Shifting Identities and European Landmarks in David Lodge’s Fiction

Lucia Opreanu (Ovidius University Constanta) [BIO]

Email: luciaopreanu@yahoo.com

 

ABSTRACT:

One of the most familiar aspects of David Lodge’s fiction involves the constant preoccupation with the idea of travel, especially in an academic context, and the emphasis on the contrasting features of British and foreign ideas and ways of life. This paper aims to explore among other things the interaction between different values and mentalities in an increasingly globalized space and the ways in which the various protagonists are shaped by their cosmopolitan experiences. Taking into consideration the widely read Academic Trilogy as well as novels that have so far received less critical attention, such as Therapy and Paradise News, it is going to focus on the adventures of Englishmen abroad (both in the United States and on the old continent) but also on the less palpable but equally significant incursion of postwar continental theory into Anglo-American literary studies and will attempt to question the validity of the national stereotypes used in the construction of some of the most intriguing characters populating Lodge’s complex fictional world.