The Evolution of the “Autobiographical Character” in A. Huxley’s Creative Work in the Autointertextual Aspect

Abstract

The article is devoted to the analysis of some basic dominants of Aldous Huxley’s creative work in the context of his autointertextuality: for the purpose of this article, it is the image of Huxley’s autobiographical character typical of the majority of his novels and his play The World of Light (1931) in its evolution. The author aims to find out invariant qualities, peculiar to all of Huxley’s “autobiographical” (or “former” autobiographical) characters and also the transformations of this recurring image found in A. Huxley’s works from his first novel Chrome Yellow (1921) to his final novel Island (1962). Methodologically, this article is based on the main statements of the theory of intertextuality and on the practical methods of intertextual analysis, based on it. A. Huxley’s “autobiographical characters” are considered in the article both in correspondence with Huxley’s “self-image” at different moments, mainly on the levels of biography and Weltanschauung (from practical coincidence in early Huxley’s novels to the transformation of such characters into “former autobiographical” characters in such late novels as After Many a Summer Dies the Swan (1939) and Island (1962) and in the evolution of their self-identity in correlation with Huxley’s worldview transformation.

Keywords

• автобиографический герой
• автоинтертекстуальность
• образ мира
• «абсолютное сомнение»
• «положительная программа»
• интеллектуальная проза, «я-образ».