my academic life and career. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS PLAGIARISM ………………………………………………………………..iii ABSTRACT…………………………………………………………………...iv ÖZ……………………………………………………………………………...v DEDICATION…………………………………………………………………vi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS……………………………………………………..vii TABLE OF CONTENTS.….…………………………………………………viii CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION………………………………………………………1 2. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND……………………………………..4 2.1 Rewriting and Parody……………………………………………….8 2.2 Writing the City…………………………………………………....20 3. REWRITING THE CITY IN THE PARODIES…………………….....33 3.1 Detective Fiction…………………………………………………...33 3.2 Biography……………………………………………………….….42 3.3 Chatterton……………………………………………………….…49 3.4 The House of Doctor Dee…………………………………………..70 3.5 Dan Leno and the Limehouse Golem……………………………....84 3.6 Hawksmoor……………………………………………………..…..100 4. A DISCUSSION OF ACKROYD’S OTHER NOVELS AND CONCLUDING COMMENTS………………………………………..118 BIBLIOGRAPHY………………………………………………………….138 APPENDICES……………………………………………………...….......146 A. ÖZET……………………………………………………….…….146 B. CURRICULUM VITAE………………………………………….162 viii CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION Peter Ackroyd’s work – be it poetry, fiction, or biography – revolves around themes concerning London, so much so that London seems to be the unifying element of his work. Indeed, most of his fiction take place in London, and even those that do not use the city as the setting are about London, or Londoners past and present. Starting with The Clerkenwell Tales, set in 1399, and ending (for now) with The Plato Papers set in the 3700s, Ackroyd’s works attempt to chronicle the city throughout the ages and comment on the relationship between the city’s past and present. While suggesting that past London continues to function in present London, he rewrites the past of London through the use of historiographic metafiction. Coined by Linda Hutcheon, historiographic metafiction, in its simplest state, refers to the kind of novel that questions “the grounding of historical knowledge in the past real” (Poetics 92), since history can only be grasped through existing texts. Thus it does not suggest that recorded history is false, but that it is up for questioning and interpretation. Indeed, the city in Ackroyd’s work reflects peripheral aspects of the city’s history – underground sects, cults, and crimes – a sort of history that generally goes by unnoticed, if recorded at all. Through rewriting the city of London, Ackroyd also rewrites the lives of famous Londoners, and uses the form of biography and the detective plot as tools of investigation into their lives. As will be argued further, Ackroyd’s work claims that although the past can only be known from textual data, and is thus not wholly reliable, it is always present in, and in fact is indispensible from, the present. London itself emerges as a text in his work, a text that is highly subjective and open to interpretation for the protagonists. There are at least two time frames in the works chosen for this study, where two different periods (one historical, one contemporary) carry on their seperate linear narratives in order to merge with each other at the end. In most cases, these time shifts in the novels are bound to each other through two techniques – the first being the detective plot, as a contemporary detective struggles to determine what has happened in the past and what is happening at the time. The 1 reader is most of the time more enlightened than this detective, as s/he has the chance to follow the historical narrative, which shows that what the detective