Satire Revised in Light of Thatcherism in Rose Tremain’s Restoration

Études Britanniques Contemporaines

关键词: Rose Tremain;    rewriting;    Restoration comedy;    satire;    Charles II;    Thatcher;   

DOI  :  10.4000/ebc.3373

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

In the 2009 preface to her 1989 novel Restoration, Rose Tremain makes clear that the choice of the period was meant as a commentary on the Thatcher years. The Restoration allows her to use the literary traditions of comedy and satire for the portrayal of her truculent narrator, royalist Merivel. A student of anatomy turned courtier and cuckold husband of the King’s mistress, Merrivel is both the fop of Restoration comedy and the traditional satirical alazon. While fool Merivel is a man of his time as the representative of a British literary tradition, his career and shortcomings reflect Thatcherist ideals and pitfalls. His gullible utterance demonstrating his blind devotion to the King also serves to underline, for a contemporary readership, the leadership crisis of our times emblematised by Thatcher. The novel thus combines an endorsement of the genre’s conservatism as well as a typically postmodern suspicion of authority, which raises the question of the intent behind the comic impulse of the book.

【 授权许可】

Unknown