Agnieszka Miksza
Multiple Discourses, Multiple
Meanings: Jeanette Winterson's
Language of
Multiplicity and Variety
Bibliographic Information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data is available online at http://dnb.d-nb.de.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A CIP catalog record for this book has been applied for at the Library of Congress.
Publication of this book was financially supported by the University of Łódź
Reviewed by Maria Edelson and Julia Fiedorczuk-Glinecka
ISSN 2627-0684
ISBN 978-3-631-80389-9 (Print)
E-ISBN 978-3-631-81244-0 (E-PDF)
E-ISBN 978-3-631-81245-7 (EPUB)
E-ISBN 978-3-631-81246-4 (MOBI)
DOI 10.3726/b16558
© Peter Lang GmbH
Internationaler Verlag der Wissenschaften
Berlin 2020
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About the author
Agnieszka Miksza is currently working as an assistant professor at the University of Szczecin. She completed her doctoral dissertation on Winterson’s works at the University of Łódź (Faculty of Philology) in 2017. Her academic interests are contemporary poetic prose and biblical intertextual references in contemporary British and American prose.
About the book
Jeanette Winterson is a contemporary British writer whose oeuvre is often defined as postmodern, although the writer herself often underlines her modernist roots. Her novels are inspired by the works of T.S.Eliot and Virginia Woolf. The following book is aimed at researching the poetic devices used by Winterson in her prose. Five novels were analysed: The Passion, Sexing the Cherry, Written on the Body, Gut Symmetries and The Powerbook. Some of the most important aspects of the book are the intertextual references to other literary works, especially to the poetry and essays by T.S. Eliot who is the biggest inspiration in Winterson’s works. The book is an attempt to define the Wintersonian style, and it presents a variety of methods used by Winterson to achieve the poetic quality in her prose. The research demonstrates both the prosaic and poetic elements of Winterson’s works which illustrate the connection between transparency and opacity of language. What is interesting is the notion of the literal which may appear mundane and unpoetic. However, this analysis of Winterson’s novels shows that the literal is an essential element of poetry.
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Contents
1 Between Poetry and Prose: Genres of the Middle
1.2 The Prose Poem and the British Tradition
1.3 Prose Poem and Intertextuality
2 Winterson and the Poetry of Fiction
2.1 Winterson and Her Views on Writing
2.1 Winterson’s Prose and Poetry
2.3 Winterson and Language (of Poetry)
2.4 Various Voices of Jeanette Winterson
2 “I’m Telling You Stories”. Storytelling and Poetry in The Passion
3 The Titular Passion
3.1 Definition of “The Passion”
3.2 Gambling and Passion
3.3 Venice and Passion
4 Intertextuality
4.1 Winterson and Intertextuality
4.2 Intertextuality: Theoretical Background
4.3 Winterson’s Intertextuality
4.4 “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” and The Passion
4.5 The Passion