Traumatic identity and aura in David Lodge's Author, author

This paper delves into David Lodge’s Author, Author (2004) as an example of neo-Victorian celebrity biofiction, more concretely on Henry James. The genre belongs to the wave of Victorian revival in current literature which also affects cultural studies in general. My main contention is that Lodge’s...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autor: Yebra Pertusa, Jose Maria
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Estado:Versión publicada
Fecha de publicación:2015
País:España
Institución:Universidad de Zaragoza
Repositorio:Zaguán. Repositorio Digital de la Universidad de Zaragoza
OAI Identifier:oai:zaguan.unizar.es:63487
Acceso en línea:http://zaguan.unizar.es/record/63487
Access Level:acceso abierto
Descripción
Sumario:This paper delves into David Lodge’s Author, Author (2004) as an example of neo-Victorian celebrity biofiction, more concretely on Henry James. The genre belongs to the wave of Victorian revival in current literature which also affects cultural studies in general. My main contention is that Lodge’s novel responds to current cultural anxieties, particularly the crisis of identity and authorship and the end of Walter Benjamin’s concept of aura, by sublimating them into late- nineteenth-century traumata. The choice of James is, the article argues, not casual. He represents the redeeming figure of a lost auratic world; the human in crisis, traumatized because he does not fit in the new status quo.