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Flaubert’in Papağanı Romanında Yazar, Otorite ve Özgünlük Arayışı

Year 2021, Volume: 15 Issue: 1, 37 - 49, 29.06.2021
https://doi.org/10.47777/cankujhss.959588

Abstract

Julian Barnes’ın Flaubert’in Papağanı (1984) romanı postmodern roman türünün temel özelliklerinden biri olan üst kurmacadan yararlanması açısından önemlidir. Bu romanı, kurmaca yapısının bilincinde olan öz-düşünümsel bir metin olarak tanımlamak mümkündür. Ayrıca, Gustave Flaubert’in Saf Bir Yürek öyküsü ve Madam Bovary romanları ile amatör biyografi yazarı olan Geoffrey Braithwaite karakterinin anlatısını birleştirerek metinlerarası bir ağı da gözler önüne serer. Romanın ana karakteri ve anlatıcısı olan Braithwaite’in doğruluk ve kesinlik arayışı ironik bir biçimde farklı bakış açılarının sunulduğu çok katmanlı bir anlatının ortaya çıkmasına neden olur. Romanın gerçek, bilgi ve kesinlik gibi kavramların varlığını (ya da yokluğunu) yansıtma biçimi yirmibirinci yüzyıl dünyasının hakikat sonrası kavramına yaptığı vurguyla daha da çarpıcı bir hal alır. Roman, gerçek yaşamla kurmaca ilişkisini sorgular; papağan ise bu karşılıklı ilişkinin vücut bulmuş hali olur. Bununla beraber, papağanın taklitçi doğasının sanatla yaşam arasındaki ilişkiyi temsil ettiğini iddia etmek de mümkündür. Bu yarı-biyografik romanında Barnes yalnızca Flaubert’i kurmaca dünyanın parçası yapmakla kalmaz, aynı zamanda eleştirmen ve akademisyenlere de varoluşsal sorular yöneltir. Bir yazarın yaşamına ilişkin tahminler ve biyografi yazarının yaratıcılığı gerçek ile kurmaca, yaşam ile sanat ve yazar ile eleştirmen arasındaki sınır(sızlığ)ı vurgular. Bu nedenle, bu çalışmanın temel amacı romanın postmodernizmle ilişkisini ve yazar ile biyografi yazarı/eleştirmen/akademisyen arasındaki iş birliğinin ve/veya çatışmanın doğasını gözler önüne sermektir.

References

  • Barnes, Julian. Conversations with Julian Barnes. Edited by Vanessa Guignery and Ryan Roberts. University Press of Mississippi, 2009.
  • Barnes, Julian. Flaubert’s Parrot. Vintage, 1990.
  • Barnes, Julian. “Julian Barnes in Conversation.” Cercles 4, 2002, pp. 255-269.
  • Barnes, Julian. The Sense of an Ending. Alfred A. Knopf, 2011.
  • Bedggood, Daniel. “(Re)Constituted Pasts: Postmodern Historicism in the Novels of Graham Swift and Julian Barnes.” The Contemporary British Novel Since 1980. Edited by James Acheson and Sarah C. E. Ross. Palgrave Macmillan, 2005, pp. 203-216.
  • Benton, Michael. “Literary Biography: The Cinderella Story of Literary Studies.” The Journal of Aesthetic Education, Vo. 39, No. 3, Autumn, 2005, pp. 44-57.
  • ---. “Reading Biography.” The Journal of Aesthetic Education, 41.3, 2007, pp. 77-88.
  • Claviez, Thomas, Kornelia Imesch, Britta Sweers. Critique of Authenticity. Vernon Press, 2020.
  • Coetzee, J. M. “Confession and Double Thoughts: Tolstoy, Rousseau, Dostoevsky.” Comparative Literature, Summer, Vol. 37, No. 3, 1985, pp. 193-232.
  • Frank, Katherine. “Experiments with Truth: Writing Biography Today.” India International Centre Quarterly, Vo. 24, No. 4, Winter 1997, pp. 1-12.
  • Gasiorek, Andrzej. Post-War British Fiction: Realism and After. Edward Arnold, 1995.
  • Guignery, Vanessa. The Fiction of Julian Barnes (Readers' Guides to Essential Criticism). Kindle Edition, Palgrave Macmillan, 2006.
  • Hateley, Erica. “Flaubert’s Parrot as modernist quest.” Q/W/E/R/T/Y: Arts, Literatures & Civilisations du Monde Anglophone, 11, 2001, pp. 177-181.
  • Holden, Philip. “Literary Biography as a Critical Form.” Biography, fall 2014, Vol. 37, No.4., pp. 917-934.
  • Holmes, Richard. “Inventing the Truth.” The Art of Literary Biography. Ed. John Batchelor. Clarendon Press, 1995.
  • Hutcheon, Linda. A Poetics of Postmodernism: History, Theory, Fiction. Routledge, 1988.
  • ---. “History and/as Intertext.” Ed. John Moss. Future Indicative: Literary Theory and Canadian Literature. University of Ottawa Press, 1987, pp. 169-184.
  • Lee, Alison. Realism and Power: Postmodern British Fiction. Routledge, 1990.
  • Lieblich, Amia. “Writing Biography as a Relationship.” Nashim: A Journal of Jewish Women’s Studies & Gender Issues, No. 7, Autobiography and Memoir, Spring 5764/2004, pp. 206-211.
  • Martin, James. Inventing Towards Truth: Theories of History and the Novels of Julian Barnes. University of Arkansas, 2001, MA Dissertation.
  • Schabert, Ina. “Fictional Biography, Factual Biography, and their Contaminations.” Biography Vol. 5, No. 1, Winter 1992, pp. 1-16.
  • Tamás, Péter. “‘If I were a Dictator of Fiction’ Readerly and Writerly Anxiety of Influence in Julian Barnes’s Flaubert’s Parrot.” Stunned into Uncertainty: Essays on Julian Barnes’s Fiction. Edited by Eszter Tory & Janina Vesztergom. Eötvös Loránd University, 2014, pp. 85-96.

The Perpetual Quest for Author(ity) and Authenticity in Flaubert’s Parrot

Year 2021, Volume: 15 Issue: 1, 37 - 49, 29.06.2021
https://doi.org/10.47777/cankujhss.959588

Abstract

Julian Barnes’s Flaubert’s Parrot (1984) is significant in its employment of metafiction, which is one of the key characteristics of the postmodern novel. Flaubert’s Parrot can be defined as a self-reflexive text, which is utterly aware that it is fiction. Moreover, it presents an intertextual network, which connects Gustave Flaubert’s Un coeur simple and Madame Bovary with the fictional amateur biographer Geoffrey Braithwaite’s narrative. The narrator/protagonist Braithwaite’s quest for truth and certainty, ironically, creates a multi-layered narrative involving multiple points of view. The novel’s portrayal of (the lack of) truth, knowledge, and certainty becomes more conspicuous with the twenty-first century’s emphasis on post-truth. The novel questions the relationship between real life and fiction, and the parrot becomes the embodiment of this mutual relationship. Furthermore, it can be argued that the imitative nature of the parrot emphasizes the relationship between life and art as well. With this semi-biographical novel Barnes not only fictionalizes Flaubert but also poses existential questions to critics and scholars. The speculations concerning an author’s life and the creativity of the biographer accentuate the (lack of) boundaries between fact and fiction, life and art, author and critic. That is the reason why the primary aim of this paper is to display this novel’s relation to postmodernism as well as the nature of the collaboration and/or the battle between the author and the biographer/critic/academic.

References

  • Barnes, Julian. Conversations with Julian Barnes. Edited by Vanessa Guignery and Ryan Roberts. University Press of Mississippi, 2009.
  • Barnes, Julian. Flaubert’s Parrot. Vintage, 1990.
  • Barnes, Julian. “Julian Barnes in Conversation.” Cercles 4, 2002, pp. 255-269.
  • Barnes, Julian. The Sense of an Ending. Alfred A. Knopf, 2011.
  • Bedggood, Daniel. “(Re)Constituted Pasts: Postmodern Historicism in the Novels of Graham Swift and Julian Barnes.” The Contemporary British Novel Since 1980. Edited by James Acheson and Sarah C. E. Ross. Palgrave Macmillan, 2005, pp. 203-216.
  • Benton, Michael. “Literary Biography: The Cinderella Story of Literary Studies.” The Journal of Aesthetic Education, Vo. 39, No. 3, Autumn, 2005, pp. 44-57.
  • ---. “Reading Biography.” The Journal of Aesthetic Education, 41.3, 2007, pp. 77-88.
  • Claviez, Thomas, Kornelia Imesch, Britta Sweers. Critique of Authenticity. Vernon Press, 2020.
  • Coetzee, J. M. “Confession and Double Thoughts: Tolstoy, Rousseau, Dostoevsky.” Comparative Literature, Summer, Vol. 37, No. 3, 1985, pp. 193-232.
  • Frank, Katherine. “Experiments with Truth: Writing Biography Today.” India International Centre Quarterly, Vo. 24, No. 4, Winter 1997, pp. 1-12.
  • Gasiorek, Andrzej. Post-War British Fiction: Realism and After. Edward Arnold, 1995.
  • Guignery, Vanessa. The Fiction of Julian Barnes (Readers' Guides to Essential Criticism). Kindle Edition, Palgrave Macmillan, 2006.
  • Hateley, Erica. “Flaubert’s Parrot as modernist quest.” Q/W/E/R/T/Y: Arts, Literatures & Civilisations du Monde Anglophone, 11, 2001, pp. 177-181.
  • Holden, Philip. “Literary Biography as a Critical Form.” Biography, fall 2014, Vol. 37, No.4., pp. 917-934.
  • Holmes, Richard. “Inventing the Truth.” The Art of Literary Biography. Ed. John Batchelor. Clarendon Press, 1995.
  • Hutcheon, Linda. A Poetics of Postmodernism: History, Theory, Fiction. Routledge, 1988.
  • ---. “History and/as Intertext.” Ed. John Moss. Future Indicative: Literary Theory and Canadian Literature. University of Ottawa Press, 1987, pp. 169-184.
  • Lee, Alison. Realism and Power: Postmodern British Fiction. Routledge, 1990.
  • Lieblich, Amia. “Writing Biography as a Relationship.” Nashim: A Journal of Jewish Women’s Studies & Gender Issues, No. 7, Autobiography and Memoir, Spring 5764/2004, pp. 206-211.
  • Martin, James. Inventing Towards Truth: Theories of History and the Novels of Julian Barnes. University of Arkansas, 2001, MA Dissertation.
  • Schabert, Ina. “Fictional Biography, Factual Biography, and their Contaminations.” Biography Vol. 5, No. 1, Winter 1992, pp. 1-16.
  • Tamás, Péter. “‘If I were a Dictator of Fiction’ Readerly and Writerly Anxiety of Influence in Julian Barnes’s Flaubert’s Parrot.” Stunned into Uncertainty: Essays on Julian Barnes’s Fiction. Edited by Eszter Tory & Janina Vesztergom. Eötvös Loránd University, 2014, pp. 85-96.
There are 22 citations in total.

Details

Primary Language English
Subjects Literary Studies
Journal Section Articles
Authors

Fatma Zeynep Bilge

Publication Date June 29, 2021
Published in Issue Year 2021 Volume: 15 Issue: 1

Cite

APA Bilge, F. Z. (2021). The Perpetual Quest for Author(ity) and Authenticity in Flaubert’s Parrot. Cankaya University Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences, 15(1), 37-49. https://doi.org/10.47777/cankujhss.959588

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