Paul Hyland
College:
Trinity College
Research:
My current PhD research is dedicated to the development of the experimental novel in the Iberian Peninsula from the end of the 19th Century to the present day. I have a particular interest in the works of Miguel de Unamuno, specifically his exemplary novels and the development of his nívola in 'Niebla', which called for a break with the contemporary Spanish thesis novel. I aim to use these as a lens to examine the later work of the Portuguese novelist José Saramago, in particular his critique of the Iberian Peninsula in 'A Jangada de Pedra' and his essayistic novels, 'Ensaio sobre a Cegueira' and 'Ensaio sobre a Lucidez', noted for their self-conscious break from traditional novelistic form. Bearing in mind the development of narrative theory in the 20th Century, from Russian formalism to structuralist narratology to methods of deconstruction, I will investigate the relationship between form and content in these literary fictions. In doing so, I aim to determine which rules, if any, can be said to govern these texts, and in how fair their experiments in form are necessary to their critique of the contemporary social, political and cultural status quo.
Publications:
Dictation and Narration: A Genettian Study of Gabriel García Márquez's "El otoño del patriarca", in Modern Languages Open (Liverpool University Press) forthcoming (2014)
