Intermediality, intertextuality and parody: Resonances of jane austen in john fowles's the French lieutenant's woman

Abstract

This essay aims at investigating the significance of Jane Austen in John Fowles's The French Lieutenant's Woman. References to Austen's Persuasion appear three times in Fowles's novel, and the resonances of this intertextual dialogue substantially affect the politics of characterization and space (mainly the Cobb) in The French Lieutenant's Woman. This discussion is theoretically based on the relationship between intertextuality, intermediality and parody, so as to consider the relevance of Persuasion (a pre-Victorian novel) in a work which has been generally considered by critics as a parody of values and tenets of Victorian society and literature. What relationships are produced, in terms of both poetics and politics, when we think about the Austen-Fowles association.