Reconciling Words and Things : Language Allegories in David Malouf's Remembering Babylon

Reconciling Words and Things : Language Allegories in David Malouf's Remembering Babylon single work criticism

Author:agent Xavier Pons

Issue Details: First known date: 2004... 2004 Reconciling Words and Things : Language Allegories in David Malouf's Remembering Babylon

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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

Author's abstract: 'A major preoccupation in David Malouf's fiction - particularly in evidence in Remembering Babylon but also in An Imaginary Life - has to do with the relationship between words and things, and with the quest for a kind of language that might be in complete harmony with reality.

At times, Malouf seems to believe this quest can be successful, in spite of the arbitrary and conventional nature of language. But this conviction is undermined by the realisation that language gives shape to reality as we see it, that it is creative rather than simply referential' (99).

Notes

Epigraph: We have only to find the name, and let its illumination fill us. (D Malouf, An Imaginary Life.)

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

Appears in:

y Commonwealth Heritage; Commonwealth : Essays and Studies vol. 27 no. 1 Autumn 2004 Z1217220 2004 periodical issue 2004
(
2004
)
pg. 99-110
Appears in:

y Reconciliations Ágnes Tóth (editor), Bernard Hickey (editor), Richard Nile (editor), Perth : API Network , 2005 Z1401235 2005 anthology criticism Perth : API Network , 2005
(
2005
)
pg. 119-132