Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: http://bura.brunel.ac.uk/handle/2438/6558
Full metadata record
DC FieldValueLanguage
dc.contributor.advisorTew, P-
dc.contributor.advisorHubble, N-
dc.contributor.authorBuchberger, Michelle-
dc.date.accessioned2012-07-17T15:30:48Z-
dc.date.available2012-07-17T15:30:48Z-
dc.date.issued2009-
dc.identifier.urihttp://bura.brunel.ac.uk/handle/2438/6558-
dc.descriptionThis thesis was submitted for the degree of Docter of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University.en_US
dc.description.abstractThis thesis concerns the novelist John Fowles and analyses his seven novels in the order in which they were written. The study reveals an emergent artistic trajectory, which has been variously categorized by literary critics as postmodern. However, I suggest that Fowles's work is more complex and significant than such a reductive and simplistic label would suggest. Specifically, this study argues that Fowles's work contributes to the reinvigoration of the novel form by a radical extension of the modernist project of the literary avant-garde, interrogating various conventions associated with both literary realism and the realism of the literary modernists while still managing to evade a subjective realism. Of particular interest to the study is Fowles's treatment of his female characters, which evolves over time, indicative of an emergent quasi-feminism. This study counters the claims of many contemporary literary critics that Fowles's work cannot be reconciled with any feminist ideology. Specifically, I highlight the increasing centrality of Fowles's female characters in his novels, accompanied by a growing focus on the mysterious and the uncanny. Fowles's work increasingly associates mystery with creativity, femininity, and the mythic, suggests that mystery is essential for growth and change, both in society and in the novel form itself, and implies that women, rather than men, are naturally predisposed to embrace it. Fowles's novels reflect a worldview that challenges an over-reliance on the empirical and rational to the exclusion of the mysterious and the intuitive. I suggest that Fowles's novels evince an increasingly mythopoeic realism, constantly testing the limits of what can be apprehended and articulated in language, striving towards a realism that is universal and transcendent.en_US
dc.description.sponsorshipThe Franklin University who helped financially via the Pete Giuliani Awarden_US
dc.language.isoenen_US
dc.publisherBrunel University School of Arts PhD Theses-
dc.relation.ispartofSchool of Arts-
dc.relation.urihttp://bura.brunel.ac.uk/bitstream/2438/6558/1/FullTextThesis.pdf-
dc.subjectPost modernismen_US
dc.subjectWomen in 1950s-60s British fictionen_US
dc.subjectModernism and post modernismen_US
dc.subjectPost World War II British fictionen_US
dc.subjectLanguage and meaningen_US
dc.titleMetafiction, historiography, and mythopoeia in the novels of John Fowlesen_US
dc.typeThesisen_US
Appears in Collections:English and Creative Writing
Dept of Arts and Humanities Theses

Files in This Item:
File Description SizeFormat 
FullTextThesis.pdfThesis2.15 MBAdobe PDFView/Open


Items in BURA are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.