Experimental forms in contemporary fiction
Concerned with developments in contemporary innovative fiction Experimental Forms in Contemporary Fiction locates 'post- Modernist' writing largely within a North American context. William Burroughs, Ronald Sukenick, Donald Barthelme, Ishmael Reed, Robert Coover and Steve Katz are...
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| Format: | Thesis (University of Nottingham only) |
| Language: | English |
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1985
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| Online Access: | https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/13310/ |
| _version_ | 1848791702756655104 |
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| author | Dorling, Alan |
| author_facet | Dorling, Alan |
| author_sort | Dorling, Alan |
| building | Nottingham Research Data Repository |
| collection | Online Access |
| description | Concerned with developments in contemporary innovative fiction Experimental Forms in Contemporary Fiction locates 'post- Modernist' writing largely within a North American context.
William Burroughs, Ronald Sukenick, Donald Barthelme, Ishmael Reed, Robert Coover and Steve Katz are identified as the exemplary post-Modernist figures; their favoured techniques --a combination of cancellation and erasure, fragmentation and discontinuity, game and play--express an indeterminancy of meaning which places post-Modernist writing at some distance from the writing of contemporary figures like Vladimir Nabokov, John Hawkes and John Barth, who, as identifiably 'neo- Modernists', are essentially concerned with extending Modernism's restorative and paralleling features into the contemporary literary discourse. At the same time, post- Modernist fiction bears only a passing resemblence to the work of innovative contemporary British writers like B. S. Johnson, Gabriel Josipovici and J. G. Ballard, who are inclined to impose a series of disruptive forms upon mimetic substance.
Uniquely post-Modernist fiction celebrates an eternity of displacement by insisting that unity, coherence and system are totalitarian concepts inimicable to the necessary free- lay of the imagination. Therefore, even as Burroughs et al express long-standing American literary concerns, post- Modernist fiction is demonstrably part of the deconstructive shift away from holistic and humanistic ideas and procedures. Post-Modernist writing, therefore, initiates a crisis within literary criticism, one which needs to be examined against the background of contemporary philosophical, cultural, and social developments. |
| first_indexed | 2025-11-14T18:32:43Z |
| format | Thesis (University of Nottingham only) |
| id | nottingham-13310 |
| institution | University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus |
| institution_category | Local University |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2025-11-14T18:32:43Z |
| publishDate | 1985 |
| recordtype | eprints |
| repository_type | Digital Repository |
| spelling | nottingham-133102025-02-28T11:24:24Z https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/13310/ Experimental forms in contemporary fiction Dorling, Alan Concerned with developments in contemporary innovative fiction Experimental Forms in Contemporary Fiction locates 'post- Modernist' writing largely within a North American context. William Burroughs, Ronald Sukenick, Donald Barthelme, Ishmael Reed, Robert Coover and Steve Katz are identified as the exemplary post-Modernist figures; their favoured techniques --a combination of cancellation and erasure, fragmentation and discontinuity, game and play--express an indeterminancy of meaning which places post-Modernist writing at some distance from the writing of contemporary figures like Vladimir Nabokov, John Hawkes and John Barth, who, as identifiably 'neo- Modernists', are essentially concerned with extending Modernism's restorative and paralleling features into the contemporary literary discourse. At the same time, post- Modernist fiction bears only a passing resemblence to the work of innovative contemporary British writers like B. S. Johnson, Gabriel Josipovici and J. G. Ballard, who are inclined to impose a series of disruptive forms upon mimetic substance. Uniquely post-Modernist fiction celebrates an eternity of displacement by insisting that unity, coherence and system are totalitarian concepts inimicable to the necessary free- lay of the imagination. Therefore, even as Burroughs et al express long-standing American literary concerns, post- Modernist fiction is demonstrably part of the deconstructive shift away from holistic and humanistic ideas and procedures. Post-Modernist writing, therefore, initiates a crisis within literary criticism, one which needs to be examined against the background of contemporary philosophical, cultural, and social developments. 1985 Thesis (University of Nottingham only) NonPeerReviewed application/pdf en arr https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/13310/1/370525.pdf Dorling, Alan (1985) Experimental forms in contemporary fiction. PhD thesis, University of Nottingham. Experimental fiction Contemporary American fiction |
| spellingShingle | Experimental fiction Contemporary American fiction Dorling, Alan Experimental forms in contemporary fiction |
| title | Experimental forms in contemporary fiction |
| title_full | Experimental forms in contemporary fiction |
| title_fullStr | Experimental forms in contemporary fiction |
| title_full_unstemmed | Experimental forms in contemporary fiction |
| title_short | Experimental forms in contemporary fiction |
| title_sort | experimental forms in contemporary fiction |
| topic | Experimental fiction Contemporary American fiction |
| url | https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/13310/ |