Realization of character in historical context: a comparative analysis of postmodern novels by H. Mantel, M. Bradbury and P. Ackroyd
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.31812/filstd.v25i.8148Keywords:
historical context, character traits, postmodern novel, narrative strategies, Hilary Mantel, Malcolm Bradbury, Peter AckroydAbstract
This article examines the realization of character traits within historical context conditions in postmodern novels, specifically analyzing how presentation methods of historical context influence character development across different genre frameworks. The study establishes that in historical novels following classical models, context serves as a personality-forming factor (H. Mantel), whereas in multi-genre postmodern novels, context either emerges as a simulacrum reality shaped by the character (M. Bradbury) or expands beyond textual boundaries to dominate the composition, thereby weakening its impact on character development (P. Ackroyd). The research explores character realization through literary devices including irony, internal commentary, semantic shifts in external utterances, and adaptive narrative strategies responding to situational contexts.
Downloads
References
Ackroyd, P., 1995. Hawksmoor. Hamilton, London. URL: https://royallib.com/read/Ackroyd_Peter/Hawksmoor.html#0.
Ackroyd, P., 2011. Khoksmur [Hawksmoor]. Astrel; CORPUS, Moscow. URL: https://librebook.me/hawksmoor.
Bakhtin, M.M., 1979. K metodologii gumanitarnykh nauk [to the methodology of the humanities], in: Estetika sloviesnogo
tvorchestva [The aesthetics of word art]. Iskusstvo, Moscow, pp. 361–373.
Bakhtin, M.M., 1986. Avtor i geroi v esteticheskoi deiatelnosti [an author and a personage in the aesthetic activity], in: Estetika sloviesnogo tvorchestva [The aesthetics of word art]. Iskusstvo, Moscow, pp. 9–191.
Bradbury, M., 2002. Istoricheskaia lichnost [The history man]. Izdatelstvo, Moscow.
Bradbury, M., 2021. The Modern British Novel. Revised ed., Penguin Books, London; New York. First published 1993 by Secker and Warburg / Viking Penguin.
Brooke-Rose, C., 1968. Between. Michael Joseph, London.
Bruno, G., 2020. On the Infinite Universe and Worlds. Cambridge University Press. Original work published 1584.
De Quincey, T., 2021. On murder considered as one of the fine arts, in: Morrison, R. (Ed.), Selected Essays of Thomas De Quincey. Oxford University Press, pp. 145–189. First published 1827.
Dudnickov, M., Mohnachova, O., Poliarenko, V., 2020. Peculiarities of realization of personage’s character within historical context conditions in a postmodern novel (based on the novels by H. Mantel, M. Bradbury, P. Ackroyd), in: Literary discourse: theoretical and practical aspects. Publishing House “Baltija Publishing”, Riga, Latvia, pp. 61–82. doi:10.30525/978-9934-26-009-4.
Dzhumailo, O.A., 2014. Angliiskii ispovedalno-filosofskii roman 1980–2000 gg. [The English confessional and philosophical novel of 1980–2000]. Ph.D. thesis. South Federal University. Rostov-na-Donu.
Ginzburg, L.Y., 1979. O litieraturnom geroie [About the literature personage]. Sovetskii pisatel, Moscow.
Grundmann, A., 2000. The Concept of Time in Peter Ackroyd’s “Hawksmoor”. GRIN Verlag. URL: https://www.books.google.ru/books?id=tR73TOJ-CvYC.
Lotman, Y.M., 1992. Kultura i vzryv [Culture and explosion]. Gnozis; Publ. of group “Progress”, Moscow. URL: http://www.kph.npu.edu.ua/!e2.pdf.
Mankovskaia, N.B., 1994. Parizh so zmieiami (Vviedieniie v estetiku postmodernizma) [Paris with snakes (Introduction to the aesthetics of postmodernism)]. Institut filosofii RAN, Moscow.
Mantel, H., 2020. Volchii zal [Wolf hall]. AST; Astrel, Moscow.
McHale, B., 2023. Postmodernist Fiction. Revised ed., Routledge. doi:10.4324/9780203393321. first published 1987.
Niceron, J.F., 1638. La Perspective Curieuse. Pierre Billaine, Paris. Modern edition: ISBN 978-2-252-03920-5, Les Belles Lettres, 2019.
Onega, S., 1999. Metafiction and Myth in the Novels of Peter Ackroyd. European Studies in the Humanities, Camden House, Columbia, SC.
Pierieviezientseva, A.Y., 2011. Razvitiie istoricheskoi prozy v angliiskoi litieraturie xx veka [the development of the historical prose in the english literature of the xx century]. Vestnik Nizhegorodskogo univiersitieta im. N. I. Lobachievskogo 6, 500–503. URL: http://www.philology.ru/literature3/perevezentseva-11.htm.
Raineke, Y.S., 2002. Istoricheskii roman postmodernizma i traditsii zhanra: Velikobritaniia, Germaniia, Avstriia [A historical novel of postmodernism and genre traditions: Great Britain, Germany, Austria]. Ph.D. thesis. Moscow State University. URL: https://www.dissercat.com/content/istoricheskii-roman-postmodernizma-i-traditsii-zhanra-velikobritaniya.
Savelieva, I.M., Polietaiev, A.V., 1997. Istoriia i vremia: v poiskakh untachennogo [History and time: searching for the lost]. Yazyki russkoy kultury, Moscow.
Scott, W., 1990. Ueverli, ili shestdesiat liet nazad [Waverley; or, ’Tis Sixty Years Since]. volume 1. Pravda; Ogoniok, Moscow.
Tolstoy, A.N., 1950. O literature i iskusstve [on literature and art], in: Sobranie sochinenij [Collected Works]. Gosudarstvennoe izdatel’stvo hudozhestvennoj literatury, Moscow. volume 13, pp. 423–456.
