Linear and nonlinear polyphony in the postmodernist novel “The French Lieutenant’s Woman” by John Robert Fowles

This paper analyses the categories of space, time and authorship, the unique artistic representation of which is characteristic of postmodern discourse. The study of the novel “The French Lieutenant’s Woman” by John Robert Fowles from these positions illustrates the multi-level nature of the postmodern text. Polyphony, interpreted as a textual unit, performs the main structuring function in the postmodern text: the “voices” of numerous characters and the author transform the narrative into communicative lines that oblige readers to perceive the text in a multitude of potential “meanings”. Polyphonic narration modifies the spatial-temporal characteristics of the novel, minimises the necessity of solely linear fabula-plot reading and equates the roles of characters, the reader, and the author in the text. Due to settings’ spatial-temporal alternation in the novel and due to the author’s entry into the text as a character, the novel is presented as a pastiche experimenting with space and time. In turn, the category of authorship is interpreted as a situation of the creation of meaning that exists regardless of the novel’s spatial-temporal settings. Thus, the preferable way to read and perceive the postmodern novel is a nonlinear one, spatially and temporally irrelative. The technique of polyphonic narration in the novel performs communicative, form-defining, and meaning-generating functions.