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- Linear and nonlinear polyphony in the postmodernist novel “The French Lieutenant’s Woman” by John Robert Fowles
- Akatova A.A. Linear and nonlinear polyphony in the postmodernist novel “The French Lieutenant’s Woman” by John Robert Fowles. Bulletin of Kostroma University, 2025, vol. 31, no. 1, pp. 213–219. https://doi.org/10.34216/1998-0817-2025-31-1-213-219
- DOI: https://doi.org/10.34216/1998-0817-2025-31-1-213-219
- УДК: 821(410.1).09”20”
- EDN: KGRYRV
- Publish date: 2025-01-31
- Annotation: This paper analyses the categories of space, time and authorship, the unique artistic representation of which is characteristic of postmodern discourse. The study of the novel “The French Lieutenant’s Woman” by John Robert Fowles from these positions illustrates the multi-level nature of the postmodern text. Polyphony, interpreted as a textual unit, performs the main structuring function in the postmodern text: the “voices” of numerous characters and the author transform the narrative into communicative lines that oblige readers to perceive the text in a multitude of potential “meanings”. Polyphonic narration modifies the spatial-temporal characteristics of the novel, minimises the necessity of solely linear fabula-plot reading and equates the roles of characters, the reader, and the author in the text. Due to settings’ spatial-temporal alternation in the novel and due to the author’s entry into the text as a character, the novel is presented as a pastiche experimenting with space and time. In turn, the category of authorship is interpreted as a situation of the creation of meaning that exists regardless of the novel’s spatial-temporal settings. Thus, the preferable way to read and perceive the postmodern novel is a nonlinear one, spatially and temporally irrelative. The technique of polyphonic narration in the novel performs communicative, form-defining, and meaning-generating functions.
- Keywords: polyphony, Mikhail Bakhtin, nonlinear narration, plot, John Robert Fowles, postmodernism, Roland Gérard Barthes, communicative lines.
- Literature list: Abdullaeva E.A. Polifonizm kak narrativnaja strategija v postmodernistskom romane [Polyphony as a Narrative Strategy in the Postmodern Novel]. Colloquium-Journal, 2019, no. 26-6 (50), pp. 36-40. (In Russ.) Akatova A.A. Semantika paratekstual'nosti (na materiale romana “Zhenshhina francuzskogo lejtenanta”) [Semantics of Paratextuality (based on the novel “The French Lieutenant’s Woman”)]. Vestnik KGU im. N.A. Nekrasova [Bulletin of Kostroma State University named after N.A. Nekrasov], 2015, vol. 21, no. 2, pp. 79-83. (In Russ.) Bakhtin M.M. Problemy tvorchestva Dostoevskogo [Problems of Dostoyevsky’s Art]. Kiev, NEXT Publ., 1994, 257 p. (In Russ.) Barthes R. An Introduction to the Structural Analysis of Narrative. New Literary History, vol. 6, no. 2: On Narrative and Narratives, 1975 (Winter), pp. 237-272. Barthes R. S/Z [S/Z], trans. from French by G.K. Kosikov, V.P. Murat; ed. by G.K. Kosikov, 3rd ed. Moscow, Akademicheskij Proekt Publ., 2009, 373 p. (In Russ.) Baudrillard J. Simuljakry i simuljacii [Simulacra and Simulation], trans. from French by A. Kachalov. Moscow, Postum Publ., 2015, 240 p. (In Russ.) Derrida J. Structure, Sign, and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences. Writing and Difference, trans. Alan Bass. London, Routledge Publ., pp. 278-294. URL: http://hydra.humanities.uci.edu/derrida/sign-play.html (access date: 20.12.24). Eco U. Six Walks in the Fictional Woods. Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press Publ., 2004, 166 p. Evenko E.V. Polyphony as a Means of Interpreting a Multifaceted Problem. The World of Science Without Borders, 2022, рр. 501-504. Genette G. Palimpsests: Literature in the Second Degree; trans. Channa Newman, Claude Doubinsky. Lincoln and London, University of Nebraska Press Publ., 1997, 491 p. Jurayeva M. Metafiction and Its Elements in The French Lieutenant's Woman Novel by John Fowles. Bulletin of Science and Practice, 2024, vol. 10, no. 4, рp. 678-682.