JoLIE 5/2012

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SELF-REPRESENTATIONS IN REGIONAL SHORT FICTION: THE MODERN AESTHETICS OF LOSS AND CHANGE IN THOMAS HARDY AND FIALHO DE ALMEIDA

 

 

Alda Correia

Universidade Nova de Lisboa; Centro de Estudos Anglísticos

 

 

 

Abstract

 

One of the ambivalences of regionalist literature and certainly also its richness is the dialectic between globalization and localism – without provinces and provincialism there can be no identity and without identity there is no nation and state. The representations of European identity in regionalist literature indicate that, in most cases, there is no uniform reaction, rather a manifold response and representation of Europe in the eyes of its own regional communities depending on cultural, social or anthropologic diversity.

This article's proposal is to reflect on the literary interpretation of Vidal’s concept of natural and cultural landscape in two European very different spaces: Hardy's Wessex, where the destruction of local life is replaced by the negative image of the new migrant labourers and the arrival of technological change and Portuguese rustic narrative at the crossroads of the country’s isolation from Europe, the 70’s generation’s attraction for French culture and the nationalist’s sometimes narrow-minded refusal of progress and of any embracing of foreign literary canons.

 

Keywords: Place; Regional; Modernism; Ambiguity; Change.

 

 

References

 

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How to cite this article: Correia, A. (2012). Self-representations in regional short fiction: the modern aesthetics of loss and change in Thomas Hardy and Fialho de Almeida. Journal of Linguistic and Intercultural Education – JoLIE, 5, 45-58. DOI: https://doi.org/10.29302/jolie.2012.5.3

            

 

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