Tradition and Change in Peter Ackroyd’s London: A Concise Biography
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.18485/bells.2016.8.18Keywords:
London, biography, Peter Ackroyd, T. S. Eliot, time, change, tradition, Henry BergsonAbstract
In his essay “Tradition and the Individual Talent” T. S. Eliot describes tradition as accumulation and flux. Tradition is, claims Eliot, “not … what is dead, but … what is already living”. In his thinking Eliot was much influenced by Henry Bergson’s philosophy of time. According to Bergson’s study “Time and Free Will”, every new event throws light on and changes the past. For Bergson as for Eliot, to be living means to be constantly changing.
In his book London: a Concise Biography Peter Ackroyd describes the communion of present and past in the city space of London. He presents the events of London life over two millennia of its history as if they were happening on the stage of London’s streets at the moment of speaking. On the other hand he meticulously builds the chronological grid into the texture of his narrative by providing accurate historical evidence. In this way, he writes London as a street spectacle against the backdrop of history. This paper aims at interpreting Ackroyd’s image of the city in view of Eliot’s philosophy of time and change.
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