Belletristic theory, archecriture, and the memory theatre of A. S. Byatt: An ichnography

A belletristic theory of literature--a creative criticism that acknowledges its artifice, that accepts the inevitable fiction of its language, and that overturns its ontological dependence upon a subject text--reiterates the concerns not only of contemporary philosophers like Jacques Derrida or Michel Serres but of contemporary novelists as well. The novels and short stories of A. S. Byatt intermingle critical and creative discourses, disavowing the binary distinctions that separate fiction from other written thought. Byatt's critical storytelling performs an archecriture (archi-ecriture) or arche-writing that inverts hierarchal relationships such as the binary of criticism and art.; With a smithcraft that is as philosophical and critical as it is imaginative, Byatt uses memory to structure her creative work. Drawing upon Classical and Elizabethan traditions of the art of memory, Byatt employs both personal and cultural history as the architecture of the various memory theatres constructed within her novels and within Babel Tower in particular.; This dissertation's study of belletristic theory, of archecriture, and of Byatt's memory theatre functions not only through analysis but through art. It establishes a lateral interaction with the multiple subjects it researches, blurring belles-lettres with critical inquiry to blueprint a contemporary memory theatre.