AUC Philologica (Acta Universitatis Carolinae Philologica) is an academic journal published by Charles University. It publishes scholarly articles in a large number of disciplines (English, German, Greek and Latin, Oriental, Romance and Slavonic studies, as well as in phonetics and translation studies), both on linguistic and on literary and cultural topics. Apart from articles it publishes reviews of new academic books or special issues of academic journals.
The journal is indexed in CEEOL, DOAJ, EBSCO, and ERIH PLUS.
AUC PHILOLOGICA, Vol 2016 No 1 (2016), 123–135
Metafictionality, Intertextuality, Discursivity: Ian McEwan’s Post-Millennial Novels
Zdeněk Beran
DOI: https://doi.org/10.14712/24646830.2016.32
published online: 15. 06. 2016
abstract
In his twenty-first-century novels, Atonement, Saturday, Solar and Sweet Tooth, Ian McEwan makes ample use of narrative strategies characteristic of postmodernist writing, such as metafictionality, intertextuality and discursive multiplicity. This article discusses how this focus distinguishes his recent novels from earlier ones. Thus Sweet Tooth is read as a text which includes the author’s attempt to revise his own shorter texts from the onset of his career in the mid-1970s. The use of parallelisms and allegory in McEwan’s 1980s novels The Child in Time and The Innocent is then contrasted with more complex strategies in Saturday and Solar. Special attention is given to the thematization of the role of discourse in Solar; it is argued that the novel is not just a satire on modern science and its corruption by commercialization but also a reflection of “ontological relativism” as a product of prevailing contemporary discourse formations. Metafikce, intertextualita, diskurs v románech Iana McEwana po roce 2000 Ve svých románech publikovaných po roce 2000 (Pokání, Sobota, Solar a Mlsoun) využívá Ian McEwan narativních postupů typických pro postmoderní prózu, např. prvky metafikce, intertextuality a diskursivní plurality. Článek se zabývá otázkou, jak se toto pojetí liší od postupů užitých v autorově předchozí románové tvorbě. Román Mlsoun je tak interpretován z hlediska McEwanovy snahy revidovat vlastní krátké texty z počátků své literární dráhy v 70. letech minulého století. Do protikladu jsou poté postaveny romány z 80. let (Dítě v pravý čas a Nevinný), pro něž jsou charakteristické takové postupy jako motivický paralelismus a alegorie, a pozdější tvorba, využívající složitější vypravěčské postupy. Zvláštní pozornost se nakonec věnuje tematizaci diskursu v románu Solar, který není prezentován jako pouhá satira na moderní vědu a korupční vliv komercializace, ale také jako reflexe „ontologického relativismu“ daného autoritou různých diskursních formací v současném světě.
keywords: contemporary British novel; Ian McEwan; discourse; Foucault; intertextuality; metafiction
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ISSN: 0567-8269
E-ISSN: 2464-6830
