Writing/Reading the Victorian Past through Spiritualist Séances in A. S. Byatt's "The Conjugal Angel"

ELOPE

卷:7

Lejla Mulalić¹ 

[1] University of Sarajevo;

关键词: A.S. Byatt;    “The Conjugal Angel”;    gender norms;    historiographic metafiction;    metaphor;    postmodernism;   

DOI  :  10.4312/elope.7.1.73-85

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

One of the dominant concerns of postmodern writing is to discuss the importance and modes of knowing the past. The aim of this paper is to explore how the British novelist A.S. Byatt rereads the Victorian past in her novella “The Conjugal Angel” by using Victorian spiritualism as a multilayered metaphor for dynamic communication between the past and present. Spiritualist rituals will also be read as a cultural practice characterised by the playful undermining of gender roles and norms. Finally, the paper will discuss spiritualist séances as a metaphor for the writing and reading of historiographic metafiction seen as a process of restless summoning of and intense communicating with the ghosts/texts from the past.

【 授权许可】

Unknown