The electric shepherd and the marvellous boy: literary evocations of Thomas Chatterton's suicide in Philip K. Dick's A Scanner Darkly and elsewhere
Symbiosis 6.2 115-132
Author: John Goodridge
Pages: 21
'The Electric Shepherd and the Marvellous Boy: Literary Evocations of Thomas Chatterton’s ‘Suicide’ in Philip K. Dick’s ‘A Scanner Darkly’ and Elsewhere' by John Goodridge, explores the intertextual connections between the tragic figure of Thomas Chatterton and the works of Philip K. Dick. Originally published in Symbiosis: a Journal of Anglo-American Literary Relations, this essay examines how Chatterton's mythic suicide has been reimagined in various literary contexts, particularly in Dick's novel 'A Scanner Darkly.' Goodridge delves into themes of mental illness, societal neglect, and the romanticised notion of the tortured artist, providing a critical analysis that bridges 18th-century poetry and 20th-century science fiction. This scholarly work is essential for those interested in literary criticism, intertextuality, and the cultural legacy of literary figures.
Symbiosis 6.2 115-132
Author: John Goodridge
Pages: 21
'The Electric Shepherd and the Marvellous Boy: Literary Evocations of Thomas Chatterton’s ‘Suicide’ in Philip K. Dick’s ‘A Scanner Darkly’ and Elsewhere' by John Goodridge, explores the intertextual connections between the tragic figure of Thomas Chatterton and the works of Philip K. Dick. Originally published in Symbiosis: a Journal of Anglo-American Literary Relations, this essay examines how Chatterton's mythic suicide has been reimagined in various literary contexts, particularly in Dick's novel 'A Scanner Darkly.' Goodridge delves into themes of mental illness, societal neglect, and the romanticised notion of the tortured artist, providing a critical analysis that bridges 18th-century poetry and 20th-century science fiction. This scholarly work is essential for those interested in literary criticism, intertextuality, and the cultural legacy of literary figures.
Symbiosis 6.2 115-132
Author: John Goodridge
Pages: 21
'The Electric Shepherd and the Marvellous Boy: Literary Evocations of Thomas Chatterton’s ‘Suicide’ in Philip K. Dick’s ‘A Scanner Darkly’ and Elsewhere' by John Goodridge, explores the intertextual connections between the tragic figure of Thomas Chatterton and the works of Philip K. Dick. Originally published in Symbiosis: a Journal of Anglo-American Literary Relations, this essay examines how Chatterton's mythic suicide has been reimagined in various literary contexts, particularly in Dick's novel 'A Scanner Darkly.' Goodridge delves into themes of mental illness, societal neglect, and the romanticised notion of the tortured artist, providing a critical analysis that bridges 18th-century poetry and 20th-century science fiction. This scholarly work is essential for those interested in literary criticism, intertextuality, and the cultural legacy of literary figures.
 "Unlike much literature of the nineteenth-century, that seeks a safe centre in which the artist and the audience can be comfortably together, the work of Jack London and George Orwell specialises in a tendency to extremes, a tendency to seek the social peripheries of experience, to dwell in regions of discomfort and confrontation, and, perhaps most fundamentally, to language the body into existence. London’s 'People of the Abyss' (1903) and Orwell’s 'Down and Out in Paris and London' (1933) transpose personal experience, notably involving their own bodies and 'tramp' identities, while disclosing the body as an image of both depth and surface, of deep mysterious interiors and often codified exteriors." |
