THE DISTINCTIVE VOICE OF THE COMMONPLACE: BARBARA PYM’S CHALLENGE TO CRITICAL CONVENTIONS
THE DISTINCTIVE VOICE OF THE COMMONPLACE: BARBARA PYM’S CHALLENGE TO CRITICAL CONVENTIONS

Summary/Abstract: Philip Larkin and Lord David Cecil when asked by the Times Literary Supplement in 1977 to name the most underrated writer of the century, immediately named Barbara Pym, which started a revival in her literary career. In this study, the reasons why Barbara Pym stayed in obscurity after some relative recognition and the reasons why she was named as underrated will be discussed from the perspective of how her commonness in her novels in terms of her treatment of narrative and thematic content takes shape and becomes a distinctive and highlighting quality of her style. Barbara Pym’s subtle involvement with the trivialities of everyday life which is so elegantly and uniquely embedded in her plots gained an unparalled quality that makes her obtain a distinctive voice among her contemporary 20th century writers in English literature.

• Details
• Contents