Description
Book SynopsisA pioneering collection of articles on fictionalized biographies of the Romantics in contemporary fiction and drama. It appears that the lives of the British Romantics and the myths surrounding them have a special appeal for contemporary writers.The present volume sets out to explore this renewed interest in Romantic artist-figures in the context of the current renaissance of 'life-writing'. The essays collected here deal with Romantic 'biofictions' by such authors as Peter Ackroyd, Adrian Mitchell, Ann Jellicoe, Liz Lochhead, Judith Chernaik, Amanda Prantera, Robert Nye, Tom Stoppard, Howard Brenton, Edward Bond, and others. Thomas Chatterton, William Blake, James Hogg, Sir Walter Scott, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Mary Shelley, John Polidori, John Clare, and -- most prominently -- Lord Byron featureas the 'biographical subjects' in the works discussed.
Trade ReviewThis collection brings together a wide range of appraoches to a topic of much current interest. It is recommended not only for students of contemporary British Literature, but also for those interested in the posthumous cultural reverberations of the Romantic poets. * ENGLISH STUDIES *
Table of ContentsIntroduction - Martin Middeke An Intertextual Quest for Thomas Chatterton: The Deconstruction of the Romantic Cult of Originality and the Paradoxes of Life-Writing in Peter Ackroyd's Fictional Metabiography Chattertonin Peter Ackroyd's Fictional Metabiography Chattert - Ansgar Nuenning Dangerous Enthusiasm: The Appropriation of William Blake in Adrian Mitchell's Tyger - Bernhard Reitz Auld Acquaintance: New Lives of Scott and Hogg - Jill Rubenstein Ann Jellicoe's and Howard Brenton's Shelley - Uwe Boeker The Dramatist as Reader: Liz Lochhead's Play Blood and Ice - Silvia Mergenthal The Truth of Fiction -- The Fiction of Truth: Judith Chernaik's Mab's Daughters - Beate Neumeier "The Life We Imagine": Byron's and Polidori's Memoirs as Character Construction - Annegret Maack In Arcadia Nemo: The Pastoral of Romanticism - Peter Paul Schnierer "A Playful Desire of Imitation": The Ghost Stories at Diodati and A Single Summer With L.B. - Frances Wilson Poetry and Cyberpunk: Science Fiction and Romantic Biography - Christine Kenyon Jones Elemental, My Dear Clare: The Case of the Missing Poet - Christopher Innes (Co-author: Sid Sondergard) Biodepictions of Mary Shelley: The Romantic Woman Artist as Mother of Monsters - Ramona Ralston
