LIMINAL INTERVENTIONS INTO LIFE AND ART

A STUDY OF MARGARET ATWOOD'S OCCASIONAL TEXTS

V, Bharathi, Harishankar

Komunikacija i kultura online

6

179

190

2217-4257

http://www.komunikacijaikultura.org/index.php/kk/article/view/71

2015-2021/07/07/08:49:27

Sažetak As a writer, the variety of genres used by Margaret Atwood is very extensive. Research studies often focus on her poetry and fiction. Her prose works, especially her Occasional Writings, offer interesting insights into life in general and Atwood's art in particular. In this sense, they provide excellent secondary sources for our readings of any text by Atwood. They occupy a liminal space which allows readers to make an interpretive foray into her writings. This is only one aspect of her Occasional pieces. It is my contention that Atwood's Occasional writings – speeches, interviews, reviews and essays – provide self-reflexive and meta-fictional insights through their continual erasure of generic conventions. These texts occupy interstitial positions in relation to other Atwood texts and intervene, negotiate and mediate in the overall process of interpretation. In doing so, they effectively interrogate the Romantic view of the writer as creator and also maintain a constant dialogue with the readers.