The image of Thomas Chatterton as a proclamation of the postmodernistic idea of art in the novel "Chatterton" by Peter Ackroyd

Abstract

All Chatterton`s contemporaries and followers saw him as a tragic figure, pure soul, whose godlike image and stainless reputation were undisputable. Romantics constructed their legend around the late poet, a legend which is itself a subject to a change by a subsequent age. Postmodernist Peter Ackroyd calls into doubt the Romantic image of Wordsworth's "marvelous boy," Coleridge's "spirit blest," Keats's "child of sorrow". At the same time various literary historians and researchers accused Chatterton of imitation and plagiarism. Ackroyd creates his own legend, even several legends mixed together about Thomas Chatterton. He suggests an absolutely different provocative, revolutionary to some extent version of poet`s life and death. The first impression of the book is that Ackroyd`s Chatterton, who has very little to do with the customary image of the poet, is simply the author`s attempt to deconstruct the tradition and thus to question the historical truth about his life. However the author does not merely undermine the reputation of the forger and shows his readers the other side of the coin. In fact Ackroyd managed to look deep into the whole phenomenon of Thomas Chatterton and created a more profound, more-sided image of the poet. He managed to unearth the real sense and significance of his life and creative works. Besides the author not only gives his own definition of the poet but at the same time explores the issues of originality and forgery, historical truth and the power of art.