Aporia, vortex and the hermeneutic circle in A.S. Byatt’s The Biographer’s Tale
Bożena Kucała
Jagiellonian University in Kraków, PolandBożena Kucała is Assistant Professor at the Institute of English Studies, Jagiellonian University in Kraków, where she teaches nineteenth-century and contemporary English literature. Her research interests include contemporary English fiction, especially the historical novel and neo-Victorian fiction. Main publications: Intertextual Dialogue with the Victorian Past in the Contemporary Novel (2012), co-edited books: Writer and Time: James Joyce and After (2010), Confronting the Burden of History: Literary Representations of the Past (2012), Travelling Texts: J.M. Coetzee and Other Writers (2014), The Art of Literature, Art in Literature (2014), Powieść brytyjska w XXI wieku (2018). She has also published numerous articles on contemporary British and Irish writers (Graham Swift, A.S. Byatt, David Mitchell, John Banville).
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9882-9305
Résumé
Reflecting A.S. Byatt’s mistrust of the prevalence of literary theory, expressed in her own critical writings as well as in her earlier, most successful novel Possession (1990), The Biographer’s Tale (2000) recounts a literary scholar’s attempt to reach out towards a world of things, as opposed to arid theoretical concepts. However, his biographical project, undertaken as an alternative to poststructuralist studies, ends in an impasse. This article argues that, compared with the developments in Possession, the protagonist’s “liberation” from academia is far more ambiguous; his failed attempt to write a biography illustrates rather than satirises some of the dilemmas posed by literary theory. Phineas Nanson remains trapped in poststructuralist concepts which wreck his project, such as the elusiveness of the self, textual indeterminacy, and the demise of the author.
Mots-clés :
A.S. Byatt, academic fiction, campus novel, literary theory, metafiction, biographyRéférences
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Jagiellonian University in Kraków, Poland
Bożena Kucała is Assistant Professor at the Institute of English Studies, Jagiellonian University in Kraków, where she teaches nineteenth-century and contemporary English literature. Her research interests include contemporary English fiction, especially the historical novel and neo-Victorian fiction. Main publications: Intertextual Dialogue with the Victorian Past in the Contemporary Novel (2012), co-edited books: Writer and Time: James Joyce and After (2010), Confronting the Burden of History: Literary Representations of the Past (2012), Travelling Texts: J.M. Coetzee and Other Writers (2014), The Art of Literature, Art in Literature (2014), Powieść brytyjska w XXI wieku (2018). She has also published numerous articles on contemporary British and Irish writers (Graham Swift, A.S. Byatt, David Mitchell, John Banville).
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9882-9305
