JOHN FOWLES’S PARALLEL BOOK TO THE FRENCH LIEUTENANT’S WOMAN: THE MOTTOS
JOHN FOWLES’S PARALLEL BOOK TO THE FRENCH LIEUTENANT’S WOMAN: THE MOTTOS

Summary/Abstract: John Fowles’s mottos for every chapter of “The French Lieutenant’s Woman” are skilfully selected from Victorian prose and poetry. They function so well as comments or ironies on the texts of the respective chapters that they may make up a metatext, a monography of the Victorian age as the social background of the novel, and an insight romance into the plot of the novel. They are thus a metahistorical novel containing and explaining the story. The prose quotations have been chosen from biology (Darwin) and sociology (Marx), as well as philosophy (Arnold), while the poetry texts refer to the romantic triangle Charles – Sarah – Ernestina, and have been selected from the works of great Victorian poets: Tennyson, Hardy, Arnold, Clough.

• Details
• Contents