LANDAIS, Clotilde, Stephen King as a Postmodern Author, New York, Peter Lang (Modern American Literature: New Approaches), 2013.

Présentation

Although studies on Stephen King (1947-) traditionally belong to the field of popular culture, some of his work, such as The Dark Half and “Secret Window, Secret Garden,” give an insightful perspective on contemporary fiction. Drawing upon methods used in literary analysis and textual interpretation, this book proposes a new reading of Stephen King's fiction as a literary reflection on the artistic identity of the writer and on writing and shows that horrific descriptions do not necessarily exclude metafiction. Stephen King as a Postmodern Author aims to serve as an introduction to major theories influencing contemporary American literature, such as narratology, psychoanalysis, postmodernism, and various theories of fiction.

Sommaire

Chapter 1. Introduction

Origins of Contemporary Fantastic Fiction
Fantastic Fiction: Obtuse versus Obvious
The Possibility of a Metafictional Obvious Fantastic Fiction

Chapter 2. The Fictitious Writer and His Doppelganger: A Relationship

Shaped by Creative Schizophrenia
King's Fictitious Writers and Their Doppelganger
The Scriptural Identity of the Doppelganger
Creative Schizophrenia

Chapter 3. The Writing Doppelganger: The Question of Disguised Literary Identities

Pseudonym
Plagiarism
Stephen King's Fictitious Writers as Postmodern Characters

Chapter 4. The Writing Writer: Thinking the Creative Identity

Writing Splits
Literary References
The Erasure of the Boundaries between Reality and Fiction

Chapter 5. Conclusion