Memorial Novels: the English Renaissance and the Victorian Age

Abstract

Two epochs of British cultural memory claim prominent positions in the intertextual depositories of Byatt’s fiction: the English Renaissance and the Victorian Age. Much of the cultural data inscribed into the intertextual depository of Byatt’s tetralogy refers to the English Renaissance, whilst the Victorian Age features strongly in her two biographic metafictions. As I have argued in Chapter 8, Byatt’s tetralogy conceptualizes the figures of Shakespeare and Elizabeth I as the two prevailing cultural paradigms that determine Frederica’s search for her identity. As outlined in Chapter 9, the novels represent literary texts of the English Renaissance as cultural texts which form Frederica’s identity. Furthermore, the Elizabethan Age — which is part of the wider historical and cultural context of the English Renaissance — features prominently in The Virgin in the Garden, since the novel alludes to Elizabethan history (e.g. VG, p.130, pp.171-2, p.321, p.376) and discusses elements of English Renaissance culture such as the cult of Elizabeth I (VG, pp.132-3, pp.180-1), colour symbolism in Renaissance clothing (VG, pp.144-5), and Renaissance visual art (VG, pp.186-7). What is more, The Virgin in the Garden is set in the years 1952–1953 and witnesses the accession of Elizabeth II. To honour this occasion, the local grandee of Frederica’s home town, Matthew Crowe, organizes a festival which culminates in the staging of Alexander Wedderburn’s verse drama Astraea.KeywordsLiterary TheoryCultural TheoryLiterary TextProminent PositionCultural DataThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.