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Disputing authorities : the longer fiction of Rebecca West
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Surma, Anne (1991) Disputing authorities : the longer fiction of Rebecca West. PhD thesis, University of Warwick.
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Official URL: http://webcat.warwick.ac.uk/record=b1410146~S1
Abstract
The thesis offers a reading of Rebecca West's longer fiction as texts constituted by disputing authorities. It begins by placing West in a socio-historical context, showing how her own life, personal and political interests were insistently grappling with questions of authority. It moves on in the second chapter to examine the contradictions inherent in the patterning of narrative structures in West's fiction. The third chapter considers the construction of authority within narrative contexts as a complex of textual power relations. A reading of female subject positions as sites of gendered struggle comprises the last chapter. Together these demonstrate the necessity for the redefinition of the notion of authority, a move which has significant implications for the meaning and relevance of power in respect of art and female subjectivity.
In the course of the thesis, I draw on a selection of West's non-fiction writing and journalism, as well as autobiographical and biographical material, in order to furnish 8 context for her work, and to highlight the significance of opposing voices heard through the fictional texts. My readings are made from a feminist perspective (no extended study of West's fiction has hitherto been made from this pOSition), and are influenced by the writings of a range of feminist critics and theoreticians.
| Item Type: | Thesis or Dissertation (PhD) | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Subjects: | P Language and Literature > PR English literature | ||||
| Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH): | West, Rebecca, 1892-1983 -- Criticism and interpretation, West, Rebecca, 1892-1983 -- Political and social views, English prose literature -- 20th century -- History and criticism, Politics and literature -- Great Britain -- History -- 20th century | ||||
| Official Date: | 1991 | ||||
| Dates: |
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| Institution: | University of Warwick | ||||
| Theses Department: | Department of English and Comparative Literary Studies | ||||
| Thesis Type: | PhD | ||||
| Publication Status: | Unpublished | ||||
| Supervisor(s)/Advisor: | Cotterill, Rowland | ||||
| Extent: | iii, 293 leaves | ||||
| Language: | eng |
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