« Nothing can retain the spirit, and why should we preserve the shadow of the form ? » : imitation et recréation dans A Laodicean, la perpétuation de la tradition générique en question
As soon as 1881, Hardy in A Laodicean broaches the question of originality through the use of genres: is it possible for a novelist to write an original novel belonging to traditional literary genres (the « Gothic », « Romance », the « Sensation Novel »), haunted by other famous works and authors as...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Presses Universitaires de la Méditerranée
2007-03-01
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| Series: | Cahiers Victoriens et Edouardiens |
| Online Access: | https://journals.openedition.org/cve/10639 |
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| Summary: | As soon as 1881, Hardy in A Laodicean broaches the question of originality through the use of genres: is it possible for a novelist to write an original novel belonging to traditional literary genres (the « Gothic », « Romance », the « Sensation Novel »), haunted by other famous works and authors as it may be ? In that perspective, the book offers a series of wrong tracks and plays with well-known « generic stimuli, » such as the topos of the castle characteristic of Gothic literature for instance, in order to refresh our vision of the genres Hardy uses and to preclude their « automatization ». In that process of « defamiliarization », Hardy also creates new conventions bearing « the spirit of the genre », in order to deconstruct the reader’s horizon of expectations. Thus, A Laodicean focuses on the notions of imitation and creation in the art of fiction and in the perpetuation of a generic tradition. |
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| ISSN: | 0220-5610 2271-6149 |