John Banville e la poetica dell’epifania: “sperimentando il passato” nella narrativa irlandese post-joyciana

Abstract

The essay aims at investigating John Banville’s experimentation with the form of the novel. The focus is on the author’s attitude towards the traditional Irish trend of literary experimentation which, though tracing its origins in a remote past and emerging in Modern age through the work of distinguished writers, identified its best and extreme representative in James Joyce at the beginning of the twentieth century. The analysis of Banville’s work implies to face two strictly connected fundamental issues in the history of Irish literature: first, the relationship of Irish writers with their history and tradition, second their relationship with the ghost of their Master (“The Dead Father”). Within Banville’s wide production, the works here analysed are just a few: Birchwood, Doctor Copernicus, The Book of Evidence. They were chosen since they proved particularly suitable to carry out the proposed investigation.