Studia Litterarum (Sep 2024)
Shakespearean Tradition in the Contemporary British Novel: Ian MсEwan
Abstract
Ian McEwan (born 1948), one of the most outstanding contemporary British writers, is brought to the literary forefront thanks to the current social, ethical issues and aesthetic virtues of his works and belonging to the New Time British Gothic tradition whose foundations were laid by Shakespeare and his younger contemporaries (John Webster, John Ford, et al.). One finds basic topoi of literary Gothic in their tragedies: horror as an inescapable component of human existence; evil and villains who violate the moral norm in society; castle as a setting; fatal secret; supernatural element; motives of violence, revenge, adultery, incest and most importantly — of God and devil. Of course, Shakespeare is multiform and is not limited to Gothic. Like Shakespeare, who as a tragedian started with a “bloody tragedy” (Titus Andronicus) and then used its techniques in his great tragedies, McEwan began with a “thriller” (The Сement Garden, 1978), based on the motifs of fatal secret and incest. His later novel Nutshell (2016) is a modern version of Shakespeare’s Hamlet written in line with the realities of the 21st century. “Intertextual game” (usual for postmodernism) is not the main thing for McEwan here. Nutshell is his aesthetic-philosophical declaration of the adherence to Shakespeare’s tradition. In this novel, he creates the image of his time and shows that civilization has achieved tremendous scientific and technological success over four centuries, but human nature hasn’t changed. Despite all the historical and sociocultural differences, the image of the world in McEwan’s novels is similar to the world of Shakespeare’s tragedies — cold, full of horror and death, abandoned by God.
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