Document Type

Article

Publication Version

Version of Record

Publication Date

2018

Keywords

Angels and Insects, historical fiction, novel, British Literature, hermeneutics, intertextuality

Abstract

While most readers enjoyed, or at least admired A.S. Byatt’s Booker prize-winning novel Possession, many are puzzled by her work before and since. This essay argues that the problem is not the novels themselves, but rather the way that reader approaches them. Conventional reading practices for experimental or postmodern fiction do not enable the reader to understand and enjoy her dense, dizzying work. By examining the intertexts in her novella “Morpho Eugenia,” in particular two imaginary texts written by the protagonist William Adamson, this essay demonstrates how the novella generates a different kind of reading practice. Using Byatt’s metaphor, the essay recommends that readers become “perpetual travelers,“ a global model of readership that will enable readers to navigate not only Byatt’s oeuvre and the realm of neo-Victorian fiction, but also the field of new British fiction and the crowded ,media landscape in which it resides.

Publication Title

Journal of English Studies

Volume

16

First Page

91

Last Page

111

Format

application/pdf

DOI of Published Version

http://doi.org/10.18172/jes.3450

Comments

First published in Journal of English Studies in volume 16, 2018, published by Universidad de La Rioja (Spain).

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