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


1. Edition, 2012
320 Pages

ISBN: 978-3-8253-6059-7
Product: Book
Edition: Softcover
Subject: Anglistik/Amerikanistik
Series: anglistik & englischunterricht, Volume No.: 81
Available: 18.06.2012

Keywords: gender studies, kanadische literatur, Atwood, Margaret, Lively, Penelope, Lessing, Doris, McEwan, Ian, Künstlerroman, Autor (als literarische Figur), irische Literatur


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 of anglistik & englischunterricht attempts to fill the gap. The focus of the 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.