Open AccessMystic London
Author(s) -
Petr Chalupský
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
the anachronist
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2063-126X
pISSN - 1219-2589
DOI - 10.53720/zadx6682
Subject(s) - theme (computing) , mysticism , narrative , biography , literature , genius , occult , mythology , legend , art , folklore , power (physics) , order (exchange) , witch , art history , philosophy , computer science , medicine , ecology , physics , alternative medicine , finance , pathology , quantum mechanics , economics , biology , operating system
This article focuses on how the occult and esoteric is employed and explored in selected works of Peter Ackroyd, both as a theme and as a determining factor of their narrative structure. It aims to discuss the basic constituents of the writer’s mythology of London, namely a cyclic understanding of time, and a focus on the power of the genius loci and the city’s outstanding visionaries. It also shows how the occult aspects of these works undermine the traditional narrative principles of the historical novel and by means of pluralisation and hybridisation attempt to invigorate the genre. In order to illustrate the ways in which Ackroyd incorporates elements of the occult and esoteric in his works five novels have been chosen, Hawksmoor (1985), The House of Doctor Dee (1993), Dan Leno and the Limehouse Golem (1994), The Clerkenwell Tales (2003) and The Casebook of Victor Frankenstein (2008), along with the non-fiction London: The Biography (2000).