<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">

<p>Ali Smith’s <italic>Autumn</italic> (2016), coined “the first Brexit novel”, relied on a very “time-sensitive” publication schedule: weeks after the manuscript had been submitted, the book was already published, documenting almost in real-time the aftermath of the Brexit referendum. The remaining three volumes of the <italic>Seasonal Quartet</italic> (<italic>Winter,</italic> 2017; <italic>Spring</italic>, 2019; <italic>Summer</italic>, 2020) also followed a similarly tight schedule; hence the last piece of the collection, published in the summer of 2020, could already reflect on yet another crisis: that of the COVID-19 pandemic and the first lockdown in Britain. The <italic>Quartet</italic> offers art as a vital coping mechanism for such critical times, but the present paper argues that the function of art in the <italic>Quartet</italic> is even more pervasive than that. The sequence’s entire poetics of transformation is founded on art as a mediatized means of experiencing the world, which is then turned into a rhetoric of transformation. The paper traces the three main motifs of the <italic>Quartet</italic>: that of the tree, the stone, and the cloud/sky to look at how their art-based transformations create a sense of connectedness in the four novels.</p>
</abstract>

Ali Smith’s Autumn (2016), coined “the first Brexit novel”, relied on a very “time-sensitive” publication schedule: weeks after the manuscript had been submitted, the book was already published, documenting almost in real-time the aftermath of the Brexit referendum. The remaining three volumes of the Seasonal Quartet (Winter, 2017; Spring, 2019; Summer, 2020) also followed a similarly tight schedule; hence the last piece of the collection, published in the summer of 2020, could already reflect on yet another crisis: that of the COVID-19 pandemic and the first lockdown in Britain. The Quartet offers art as a vital coping mechanism for such critical times, but the present paper argues that the function of art in the Quartet is even more pervasive than that. The sequence’s entire poetics of transformation is founded on art as a mediatized means of experiencing the world, which is then turned into a rhetoric of transformation. The paper traces the three main motifs of the Quartet: that of the tree, the stone, and the cloud/sky to look at how their art-based transformations create a sense of connectedness in the four novels.

Covidian Metamorphoses: Art and the Poetics of Transformation in Ali Smith’s <italic>Seasonal Quartet</italic>

Institute of English and American Studies, Department of British Studies

Acta Universitatis Sapientiae, Philologica

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Covidian Metamorphoses: Art and the Poetics of Transformation in Ali Smith’s 

Ali Smith’s Autumn (2016), coined “the first Brexit novel”, relied on a very “time-sensitive” publication schedule: weeks after the manuscript had been...

Covidian Metamorphoses: Art and the Poetics of Transformation in Ali Smith’s Seasonal Quartet

Publié en ligne: 29 nov. 2021

Pages: 60 - 72

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/ausp-2021-0005

Mots clés
Ali Smith, crisis, transformation, art,

© 2021 Zsófia Orosz-Réti, published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Covidian Metamorphoses: Art and the Poetics of Transformation in Ali Smith’s Seasonal Quartet

Publié en ligne: 29 nov. 2021

Pages: 60 - 72

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/ausp-2021-0005

Mots clésAli Smith, crisis, transformation, art,

© 2021 Zsófia Orosz-Réti, published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Mots clés
Ali Smith, crisis, transformation, art,