Email this article "All the éclat of a new era about to take off": Angela Carter's Neo-Victorian Decadence in Nights at the Circus (1984)
Abstract
This paper considers Angela Carter’s engagement with the late nineteenth century in her 1984 novel Nights at the Circus through the lens of neo-Victorian Decadence and in parallel with the writer’s ongoing reflection on femininity and gender roles as she articulated it in her non-fiction throughout the 1970s and early 1980s. The main focus is on fin de siècle imagery and its subsequent revisions in feminist art and thought, in the light the concept of crossmapping, which looks beyond intertextuality, and can thus account for Carter’s complex interweaving of images and texts across two different epochs that she both constructed as decadent.
Questo contributo propone una lettura di Nights at the Circus (1984) di Angela Carter dal punto di vista della decadenza neo-vittoriana, esaminando il rapporto fra passato e presente nel romanzo alla luce dei contributi che Carter pubblica su diverse riviste tra gli anni Settanta e l’inizio degli anni Ottanta. L’analisi si sviluppa attorno all’immaginario fin de siècle evocato nel romanzo, considerando le successive revisioni nell’arte e nel pensiero femministi, alla luce del concetto di crossmapping che, guardando oltre l’intertestualità, fa emergere il complesso intreccio di immagini e testi tracciato dalla scrittrice attraverso due epoche – la fine del diciannovesimo secolo e gli anni Settanta del successivo – entrambe definite come decadenti.
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