Wide Sargasso Sea was written as a prequel to Charlotte Brontë’s 1847 novel, Jane Eyre; J. M. Coetzee reinvents Daniel Defoe’s 1719 Robinson Crusoe adventure story, and Julian Barnes novel is an attempt by a fictional biographer to write about the French writer, Flaubert.
You don’t have to have read any of the writings these three writers have been inspired by, we’ll be focusing on the stories of Rhys, Foe and Barnes.
However, we will be thinking about why our authors have chosen to look back to earlier writers. We’ll be thinking about our responses to each of these. All three were critically acclaimed, and have been called, literary. We’ll think about what that means, and consider some of the aspects of the writing that qualify them to be called, Postmodern.