The Country House Revisited : Variations on a Theme from Forster to Hollinghurst

This monograph provides an insight into English country house fiction by twentieth and twenty-first century authors, with a focus on the works of E.M. Forster, Evelyn Waugh, Iris Murdoch, Alan Hollinghurst, and Sarah Waters. The country house is explored within the wider social and cultural contexts of the period, including contemporary architectural development. The variety of literary depictions of the country house reflects the physical diversification of buildings which can be classified as such, from smaller variants to formerly grand residences on the brink of physical collapse. Within the scope of contemporary fiction, architecture and poetics of space, the country house, given its uniquely integrating and exceptionally evocative qualities, accentuates different conceptions of dwelling. Consequently, literary portrayals of the country house can be seen as both prefiguring and reflecting the contemporary practice of living. Annotation From Howard's End to Brideshead Revisited, this book explores the leitmotif of the English country house in twentieth- and twenty-first-century fiction, with a focus on the works of E.M. Forster, Evelyn Waugh, Iris Murdoch, Alan Hollinghurst, and Sarah Waters. Integrating wider social and cultural contexts with contemporary architectural developments, Tereza Topolovská reveals that the variety of literary depictions of the country house reflects the physical diversification of buildings that can be classified as such, from smaller variants to formerly grand residences on the brink of physical collapse. Within the scope of contemporary fiction, architecture, and poetics of space, the country house--with its uniquely integrating and exceptionally evocative qualities--accentuates different conceptions of dwelling. Consequently, literary portrayals of the country house can be seen as both prefiguring and reflecting the contemporary practice of living From Howard's End to Brideshead Revisited , this book explores the leitmotif of the English country house in twentieth- and twenty-first-century fiction, with a focus on the works of E. M. Forster, Evelyn Waugh, Iris Murdoch, Alan Hollinghurst, and Sarah Waters. Integrating wider social and cultural contexts with contemporary architectural developments, Tereza Topolovská reveals that the variety of literary depictions of the country house reflects the physical diversification of buildings that can be classified as such, from smaller variants to formerly grand residences on the brink of physical collapse. Within the scope of contemporary fiction, architecture, and poetics of space, the country house--with its uniquely integrating and exceptionally evocative qualities--accentuates different conceptions of dwelling. Consequently, literary portrayals of the country house can be seen as both prefiguring and reflecting the contemporary practice of living "This study provides an interdisciplinary analysis of 20th-century country house fiction embracing a wide variety of architectural, philosophical, historical, and literary approaches. With its far-ranging references to numerous texts, both fictional and scholarly, from the country house poem and Thoreau's Walden to contemporary websites, the book ingeniously situates the novels in a broader context."--Page [4] of cover