David Lodge and Authorial Control: (Self-)Positioning and Anxiety of Reception in the Field of Biographical Fiction
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2016-07-12
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en
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Abstract
The status of authorship had been greatly diminished under the influence of poststructuralist theory about the author, which resulted in an authorial loss of control. However, authorship recently seems to have found its way back into the evaluation of literature. For instance, authorship has gained attention through foregrounding the author as a novelistic character. Fictionalised accounts of the life of an author have become increasingly popular in recent decades, like David Lodge’s Author, Author (2004) and A Man of Parts (2011). These two novels (re-)connect the author to his work, and thereby recentralise the author. In addition, they show that David Lodge is also struggling with authorial control. This thesis explores and discusses three themes in relation to David Lodge and authorial control, within these two novels and outside of them: the return of the author as a novelistic character, self-positioning of the author, and anxiety of reception.
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Faculteit der Letteren