This study investigates the relation between faith in a transcendent reality and
faith in language, both verbal and visual, in the work of English novelist and critic
Antonia Byatt. Her ideal conception of communication combines the immediacy and
primal vigour of the visual with the methodical pragmatism of words. However, Byatt's
characters who exemplify this effort at double vision - in particular Stephanie Potter
Orton in the 1985 novel Still Life - find in their quests frustration and even death rather
than fulfillment.
My investigation focuses on A. S. Byatt's presentation of the way language
attempts to represent and interact with three particular areas: fundamental personal
experiences (childbirth, death, love), perceptual and aesthetic experiences (colour and
form, painting), and transcendent experiences (supernaturalism and Christian religion). I
consider all stages of her career to date - from her first novel The Shadow of the Sun
(1964) to Babel Tower (1996). Although Possession: A Romance (1990) has garnered
most of the critical attention accorded to Byatt, I argue that this novel is not generally
representative of her principles or style. A neo-Victorian romance, part parodic and part
nostalgic, combined with an academic comedy, Possession shares neither the sombre
mythological and psychological fatalism of her 1960s fiction nor the modified realism of
her middle-period fiction. Still Life and The Matisse Stories (1993) are the works that
best elucidate Byatt's major preoccupations; they intently strive to combine the most
powerful aspects of verbal and visual knowledge.
The methodological basis for this study is pluralist; it emphasizes close reading,
combined with phenomenological, biographical, and thematic criticism. As Byatt does, I
rely principally on the ideas of writers and artists rather than theorists; she cannot be
understood without specific reference to George Eliot, Donne, Forster, Murdoch, Van
Gogh, and Matisse (among others).
Byatt's quest for truth and transcendent meaning and her investigation of the
trustworthiness of words have undergone recent changes; she seems more sharply aware
of the limitations of language and the unattainability of absolute truth. Her writings in the
1990s about paintings and colour emphasize their intrinsic value rather than their ability
either to revitalize the word or suggest the numinous.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:BVAU.2429/10097 |
| Date | 11 1900 |
| Creators | Sorensen, Susan D. |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Relation | UBC Retrospective Theses Digitization Project [http://www.library.ubc.ca/archives/retro_theses/] |
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