Consumer Era Of Literary Classics

John Fowles was honored as the most talented and serious novelist of England after World War II, for the rich contents, various styles and profound thought of his works. Among all of his novels, it is The French Lieutenant's Woman which published in 1969, that can fully show his creative thought , sensitivity of life and ability to manipulate the art.It has gained a great deal of critics'attentions because of the distinctively creative and experimental techniques compared to the existing traditional form. Its influence was greatly expanded when the novel was adapted to a film script by Harold Pinter,the well-known contemporary British playwright.The artistic and commercial success prove that the novel is full of aesthetic value both in the thematic meanings and the narrative strategies .This essay adopts the approach of social- historical research and aesthetic analysis, attempting to interpret the diversity of the thematic meanings ,the characters provided with post-modernist humanities and the meticulous multi-structure of the novel.On the basis of close reading , and incorporating the Post-modern aesthetics which stands for difference , resoluting the center and the extemity of meaning generation, so as to reveal Fowles'thought, innovation and the great contribution to the world literature of the Post-industrial period. The research is not limited to the single text The French Lieutenant's Woman, but combined with John Fowles'life experiences, trend of modern thought and his other literary works. Return to the historical scene when the classics came into being, so we can explore the process how the novel became a classics. This research will help broaden the aesthetic view of understanding The French Lieutenant's Woman and then to interpret its contribution to the development of modern literature and the significance in the postmodern literature.This essay is divided into five sections as follows:Preface. Briefly analysing of the historical background and the significance of the creation of the novel,summarizing the research findings that have been achieved at home and abroad , at the same time justifying the value of this paper. Chapterâ… John Fowles and his literary thought. Love of nature and the "self-imposed exile" life manifested that Fowles highly praised freedom and resisted oppression and hypocrisy. As a serious writer, he contained his humanistic spirit and ultimate concern in his novels and actively sought a breakthrough in the form of novels . The creative idea and concept of narrative implies the author's pioneering effort, spirit of innovation to abandon realistic and modernist traditions, strong self-awareness as a novelist and sense of innovation in literature forms.Chapterâ…¡The connotation of a wide range of themes. John Fowles inherited the English literary tradition of critical realism, at the same time he covered many contemporary brilliant ideas ,providing the possibility of different interpretations byvarious theories. Feminism, existentialism, social criticism and other ideological contents were integrated very harmoniously in the novel.When introspecting the Victorian Age, it also reflected the deep and broad range of contemporary significance, revealed the diversity of the real world and the infinite generation of text's significances.Chapterâ…¢Post-modernist narrative strategies. In the post-modernist context ,Fowles shuttled freely between the "tradition" and "experiment" of literature.By use of the post-modernist narrative strategies such as metafiction, intertextuality, parody, anachronism, multi-perspective narrative, open ending and collage, he subverted the God-like authority of the traditional writers , deconstructed the binary opposition between text and reality, history and fiction , initiated a new relationship of innovation and tradition, readers and works.Chapterâ…£Characteristics of post-modernism . Fowles actively explored the building models of literature,which was more suitable for the modern aesthetic needs, discarding art's imitation to reality and the differnce between truth and fiction. The multiplicity and contradictory nature of characters cause the fixed and unified subject to disappear. Futhermore he abandoned the depth of the work to pursuit the revelry of language and use the fictitious text to subvert and reconstruct the history.The disappearance of the subject, depth and history was due to the author's consciously pursuit of Characteristics of post-modernism .Conclusion. By its woderful practice in various meanings and narrative techniques, realism and experiment ,The French Lieutenant's Woman proves the novel will never die as long as the human's imagination and narrative impulse still exists As the radical attitude and subversive forces of Fowles have been gradually institutionalized, the novel is sure to be absorbed by the existing ideology, and become theoretical guide and classic model essay for us to understand the post-modernist novels deeply.