Contemporary British Fiction and the Artistry of Space

Contemporary British Fiction and the Artistry of Space PDF Author: David James
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1441145702
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 339

Book Description
This study examines the importance of space for the way contemporary novelists experiment with style and form, offering an account of how British writers from the past three decades have engaged with landscape description as a catalyst for innovation. David James considers the work of more than fifteen major British novelists to offer a wide-ranging and accessible commentary on the relationship between landscape and narrative design, demonstrating an approach to the geography of contemporary fiction enriched by the practice of aesthetic criticism. Moving between established and emerging novelists, the book reveals that spatial poetics allow us to chart distinctive and surprising affinities between practitioners, showing how writers today compel us to pay close attention to technique when linking the depiction of physical places to new developments in novelistic craft.

Contemporary British Fiction and the Cultural Politics of Disenfranchisement

Contemporary British Fiction and the Cultural Politics of Disenfranchisement PDF Author: A. Beaumont
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1137393726
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 243

Book Description
By examining the representation of urban space in contemporary British fiction, this book argues that key to the political left's strategy was a model of action which folded politics into culture and elevated disenfranchisement to the status of a political principle.

Mystery, Murder and the Moorland. Devon-Spaces in British Detective Fiction of the 20th and 21st Century

Mystery, Murder and the Moorland. Devon-Spaces in British Detective Fiction of the 20th and 21st Century PDF Author: Cristina da Silva Ferreira
Publisher: GRIN Verlag
ISBN: 3656614237
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 66

Book Description
Examination Thesis from the year 2014 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 1,0, University of Paderborn, language: English, abstract: [...] This thesis will start with some general assumptions on spatiality in literature and outline its importance for (detective) fiction. The focus will be on the concepts of space and place by de Certeau, Lefebvre and Lotman. Afterwards, in the subchapter on the geographical and physical context, crucial dichotomies of space which have an influence on detective novels will be examined, especially the distinction between open and enclosed spaces. The chapter that follows will deal with three concrete novels of different eras to explore the representation of Devon with regard to the specific dichotomy mentioned above. Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Hound of the Baskervilles (1902) and Agatha Christie’s novel The Sittaford Mystery (1931) both depict Devon in the early and middle twentieth century while Simon Beckett’s The Calling of the Grave (2010) shows a contemporary idea of how this region is perceived. A comparative analysis of these three novels will follow in order to point out the similarities and differences of Devon-spaces, as well as to underline how they together create its overall image. In this way, this chapter shows that new inventions have only changed this location and its perception at the surface but not in its core. Since there are many adaptations of Doyle’s novel, the fourth chapter will take a closer look at two medial representations of Devon and compare the literary with the medial space. The popular film adaptation by Lanfield from 1939 and an episode of the BBC Series Sherlock, a reimagining, contemporary update of Doyle’s classic, will serve as examples. Although many aspects of the adaptations could be compared to the novel, the interest will primarily be in the cinematographic realisation of spaces. Furthermore, the question of how far these spaces coincide with the image of Devon created by literature will be discussed. Subsequently, the conclusion will finally summarise the findings of this thesis and suggest possibilities to expand the topic of British detective fiction and Devon-spaces.

Visual Devices in Contemporary Prose Fiction

Visual Devices in Contemporary Prose Fiction PDF Author: Simon Barton
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1137467363
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 212

Book Description
This book acknowledges that the reader of a novel looks at and sees the page before they begin to read any text placed upon it. Thus, any disruptions to how a traditional page 'should look' can have a large impact on the reading process. The book critically engages with the visual appearance of graphically innovative contemporary prose fiction.

Space, Gender, and the Gaze in Literature and Art

Space, Gender, and the Gaze in Literature and Art PDF Author: Ágnes Zsófia Kovács
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1443867489
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 250

Book Description
This volume explores how the concepts of space and gaze are tied in with social constructions of gender relations. It discusses the gendered body, the queer gaze, the relationship between body and memory, the memory of war, monstrosity, and also domestic and hybrid spaces as key concepts. The arguments within the book connect core theoretical issues of gender and space to well-known literary texts and contexts, like the poems of Sylvia Plath and the novels of Don DeLillo, Toni Morrison and Cormack McCarthy. The collection will be of interest to university students and instructors alike, as an extended introduction to critical and theoretical discourses on gender and space.

Spatiality and Symbolic Expression

Spatiality and Symbolic Expression PDF Author: Bill Richardson
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1137488514
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 321

Book Description
In this volume, scholars from a wide range of fields within the humanities explore the links between space and place and their relation to cultural expression. This collection shows that a focus on the spatial can help elucidate important facets of symbolic expression and cultural production, whether it be literature, music, dance, films, or art.

Aesthetics and Ethics in Twenty-First Century British Novels

Aesthetics and Ethics in Twenty-First Century British Novels PDF Author: Peter Childs
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 1441135561
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 177

Book Description
A fresh set of concerns face the twenty-first century British novelist. In this study of the four key novelists Zadie Smith, Nadeem Aslam, Hari Kunzru and David Mitchell, the the changes in narrative approaches and critical directions of a new post-1989 fiction are explored. Close readings of the writers are informed by a range of contemporary theorists, critics and commentators to reveal the emphases of twenty-first century fiction. Terror, fear, consumerism, multinationalism, and corporatism: the terms circulating in culture and social networks are evident in Smith's faith in ethical living, Aslam's consideration of multiculturalism, the novels Kunzru builds around the politics of identity and in the importance Mitchell places on the interconnectedness of human life. By putting the emergence of a new British literary dynamic in the context of ethical as well as global contexts, this study analyzes the transformed fictional perceptions of a world no longer defined by the stand off of super powers.

The Legacies of Modernism

The Legacies of Modernism PDF Author: David James
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139503472
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 301

Book Description
An engagement with the continued importance of modernism is vital for building a nuanced account of the development of the novel after 1945. Bringing together internationally distinguished scholars of twentieth- and twenty-first-century literature, these essays reveal how the most innovative writers working today draw on the legacies of modernist literature. Dynamics of influence and adaptation are traced in dialogues between authors from across the twentieth century: Lawrence and A. S. Byatt, Woolf and J. M. Coetzee, Forster and Zadie Smith. The book sets out new critical and disciplinary foundations for rethinking the very terms we use to map the novel's progression and renewal, enhancing our understanding not only of what modernism was but also what it might still become. With its global reach, The Legacies of Modernism will appeal to scholars working not only in the new modernist studies, but also in postcolonial studies and comparative literature.

Andrea Levy

Andrea Levy PDF Author: Jeannette Baxter
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 144112473X
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 177

Book Description
Andrea Levy has emerged as one of the most significant and popular voices in contemporary black British writing both in the UK and abroad. Drawing on a familial history of emigration, her critically-acclaimed novels - including the multiple award-winning Small Island - attempt to bring a variety of voices to the representation of black experience in post-war Britain. This book is the first of its kind to be devoted to Levy's work. Combining historical, theoretical and textual perspectives, the volume hosts a wide range of current critical approaches to Levy's fiction. With chapters written by leading established and emerging scholars, the book explores issues of literary form, diasporic literature and cultural value, the BBC TV adaptation of Small Island, while also shedding fresh light on Levy's critically neglected early works. The book also includes a new interview with Levy herself, a timeline of her life, chapter summaries, as well as guides to further reading and online resources, making this an essential companion to the writings of one of the most exciting voices in contemporary fiction.

Immigrant and Ethnic-Minority Writers since 1945

Immigrant and Ethnic-Minority Writers since 1945 PDF Author:
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004363246
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 554

Book Description
This study analyses how immigrant and ethnic-minority writers have challenged the understanding of certain national literatures and have markedly changed them. In other national contexts, ideologies and institutions have contained the challenge these writers pose to national literatures. Case studies of the emergence and recognition of immigrant and ethnic-minority writing come from fourteen national contexts. These include classical immigration countries, such as Canada and the United States, countries where immigration accelerated and entered public debate after World War II, such as the United Kingdom, France and Germany, as well as countries rarely discussed in this context, such as Brazil and Japan. Finally, this study uses these individual analyses to discuss this writing as an international phenomenon. Sandra R.G. Almeida, Maria Zilda F. Cury, Sarah De Mul, Sneja Gunew, Dave Gunning, Kristina Iwata-Weickgenannt, Martina Kamm, Liesbeth Minnaard, Maria Oikonomou, Wenche Ommundsen, Marie Orton, Laura Reeck, Daniel Rothenbühler, Cathy J. Schlund-Vials, Wiebke Sievers, Bettina Spoerri, Christl Verduyn, Sandra Vlasta.