Analysis Of David Lodge’s Author, Author From The Perspective Of New Historicism

David Lodge(1935-) is a famous English scholar with international fame. Up to now, he has published 16 novels and 16 monographs on literary criticism. Previously, Lodge is noted for his campus novels and critical works on modern and postmodern theories. However, his new work Author, Author, based on the life of the famous novelist Henry James and published in 2004, is different from his former style, representing his new attempt at literary creation. At present, scholars and critics pay little attention to it and few have studied it from the perspective of New Historicism.New Historicism was a new school of literary criticism that arose in the 1980 s and became popular in the 1990 s, representing a significant change in contemporary Western literary thought. As the pioneer of this theory, Stephen Greenblatt formally established its term and generalized it as “New Historicism” in 1982. Yet, it was Louis Montrose who brought up the core concepts of New Historicism: textuality of history and historicity of texts, which broke the binary opposition between history and literature. From then on, many critics begin to pay attention to the intertexuality of history and text. This thesis is to apply New Historicism in the interpretation of David Lodge’s Author, Author, attempting to explain how textuality of history and historicity of texts are reflected in the novel.On the whole, the thesis is composed of five parts, that is, introduction, three chapters and conclusion.The introduction part gives an overview of the author’s life experience and literary career as well as the main contents of the book. Moreover, it broadly reviews the current researches on the novel at home and abroad. Apart from those, the introduction part also explains the significance of this thesis.Chapter One makes a general introduction to the theoretical formation and development of New Historicism, laying the foundation for the following textual analysis. New Historicism is formed under the influence of various theories, such as Old Historicism, Formalism, New Criticism, Postmodernism and so on. Through the comparative analysis with those theories, this chapter first explains the formation and development of New Historicism. Then, it introduces the main representatives’ contribution to the theory, especially Montrose’s textuality of history and historicity of texts.Chapter Two explores the historical events and characters recorded in the novel and analyzes how they are reconstructed in the light of textuality of history. According to the theory of New Historicism, history is a kind of text and can only be preserved through the form of text. Because history is recorded by human beings, it is inevitably affected by their experience and ideology and is subjective. The thesis chooses two historical stories and three main characters and sees how they are presented under the pen of Lodge, trying to explore the author’s subjective construction of them.Chapter Three studies the external factors that have left influence on Lodge and his works and their reflection in the novel in the light of historicity of texts. In terms of New Historicism, texts are the products of social contexts and are certainly affected by culture, society and history of the time and the authors’ life experience. This part makes an analysis of the book from four aspects, that is, literary commercialization, the author’s self-consciousness, the influence of postmodernist thoughts and readers’ reception. They affect Lodge’s creation of the novel and meanwhile are described in the book through James’ experience and feelings, revealing the author’s attitude towards literary creation and external pressure.The last chapter, namely the conclusion part, summarizes the thesis and narrates the significance of the present study. The thesis provides a relatively detailed study of the novel from the view of New Historicism, and argues that Lodge’s construction of the novel is subjective, affected by his experience as a writer and meanwhile inseparable from the social context of the time. Moreover, consideration has been given to the personal history of both Henry James and David Lodge in the exploration of dilemmas and choices of contemporary writers.