City as a fictional character in the postmodernist novel: Alexandria Quartet and The Moor's Last Sigh

• Thesis title in Czech: Město jako fiktivní postava v postmoderním románu: ; Alexandrijský kvartet a Poslední Maurův vzdech
• Thesis title in English: City as a fictional character in the postmodernist novel: ; Alexandria Quartet and The Moor's Last Sigh
• Key words: město, prostor, postmodernismus, postkoloniální literatura, Alexandrijský kvartet, Lawrence Durrell, Poslední Maurův vzdech, Salman Rushdie, perspektiva, mýtus, palimpsest, hybridita, subjektivita, Alexandrie, Bombaj
• English key words: city, space, postmodernism, postcolonial literature, Alexandria Quartet, Lawrence Durrell, The Moor's Last Sigh, Salman Rushdie, perspective, myth, palimpsest, hybridity, subjectivity, Alexandria, Bombay
• Academic year of topic announcement: 2010/2011
• Thesis type: Bachelor's thesis
• Thesis language: angličtina
• Department: Department of Anglophone Literatures and Cultures (21-UALK)
• Supervisor: PhDr. Zdeněk Beran, Ph.D.
• Author: hidden - assigned and confirmed by the Study Dept.
• Date of registration: 24.05.2011
• Date of assignment: 24.05.2011
• Administrator's approval: not processed yet
• Date and time of defence: 11.09.2012 08:30
• Date of electronic submission: 09.08.2012
• Date of proceeded defence: 11.09.2012
• Submitted/finalized: committed by student and finalized
• Opponents: Colin Steele Clark, M.A.

Guidelines

Ve své bakalářské práci bych ráda prozkoumala jak město a městský prostor fungují v postmodernistickém románu. Mám v plánu dokázat, že městský prostor je využíván jako samostatná literární postava, která se přímo účastní na ději a není již pouze prostorem, kde se věci mohou dít. V postmodernismu má město vlastní osobnost, která může ovlivňovat ostatní postavy. Za tímto účelem jsem si vybrala dva romány, které tématizují dvě odlišná orientální města z různých úhlů pohledu. V románu Poslední maurův vzdech Salmana Rushdieho se setkáváme s orientální Bombají z pohledu Inda. Oproti tomu Alexandrijský kvartet Lawrence Durrella je vyprávěn z pohledu cizince přicházejícího ze západní civilizace, který je uchvácen osobností Alexandrie. V obou textech se setkáváme s hybriditou jak prostorovou tak časovou. Ta je propojena s multikulturalismes jako výsledkem střetů rozdílných národností a náboženství. Hybridita se projevuje i v mnohopohledovosti více vypravěčů a časových rámců. Oba romány přisuzují zmíněným městům ženské atributy, takže bych se chtěla zabývat otázkou, jestli je tato charakteristika spojená s orientální kulturou nebo je obecněji uplatnitelná na postmodernismus. Chtěla bych srovnat, jak zmínění autoři pracují s fenoménem města, a ve své práci se soustředit hlavně na společně rysy, ze kterých bych ráda vyvodila nějaké obecnější závěry uplatnitelné na celý postmodernismus. K tomuto účelu bych ráda využila srovnání s vyobrazením města v dřívější literatuře například na srovnání s Joycovým Dublinem.

In my thesis I would like to explore how city and urban space work within postmodernist novels. I intend to prove that city space is used as a substantial fictional character that takes part in the plot and is no longer a space where things can happen. City in postmodernism has its own personality that can interact with other fictional characters. For this purpose I chose two novels that thematize two different oriental urban spaces from a various point of view. In Rushdie's The Moor's Last Sigh we encounter oriental Bombay from a perspective of a native, an Indian. In contrast to that, Durrell's Alexandria Quartet presents us with Alexandria experienced by an outsider, by a member of the western civilization who is mesmerised by its personality. Both texts thematize the hybridity of their urban setting which is connected to multiculturalism. This hibridity is a result of clashes of numerous nationalities and religions but is also created by multiple perspectives of narrators and temporal frames present in both novels. Both depicted oriental cities are attributed female characteristics so I would also like to explore whether this characterisation is connected to the oriental culture that is represented by these cities or whether this femininity has a wider context in depiction of the city phenomenon in postmodernist fiction. I want to compare how these two writers use the city phenomenon in their fiction with stress on the similarities. Afterwards I would like to draw some general conclusions applicable in a broader sense to the whole postmodernist literature. I would also like to implore possible comparison with how city was pictured in literature before postmodernism for example on the basis of Joyce's portrayal of Dublin.

References

Bibliography:
Primary Sources:
Durrell, Lawrence. Balthazar. NY: E. P. Dutton & Co., Inc., 1960.
Durrell, Lawrence. Clea. NY: Penguin Books, 1991.
Durrell, Lawrence. Justine. NY: E. P. Dutton & Co., Inc., 1957.
Durrell, Lawrence. Mountolive. NY: Penguin Books, 1991.
Rushdie, Salman. The Moor's Last Sigh. London: Vintage, 2006.


Secondary Sources:
Adams, Robert Martin. "Counterparts." After Joyce: Studies in Fiction After Ulysses. New York: Oxford University Press, 1977. 162-193.
Alexandre-Garner,Corinne and Keller-Privat, Isabelle, CREE/CREA (EA 370). "Writing (on) Walls or the Palimpsest of Time in The Alexandria Quartet." Durrell and the City.
Ed. Kaczvinsky, Donald P.. Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2012. 63-80.
Bachelard, Gaston. The Poetics of Space. Boston: Beacon Press, 1994.
Cheylan, Alice Bailey. "Strangers in a Strange Land." Durrell and the City. Ed. Kaczvinsky, Donald P. Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2012. 53-62.
D'Haen, Theo. "Postmodernism in American Fiction and Art." Approaching Postmodernism. Eds. Fokkema, Douwe and Bertens, Hans. Amsterdam and Philadelphia, Pa: John Benjamins, 1986. 211-231.
Earl, James W.. "How to Read an Indian Novel."Literary Imagination.Vol. 9. No. 1. 2007: 96-117.
Fraiberg, Louis. "Durrell's Dissonant Quartet." Contemporary British Novelists. Ed. Shapiro, Charles. Southern Illinois University Press, 1965. 16-35.
Friedman, Allan W.. "Durrell's Alexandria Quartet: 50 Years Later." Durrell and the City. Ed. Kaczvinsky, Donald P.. Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2012. 171-188.
Gifford, James. "Real and Unreal Cities: The Modernist Origins of Durrell's Alexandria." Durrell and the City. Ed. Kaczvinsky, Donald P.. Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2012. 13-30.
Goonetilleke, D. C. R. A. Salman Rushdie. Macmillan Press LTD, 1998.
Haag, Michael. Alexandria City of Memory. Yale University Press, 2004.
Harvey, David. The Condition of Postmodernity. Blackwell Publishing, 1990.
Hilský, Martin. Modernisté. Torst, 1995.
Hutcheon, Linda. A poetics of Postmodernism. London: Routledge, 1988.
Hutcheon, Linda. The Politics of Postmodernism. London; New York: Routledge, 1989.
Huyssen, Andreas. After the Great Divide: Modernism, Mass Culture, Postmodernism. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1986.
Kaczvinsky, Donald P. "Introduction." Durrell and the City. Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2012. xi-xix.
Lehan, Richard. "Urban Signs and Urban Literature: Literary Form and Historical Process."New Literary History. Vol. 18. No. 1. Studies in Historical Change. Autumn, 1986: 99- 113.
Lillios, Anna. "Lawrence Durrell's Alexandria: The City as Nexus." Durrell and the City. Ed. Kaczvinsky, Donald P.. Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2012. 43-52.
Miller, J. Hillis. Topographies. Stanford University Press, 1995.
Mikics, David. A New Handbook of Literary Terms. New Haven : Yale University Press, 2007.
Pike, Burton. The Image of the City in Modern Literature. Princeton University Press, 1981.
Rashidi, Linda Stump. "Durrell's City as Interior Space: 'The City begins and Ends in Us'." Durrell and the City. Ed. Kaczvinsky, Donald P.. Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2012. 31-42.
Rodenbeck, John. "Alexandria in Cavafy, Durrell and Tsirkas." Alif: Journal of Comparative Poetics. No. 21. The Lyrical Phenomenon. 2001: 141-160.
Spurr, David. "Myths of Anthropology: Eliot, Joyce, Lévi-Bruhl." PMLA. Vol. 109. No. 2 Mar. 1994. 266-280.
Tanner, Tony. City of Words: American Fiction 1950-1970. London: Jonathan Cape Ltd, 1976.
Waugh, Patricia. Practising Postmodernism Reading Modernism. NY: St Martin's Press Inc., 1992. Williams, Raymond. The Country and the City. London: The Hogarth Press, 1985.
Williams, Raymond. "The Metropolis and the Emergence of Modernism." Unreal City: Urban Experience in Modern European Literature and Art. Eds. Timms, Edward and Kelley, David. Manchester University Press, 1985. 2-13.


Encyclopedia Articles:
"Palimpsest." The New Encyclopædia Britannica. 1985 ed.