Études Britanniques Contemporaines | |
Satire Revised in Light of Thatcherism in Rose Tremain’s Restoration | |
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