Portraits of the Artist as a Young Thing In British, Irish and Canadian Fiction after 1945

Edited by Anette Pankratz and Barbara Puschmann-Nalenz.

The author is dead; long live the author. In a time when discourses, words and structures determine the discussion about literary texts, paradoxically, the figure of the artist looms large in novels, short stories, movies and plays. In a 'post-Barthesian age' (Scherzinger) the figure of the artist is ascribed more and more significance. While the portraits of the artist as a young man are well-researched and documented, female artist figures in literature(s) in English are still more or less neglected. This volume attempts to fill the gap. The focus of the 15 essays lies, firstly, on the (de-)constructions of gender, secondly, the complex self-reflexive functions of the artist figures and, thirdly, on the negotiations of cultural faultlines. - Contents: Ingrid von Rosenberg: »And Out of Chaos, a New Kind of Strength«. The (Re)Birth of a (Still) Young 'Authoress' in Doris Lessing's "Golden Notebook". - Alexa Keuneke: Writing the Self as a Life Narrative. Margaret Laurence's "The Diviners" as 'Künstlerroman'. - Christiane Bimberg: From Childhood to Retrospective. Portrait of an Artist in Margaret Atwood's "Cat's Eye". - Brigitte Glaser: Women's Art of Telling Li(v)es. Female Artist Figures in Margaret Atwood's "Alias Grace" and "The Blind Assassin". - Marion Gymnich: »A Time When Creativity Is Rated High«. Penelope Lively's Satire on Art and Artists in "Next to Nature, Art". - Uwe Klawitter: »Unsound Elements Seemed to Have Crept Into Her Narrative«. The Representation of Female Writers in Anita Brookner's Novels "Look at Me" and "Hotel du Lac". - Lena Steveker: »My Solitude Is My Treasure, the Best Thing I Have«. A.S. Byatt's Female Artists. - Peter Childs: Ian McEwan's Venus Envy Revisited. - Susana Onega: Portraits of the Artist in the Novels of Jeanette Winterson. - Jean-Michel Ganteau: »Non Serviam«. Portraits of the Artist as a Young Performer. - Silvia Mergenthal: Visceral Music. The Female Composer in Bernard MacLaverty's "Grace Notes". - Christian Schmitt-Kilb: Re-Reading the Re-Written Portrait of the Young Artist. Bernadine Evaristo's "Laras". - Anette Pankratz: »Nothing That Is Worth Knowing Can Be Taught«. Artists and Academia in Novels by A.S. Byatt, David Lodge and Zadie Smith. - Barbara Puschmann-Nalenz: Re-Writing the Story of the Swallow, the Nightingale and the Hoopoe. Emma Tennant's Novel "The Ballad of Sylvia and Ted". - Renate Brosch: The Figure of the Artist in David Lodge's and Colm Tóibín's Biofictions of Henry James. - 320 Seiten, broschiert (Anglistik und Englischunterricht; Vol. 81/Universitätsverlag Winter 2012)