Replica Britannia: heritage as postmodern industry in Downriver and England, England
Document Type
Article
Date of Original Version
2020
Abstract
Heritage became an increasingly central cultural issue in Britain from the 1970s on, the word expanding its application from conservation of the built environment to an all-purpose label covering any vestige of the past lingering into the present. Consequently, it became a hotly debated term, particularly as heritage was increasingly employed to brand the nation for the international tourist trade. Iain Sinclair’s 1991 novel Downriver and Julian Barnes’s 1998 England, England both explore these debates about the past. These novels revolve around the packaging of the past for tourism: the major characters in Downriver all trade in and on the past, while England, England revolves around a theme park so focused on heritage images of Englishness it actually leads to actual England faltering. However, these attempts to appropriate the past find such moves open up an unstable relationship with the bygone. Downriver finds the past to be a source of occult power, shades of the antecedent that threaten to return; England, England eschews questions of authenticity to find affective relations with the past more pressing, a ‘reinvented innocence’ suggesting the present might also find the past to offer a bounty of potential selves and stories.
Publication Title, e.g., Journal
Textual Practice
Volume
35
Issue
4
Citation/Publisher Attribution
Trimm, Ryan. "Replica Britannia: heritage as postmodern industry in Downriver and England, England." Textual Practice 35, 4 (2020). doi: 10.1080/0950236X.2020.1742782.