Double Coding in John Banville’s ‘Mefisto’ (1999)

Mihails Čebotarjovs
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Abstract

The present paper examines how John Banville creates a peculiar version of the Faust legend in his novel Mefisto (1999) through the use of double coding. The term is frequently used in postmodern art, especially in literary theory and architecture. The idea consists of the possibility of sending two opposite or even multiple messages at once. Mefisto presents a fertile ground for the analysis of the way double coding might operate in a work of postmodernist fiction. Moreover, it has been one of the most challenging contemporary interpretations of the Faust legend for critics and, therefore, the present analysis has more specific relevance for those who are already taking interest in Banville’s oeuvre and/or in the Faust legend. For those who are yet to discover Banville, the article may serve as a short introduction to his idiosyncratic artistic style and peculiar means of expression. The ensuing analysis of double coding in Mefisto has the task of demonstrating that both a metanarrative appeal and a quotation/irony combination are clearly detectable in the novel. The aspiration is also to stress that Eco’s approach to the definition of double coding is more in-depth and more relevant for literary theory or postmodernism than Jencks’s one.
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约翰·班维尔的《Mefisto》(1999)中的双重编码
本文考察了约翰·班维尔如何在他的小说《梅菲斯托》(1999)中通过使用双重编码来创造一个特殊版本的浮士德传说。这个词经常用于后现代艺术,尤其是文学理论和建筑。这个想法包含了同时发送两个相反甚至多个信息的可能性。Mefisto为分析双重编码在后现代主义小说作品中的运作方式提供了肥沃的土壤。此外,对于评论家来说,这是当代对浮士德传奇最具挑战性的解释之一,因此,对于那些已经对班维尔的作品和/或浮士德传奇感兴趣的人来说,现在的分析更有针对性。对于那些尚未了解班维尔的人来说,这篇文章可以作为他独特的艺术风格和独特的表达方式的简短介绍。随后对Mefisto中双重编码的分析,其任务是证明,在小说中,元叙事的吸引力和引用/讽刺的结合都是显而易见的。作者还希望强调,艾柯对双重编码定义的方法比詹克斯的方法更深入,与文学理论或后现代主义更相关。
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