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Article: Peter Ackroyd's London as the backdrop to esoteric corners of the past and present.(LITERATURE)
- Article from:
- Studia Anglica Posnaniensia: international review of English Studies
- Article date:
- January 1, 2008
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2008 Adam Mickiewicz University. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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ABSTRACT
This article concerns Peter Ackroyd's depiction of London as an arcane labyrinth within which demarcation of the borderline between what is rationally, historically acknowledgeable and what is not is not only highly problematic but in fact undesirable. London, with its echoes of the past, with its people and mysteries, is envisaged as metapolis which exposes, through both its architecture and textual topography, hidden tropes leading to knowledge which spills beyond the knowable. Listening intently to the voices of various rationalists and scientists, as well as occultists and visionaries, the author removes layer after layer of the city's substance in ...