Ethics and Aesthetics in Ali Smith’s Fiction

Abstract

[eng] This chapter situates Ali Smith within the context of contemporary British literature, highlighting the critical reception of her fiction, especially in the wake of her postreferendum “seasonal novels.” However, it challenges the conceptualisation of such works as mere examples of “Brexlit,” arguing that in these novels Smith uses strategies in terms of themes, narrative techniques, characterisation and plot design that can also be detected in her earlier works. In this light, this chapter proposes an intertextual or dialogical analysis of the whole of Smith’s oeuvre as macrotext, i.e. as a text continuum. It also outlines the book’s methodology, based on close readings of Smith’s texts informed by an interdisciplinary theoretical framework tapping into such varied fields of academic enquiry as literary and critical theory, history, political science, sociology and cultural studies. This will reveal the ethical and aesthetic dimensions of Smith’s fiction, understood as a prime example of “creative solidarity” through which Smith aims at making empathy and dialogue central to a new cultural imaginary.