Mourning for the Lost Nation: The Transformative Poetics of Derek Jarman’s The Last of England and Terence Davies’ Of Time and The City.
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.24197/0n1bee98Keywords:
Nostalgia, Film, Politics, National Identity, Poety, EnglandAbstract
The mourning for the decay of England’s glory has become a constant presence in postmodern English culture. There is an ever-present feeling of nostalgia for the dissolution of the past, while, simultaneously, the future is being cancelled. Both Derek Jarman and Terence Davies transformed films into poetic devices where the emotion was to be poured out, reflected upon, and revitalized. This article aims to study how the authors’ poetics are articulated, aiming to analyze the intersections between poetry, film, politics, and national identity. To achieve that, the poetic resources and strategies are to be interpreted in relation to the political situation, as both authors establish connections between individual emotions on a micro-personal level and the broader political and collective panorama. Jarman and Davies were adept at crafting a nostalgic epistemology from poetics that allowed them to acknowledge the current state of bleakness while also constructing a new identity for the nation.
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