This book explores the postmodernist representation of reality and argues that historiographic metafictional texts, such as Peter Ackroyd’s Chatterton (1987), are hetero-referential in their creation of a heterocosm, as opposed to representational and anti-representational views of art. It argues that postmodernist historiographic metafiction is not simply self-referential, but hetero-referential, consciously revealing the paradoxes of self-referentiality while simultaneously creating a heterocosmic world where the text is capable of referring to an external reality. The book highlights Chatterton’s narrative strategies and techniques which result in revealing the text’s meaning-granting process. The novel acknowledges the existence of reality and the text’s possibility of representation, but contends that reality is a human construct. In addition, the book demonstrates that representation is possible through fictive referents, and thus hetero-referential.
Author(s): Arya Aryan
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Year: 2022
Language: English
Pages: 120
City: Newcastle
Tags: Postmodernism, Literature, Peter Ackroyd
Preface ...................................................................................................... vii
Acknowledgements ................................................................................. viii
Chapter One ................................................................................................ 1
Introduction
Historiographic Metafiction .................................................................. 5
Anti-representation/ Anti-referentiality ................................................ 6
Representation/ Referentiality ............................................................... 6
Heterocosm ........................................................................................... 7
Mise en abyme ...................................................................................... 7
Emplotment ........................................................................................... 8
Paratextuality ........................................................................................ 8
Parody ................................................................................................... 9
Self-reflexivity ...................................................................................... 9
Under Erasure ..................................................................................... 10
Postmodernist Re-presentation ........................................................... 10
Chapter Two ............................................................................................. 12
Posmodernism and the Problematisation of the Representation of Reality
Introduction to Postmodern Theories: Which Postmodernism? .......... 12
The Representation of Reality and its Critique ................................... 16
The Problematisation of the Representation of Reality: Postmodernist
Re-presentation vs. Representation and Anti-representation ......... 18
Historiographic Metafiction: “Re-presenting” or “Representing”
Reality? ......................................................................................... 26
The Problematisation of the Representation of Reality through
Narrative Techniques and Strategies ............................................. 34
Chapter Three ........................................................................................... 42
Heterocosmic World
Introduction ......................................................................................... 43
Chatterton as a Heterocosmic Text The Problematisation of the
Investigation for Historical Truth: Bringing the Past to Life ......... 43
History under Erasure ......................................................................... 55
The Problematisation of Representationality in Literary Realism
with Regard to Narrative Conventions .......................................... 65
Chapter Four ............................................................................................. 77
Boundaries Blurred
Introduction ......................................................................................... 77
Boundaries Blurred ............................................................................. 78
Meaning as a Process .......................................................................... 90
Chapter Five ............................................................................................. 97
Conclusion
Bibliography ........................................................................................... 107
