The Testing of Barbara Pym

London, the Wilderness Years, and the Rewards of Age
Erscheinungsjahr 2024
ISBN: 978-3-031-39669-4
Verlag: Springer International Publishing

Buch, Englisch, 237 Seiten, Format (B × H): 148 mm x 210 mm, Gewicht: 336 g

The Testing of Barbara Pym , a companion volume to  The Making of Barbara Pym  (Palgrave Macmillan, 2021), completes a comprehensive analysis of Pym’s novels and her life, focusing on her complex view of the necessity of change at both the individual and cultural levels. Newly published archival material supports this treatment of Pym’s vision of a changing world – a vision premised upon the principle of continuity, a linking together of past, present, and future. In her novels published from 1955-1980, beginning with Britain’s emergence from post-war austerity, Pym portrays, in an optimistic fashion, several changing aspects of British culture: expansion of the suburbs, acceptance of homosexual men, erosion of the class system, inclusivity in the Anglican Church. But with these changes, new strains emerge as well; the principle of continuity undergoes radical testing and is then emphatically reasserted. Likewise, despite upheavals to established patterns in herlife, chiefly the inability to publish her work, Pym persisted in cultivating such elements of continuity as she could, an effort rewarded, while she was in rural retirement, by a return to the publishing world. Thus, in both Pym’s novels and her life, continuity survives the duress of testing circumstances.

Zielgruppe

Research

Autoren/Hrsg.

Stockard, Emily

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Literarische Strömungen & Epochen
• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Literaturwissenschaft: Prosa, Erzählung, Roman, Prosaautoren
• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Europäische Literatur

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Chapter 1: Introduction.- Chapter 2:  : Discontents, Detachment, and Discontinuities.- Chapter 3:  : Crossing the Boundaries Between Elegance and Excellence.- Chapter 4:  : Unlikely Continuities.- Chapter 5: Struggle for Continuity During the “Wilderness Years” (1963-1977).- Chapter 6:  : A Redefinition.- Chapter 7:  Discontinued Friendships and the Arrested Life.- Chapter 8: Life Goes On: Continued Sustenance.- Chapter 9: Strands of Change and : The Limits of Continuity.- Chapter 10: Continuity Regained: Village Life and “Rediscovery”.- Chapter 11:  : Looking to the Future.- Chapter 12: Epilogue: Last Respects.

Über Autor(innen)

Emily Stockard  is Professor of English, Florida Atlantic University, USA, and author of  The Making of Barbara Pym: Oxford, the War Years, and Post-war Austerity  (2021).