Kim Duff. Contemporary British Literature and Urban Space: After Thatcher. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014. Pp. 208. $90.00 (cloth).

2016 ◽  
Vol 55 (1) ◽  
pp. 215-217
Author(s):  
Kristian Shaw
Keyword(s):  
Urban Space ◽  
British Literature ◽  
Contemporary British Literature

scholarly journals KAZUO ISHIGURO. THE WRITER IN THE ‘FLOATING WORLD’

2018 ◽  
pp. 301-318 ◽  
Author(s):  
O. Sidorova
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
British Literature ◽  
Nobel Prize Winner ◽  
Special Role ◽  
Kazuo Ishiguro ◽  
Cultural Traditions ◽  
Literary Forms ◽  
Contemporary British Literature ◽  
Before And After

Novels by the Nobel Prize winner in literature 2017 K. Ishiguro are analyzed chronologically, from the first novel A Pale View of Hills (1982) to the latest one The Buried Giant (2015). As the article shows, the author, who represents two cultural traditions, the Japanese and the British ones, reflects this quality in his works. The writer himself states that his works were mainly formed by the European literary tradition and, consequently, his novel The Remains of the Day has become a concentrated study of Englishness, one of the most vivid in contemporary British literature. Experimenting with traditional literary forms, Ishiguro uses the stream-of-conscience technique, elements of science fiction, fantasy, detective genres, but each of his novels is unique and is characterized by deep overtones. Some constant elements of the writer’s works are discussed: unreliable narrators, the opposition of memory and history, the special role of children and of old people in his novels, the significant role of periods before and after historic events that are omitted in his novels, and recognizable language and style – compact, reserved and precise.

scholarly journals There are some alternatives: Remembering 1980s Britain in contemporary British literature

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Ella Reilly
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Production ◽  
British Literature ◽  
Historical Novels ◽  
Black Swan ◽  
Tony Blair ◽  
The Public ◽  
Contemporary British Literature ◽  
Falklands War ◽  
The Media ◽  
Specific Interests

<p>This thesis explores how the 1980s haunt contemporary British literature. Cognizant of a trend of cultural production (literary, film, television, music) interested in this period since the beginning of the twenty-first century, this thesis focuses on three historical novels by three critically acclaimed authors: Alan Hollinghurst’s The Line of Beauty, David Peace’s GB84 (both 2004) and David Mitchell’s Black Swan Green (2006). It reads these historical novels as memory texts conditioned both by their moment of publication (mid-2000s Britain under the premiership of Tony Blair) and the moments of the 1980s that they remember (1980s Britain under the premiership of Margaret Thatcher). These novels are oriented around different facets of the 1980s (the high-Tory world, the 1984-85 miners’ strike and the Falklands War respectively) and so, read together, offer a cumulative portrait of the decade. However, each novel is read on its own terms for its specific interests in the public aspects of the 1980s. This thesis is thus divided into three chapters, with each taking a different memory discourse or mode as its analytical approach, as invited by the particularities of the novel it examines. The Line of Beauty is read in terms of the spectral presence of heritage; GB84 in terms of occulted and occulting nostalgia; Black Swan Green in terms of the media and postcolonial melancholia.</p>

scholarly journals There are some alternatives: Remembering 1980s Britain in contemporary British literature

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Ella Reilly
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Production ◽  
British Literature ◽  
Historical Novels ◽  
Black Swan ◽  
Tony Blair ◽  
The Public ◽  
Contemporary British Literature ◽  
Falklands War ◽  
The Media ◽  
Specific Interests

<p>This thesis explores how the 1980s haunt contemporary British literature. Cognizant of a trend of cultural production (literary, film, television, music) interested in this period since the beginning of the twenty-first century, this thesis focuses on three historical novels by three critically acclaimed authors: Alan Hollinghurst’s The Line of Beauty, David Peace’s GB84 (both 2004) and David Mitchell’s Black Swan Green (2006). It reads these historical novels as memory texts conditioned both by their moment of publication (mid-2000s Britain under the premiership of Tony Blair) and the moments of the 1980s that they remember (1980s Britain under the premiership of Margaret Thatcher). These novels are oriented around different facets of the 1980s (the high-Tory world, the 1984-85 miners’ strike and the Falklands War respectively) and so, read together, offer a cumulative portrait of the decade. However, each novel is read on its own terms for its specific interests in the public aspects of the 1980s. This thesis is thus divided into three chapters, with each taking a different memory discourse or mode as its analytical approach, as invited by the particularities of the novel it examines. The Line of Beauty is read in terms of the spectral presence of heritage; GB84 in terms of occulted and occulting nostalgia; Black Swan Green in terms of the media and postcolonial melancholia.</p>

scholarly journals BODILY OPPRESSION AND INTERACTION: A SPATIAL ANALYSIS ON MRS. DALLOWAY

2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 301-310
Author(s):  
Tingting Li
Keyword(s):  
Urban Space ◽  
Virginia Woolf ◽  
British Literature ◽  
Modern Society ◽  
Internal Space ◽  
Literary Modernism ◽  
External Space ◽  
Surrounding Space ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The City

Virginia Woolf is one of the most influential novelists in British literature and also one of the pioneers who leads the trend of literary modernism. Just as artists engaged in Cubic painting and sculpture in the same developmental period, such modern novelists as Virginia Woolf were keenly aware of the significant influence of space on their artistic creation. Therefore, this essay tries to explore the interrelation between men and space through analyzing Woolf’s modernist masterpiece—Mrs. Dalloway. Focusing on Clarissa Dalloway and Septimus Warren Smith, this essay aims to interpret how they struggle against bodily oppressions, namely the restraints and controls imposed on the individual body by the external space, and how they make an effort to interact with space as a way out. Clarissa’s interaction with space involves her participation in constructing urban space through walking, directly affecting the external space; at the same time, urban space also affects her internal space by cheering her up when she walks in the city. And as for Septimus, he integrates into space by committing suicide so that his flesh is eventually decomposed to dust and returns to nature. By analyzing all those, this essay tries to argue that modern society not only makes people suffer from spatial oppression but also offers new opportunities and development prospects, enabling people to liberate themselves from numerous oppressions and create positive integration and communication with their surrounding space, which finally reaches a balanced state.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document