On the Problem of Colonial Fiction Motives in the English Neo-Victorian Novel Cover Image

Колониальные мотивы в английском неовикторианском романе: к постановке проблемы
On the Problem of Colonial Fiction Motives in the English Neo-Victorian Novel

Author(s): Yuliya Skorokhod’ko
Subject(s): Language and Literature Studies, Theory of Literature, British Literature
Published by: Чернівецький національний університет імені Юрія Федьковича
Keywords: late neo-Victorian novel; neo-Victorian postcolonial novel; late neo-Victorian novel with colonial fiction motives; Victorianism; Britishness; colonial novel; M. Faber; A. Soueif; A. Ghosh; L. Fish;

Summary/Abstract: The article focuses on the neo-Victorian postcolonial novel and on the late neo-Victorian novel with the colonial motives. The article explores genre peculiarities of these modifications of the late neo-Victorian novel. The article focuses on the problem of Britishness as a base of an English identity. ‘British’ features are the peculiar characteristics of any Victorian or modern Englishman. Understanding English national character with its Britishness is a key to the neo-Victorian postcolonial novel and the late neo-Victorian novel with the colonial motives appropriate reading. To achieve the aims of the article the following methods of literary analysis were used: typological, cultural and historical, comparative methods and intertextual analysis. Through the careful analyses of the neo-Victorian novels the author of the article concludes that Victorian colonial novels are the predecessors of the neo-Victorian novels with colonial motives as well as the neo-Victorian postcolonial novels. The basic differences between these varieties of the late neo-Victorian novel are determined by the origin of their author. As the author of the neo-Victorian postcolonial novel originates from the former colonies, such novels focuses on the postcolonial problematics and correspond to the postcolonial canon but not to the neo-Victorian one. On the contrary neo-Victorian novel with the colonial pastiches and parodies Victorian fiction. The prospects of the research include the further exploration of the neo-Victorian postcolonial novel and neo-Victorian novel with the colonial motives.

  • Issue Year: 2013
  • Issue No: 88
  • Page Range: 200-209
  • Page Count: 9
  • Language: Russian