Rice Univesrity Logo
    • FAQ
    • Deposit your work
    • Login
    View Item 
    •   Rice Scholarship Home
    • Rice University Graduate Electronic Theses and Dissertations
    • Rice University Electronic Theses and Dissertations
    • View Item
    •   Rice Scholarship Home
    • Rice University Graduate Electronic Theses and Dissertations
    • Rice University Electronic Theses and Dissertations
    • View Item
    JavaScript is disabled for your browser. Some features of this site may not work without it.

    Reminiscent scrutinies: Individual memory and social life in Anthony Powell's "A Dance to the Music of Time"

    Thumbnail
    Name:
    8900235.PDF
    Size:
    7.782Mb
    Format:
    PDF
    View/Open
    Author
    Frost, Laurie Anne Adams
    Date
    1988
    Advisor
    Isle, Walter W.
    Degree
    Doctor of Philosophy
    Abstract
    In The Music of Time, Anthony Powell examines the tension between the internal reality of memory and the external social world in which the self is defined. The twelve volumes are presented as the fictional memoirs of Nicholas Jenkins; Powell's interest is in depicting voluntary memory and the stories we tell to explain who we are. Since Nick is both character and narrator, two philosophies of time are developed. On the one hand, internalized time is depicted; the memories Nick the narrator records are present simultaneously in his mind, and thus Nick remembers the past in terms of the future. But Nick the character functions in external, sequential time. Representing both internal and external concepts of time demands stylistic innovations; the effort is that the work's style is distinguished by its maintenance of chronology and accommodation of interruptions. Furthermore, since he functions as both narrator and protagonist, Nick must be defined socially. The voices of other characters are heard, and a bridge is thus formed between Nick's internal world, his memories, and an external, objective world; and the pleasure of shared experience, the basic impulse for narration, is reaffirmed. Finally, what makes narrative possible is order, seeing patterns in experience, and it is through the agency of memory that we detect patterns in external reality. Patterns are found to be at once imposed by the mind to order information and revealed in experience. These patterns are found on three levels: in language, plot, and characterization. But that patterns are discernible in experience does not mean that Powell is depicting a deterministic world; his characters seem to act as free agents, and the final cause of any episode in a pattern is indeterminable. Those causes that are discerned are those which fit the future effect. There is thus throughout The Music of Time a dynamic quality to Nick's narration: a stress between the power of the past to determine the future and the power of the future to determine the past; and it is through the depiction of individual memory and the patterns of social life that this tension is realized.
    Keyword
    English literature; Modern literature
    Citation
    Frost, Laurie Anne Adams. "Reminiscent scrutinies: Individual memory and social life in Anthony Powell's "A Dance to the Music of Time"." (1988) Diss., Rice University. http://hdl.handle.net/1911/16142.
    Metadata
    Show full item record
    Collections
    • Rice University Electronic Theses and Dissertations [12052]

    Home | FAQ | Contact Us
    Managed by the Digital Scholarship Services at Fondren Library, Rice University
    Physical Address: 6100 Main Street, Houston, Texas 77005
    Mailing Address: MS-44, P.O.BOX 1892, Houston, Texas 77251-1892
     

     

    Searching scope

    Browse

    Entire ArchiveCommunities & CollectionsBy Issue DateAuthorsTitlesSubjectsTypeThis CollectionBy Issue DateAuthorsTitlesSubjectsType

    My Account

    Login

    Statistics

    View Usage Statistics

    Home | FAQ | Contact Us
    Managed by the Digital Scholarship Services at Fondren Library, Rice University
    Physical Address: 6100 Main Street, Houston, Texas 77005
    Mailing Address: MS-44, P.O.BOX 1892, Houston, Texas 77251-1892