The Dual Artist Novel: Subverting Genre and Gender (1st ed. 2023)

By: Orla Siobhán Flock

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Synopsis: The artist novel occupies a prominent place in literary history. Although research into this genre, which is usually perceived as especially rigid, may seem to be exhausted at a first glance, a closer look at the development of the artist novel reveals its sheer incomparable malleability and resilience. In this book Orla Flock turnes her attention to those types of artist novels, which she calls dual artist novels, which depict the artistic and personal development of both a male and a female artist. The juxtaposition of the male and the female artist narratives reveals both the rootedness of the genre in literary tradition and subverts established but outdated notions of genre and gender. On both a structural and a narrative level, the dual artist novel challenges established but confining views and demonstrates that even incremental, nuanced development over time can ultimately lead to vast transformation. By reshaping the formerly rigid genre of the artist novel to include numerous and diverse voices while staying true to the thematic tradition, the dual artist novel subverts both the notion of static genre definitions as well as limiting conceptions of gender.