The Past and the Present: Peter Ackroyd’s Play with the Gothic in "Mr Cadmus"

Aleksandra Jarocka-Mikrut

Résumé


The aim of this article is to distinguish Gothic fiction conventions which Peter Ackroyd uses in Mr Cadmus (2020) in order to present English national identity juxtaposed with cultural otherness. Using parody, Ackroyd ridicules irrational fears commonly associated with immigrants and, simultaneously, outlines their role in building English national identity in the past and the present. Drawing on theories of the Gothic as an expression of cultural anxieties, this article seeks to demonstrate that Mr Cadmus can be perceived as fictional dramatisation of the ideas Ackroyd puts forward in his non-fiction – “the English genius” (2002) in particular.


Mots-clés


Peter Ackroyd; "Mr Cadmus"; Gothic; Englishness; cultural otherness

Texte intégral :

PDF (English)

Références


Ackroyd, Peter. (1989). First Light. London: Hamish Hamilton.

Ackroyd, Peter. (2002). The Englishness of English Literature (reprint of a lecture delivered at University of Cambridge, 22 October 1993). In: Thomas Wright (ed.), Peter Ackroyd. The Collection (pp. 328–340). London: Vintage.

Ackroyd, Peter. (2020). Mr Cadmus. Edinburgh: Canongate.

Ackroyd, Peter, Wolfreys, Julian. (1999). Imagining the Labyrinth: A Conversation with Peter Ackroyd. Interdisciplinary Literary Studies, 1(1), pp. 97–114.

Arata, Stephen D. (1990). The Occidental Tourist: ‘Dracula’ and the Anxiety of Reverse Colonization. Victorian Studies, 33(4), 621–645.

Betz, Phyllis M. (2021). Introduction: A Cat. A Craft. A Cookie. A Cozy. In: Phyllis M. Betz (ed.), Reading the Cozy Mystery. Critical Essays on an Underappreciated Subgenre (pp. 1–16). Jefferson: McFarland & Company, Inc.

Brantlinger, Patrick. (2006). Imperial Gothic. In: Anna Powell, Andrew Smith (eds.), Teaching the Gothic (pp. 153–167). Basingstoke – New York: Palgrave Macmillan. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230625358_11.

Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. (2020). Cadmus. In: Encyclopaedia Britannica. Retrieved from: https://www.britannica.com/topic/Cadmus (access: 21.02.2022).

Chalupský, Petr. (2016). A Horror and a Beauty. The World of Peter Ackroyd’s London Novels. Prague: Karolinum Press.

Goodwin, Matthew. (2017). Brexit: Causes & Consequences. Japan SPOTLIGHT, pp. 59–62. Retrieved from: https://www.jef.or.jp/journal/pdf/216th_Recent_JEF_Activity_02.pdf (access: 27.08.2022).

Halberstam, Judith. (1995). Skin Shows. Gothic Horror and the Technology of Monsters. Durham – London: Duke University Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9780822398073.

Hantke, Steffen. (2016). Troubled by Memories: The World War II Veteran as a Gothic Figure in William Wyler’s The Best Years of Our Lives (1947). In: Agnieszka Soltysik Monnet, Steffen Hantke (eds.), War Gothic in Literature and Culture (pp. 101–116). New York: Routledge. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315675794

Hoeveler, Diane. (2013). Demonizing the Catholic Other: Religion and the Secularization Process in Gothic Literature. Retrieved from: https://epublications.marquette.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1221&context=english_fac (access: 12.03.2022).

Hogle, Jerrold E. (2002). Introduction: The Gothic in Western Culture. In: Jerrold E. Hogle (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Gothic Fiction (pp. 1–20). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CCOL0521791243.001.

Kenrick, Donald. (2007). Historical Dictionary of the Gypsies (Romanies). Lanham: The Scarecrow Press.

Malchow, Howard L. (1996). Gothic Images of Race in Nineteenth-Century Britain. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

McKay, Sinclair. (2020). City of Gold: Peter Ackroyd on the Undimmed Spirit of London. The Spectator. Retrieved from: https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/city-of-gold-peter-ackroyd-on-the-undimmed-spirit-of-london (access: 12.08.2022).

Neagu, Adriana. (2006). Peter Ackroyd’s Englishness: A Continental View. The Contemporary Review, 288(1681), pp. 217–236.

Niedokos, Tomasz. (2011). The Concept of English Culture in the Cultural Biographies of Peter Ackroyd. Lublin: Wydawnictwo KUL.

Onega, Susan. (1996). Interview with Peter Ackroyd. Twentieth Century Literature, 42(2), pp. 208–220. https://doi.org/10.2307/441734.

Prosser, Ashleigh Jayne. (2017). The Ghosts of the Gothic in Peter Ackroyd’s Literary London [doctoral thesis, the University of Western Australia]. Retrieved from: https://api.research-repository.uwa.edu.au/ws/portalfiles/portal/22069919/THESIS_DOCTOR_OF_PHILOSOPHY_PROSSER_Ashleigh_Jayne_2017.pdf (access: 20.02.2022).

Radcliffe, Ann. (2000). The Italian, or the Confessional of the Black Penitents. A Romance. London: Penguin Books.

Schmitt, Cannon. (1994). Techniques of Terror, Technologies of Nationality: Ann Radcliffe’s The Italian. ELH, 61(4), pp. 853–876. https://doi.org/10.1353/elh.1994.0040.

Schütze, Anke. (1999). ‘I Think After More I Will Do Turner and Then Probably do Shakespeare’: An Interview with Peter Ackroyd. In: Rudolf Freiburg, Jan Schnitker (eds.), „Do you consider yourself a postmodern author?“. Interviews with Contemporary English Writers (vol. 1, pp. 9–19). Münster: LIT.

Talairach-Vielmas, Laurence. (2016). Madwomen and Attics. In: Avril Horner, Sue Zlosnik (eds.), Women and the Gothic. An Edinburgh Companion (pp. 31–45). Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. https://doi.org/10.3366/edinburgh/9780748699124.003.0003; https://doi.org/10.1515/9780748699131-004.

Wallace, Diana. (2016). ‘A Woman’s Place’. In: Avril Horner, Sue Zlosnik (eds.), Women and the Gothic. An Edinburgh Companion (pp. 74–88). Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. https://doi.org/10.3366/edinburgh/9780748699124.003.0006; https://doi.org/10.1515/9780748699131-007.

Zarzycka, Agata. (2016). The Gothicization of World War II as a Source of Cultural Self-Reflection in "Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children and Hollow City". In: Agnieszka Soltysik Monnet, Steffen Hantke (eds.), War Gothic in Literature and Culture (pp. 229–244). New York: Routledge.




DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.17951/ff.2022.40.2.125-139
Date of publication: 2022-12-28 12:58:44
Date of submission: 2022-04-12 16:53:26


Statistiques


Visibilité des résumés - 614
Downloads (from 2020-06-17) - PDF (English) - 305

Indicateurs



Renvois

  • Il n'y a présentement aucun renvoi.


Droit d'auteur (c) 2022, Aleksandra Joanna Jarocka-Mikrut

Licence Creative Commons
Ce(tte) œuvre est mise à disposition selon les termes de la Licence Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International.