Carter, Angela. (1940 - 1992).
W o r k
- preoccupied with an extravagant fictional world of magic and theatre
- reinvented the fairy-tale for a knowing adult public
N o n - f i c t i o n :
The Sadeian Woman: An Exercise in Cultural History (1979):
- a deft and suggestive essay
- claims a pornographic fantasy too would have its legitimate place in literature once it could be moulded to the service of women and once women had ceased to be considered mere commodities
F i c t i o n :
The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman (1972):
- the male protagonist is divided between a harmonious but infertile calm x a fertile storm; the stable but colourless world x the fragile dream-world
Nights at the Circus (1984):
- a theatrical novel set in the golden age of escapist entertainment in the late 19th to early 20th century
- the protagonist is a Cockney bird-woman, hatched from an egg, who miraculously sprouts wings, and becomes a circus star
Wise Children (1991):
- a theatrical novel, considered her masterpiece
- concerned with theatrical twins, both dancers with successful careers, explores sisterhood and interchangeable identity
Fireworks (1974) and The Bloody Chamber (1979):
- collections of Gothic short stories
Quote
"We do not go to bed in single pairs; even if we choose not to refer to them, we still drag there with us the cultural impedimenta of our social class, our parents’ lives, our bank balances, our sexual and emotional expectations, our whole biographies."
From The Sadeian Woman (1979).
Basics
(Photo: Angela Carter Site).
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Author
Born Angela Olive Stalker. Married Carter. (1940 - 1992). British. -
Work
Novelist. Short story writer. Author of The Bloody Chamber (1979).
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Genres
Postmodernism. Magic realism. Gothicism. Feminism.
Literature
Abrams, Meyer Howard, ed. The Norton Anthology of English Literature. New York: W. W. Norton, 1993.
Barnard, Robert. Stručné dějiny anglické literatury. Praha: Brána, 1997.
Baugh, Albert C. ed. A Literary History of England. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1967.
Coote, Stephen. The Penguin Short History of English Literature. London: Penguin, 1993.
Sampson, George. The Concise Cambridge History of English Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1946.
Sanders, Andrew. The Short Oxford History of English Literature. New York: Clarendon Press, 1994.