Literary Significance and Reception
Though it was one of the later books of her career, Nights at the Circus was the first to bring Angela Carter widespread acclaim, winning that year's James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction. Carter's penultimate novel was met with mixed reviews, some uncomfortable with the underlying politically driven content, while others praised it for its playfulness and originality. Many critics viewed Fevvers as a winged version of the New Woman, able to escape the trappings of a patriarchal nineteenth century and move on into the twentieth century of feminist liberation. However, some feminists were disappointed with the novel, criticizing it for upholding a post-feminist stance. Since Angela Carter's death in 1992, both the novel and her reputation have reached even greater levels of popularity. Since then, the novel has made its way onto many academic syllabi and was adapted for the stage by Tom Morris and Emma Rice in 2006.
Nights at the Circus inspired British musician Bishi's first album, which has the same title.
Read more about this topic: Nights At The Circus
Famous quotes containing the words literary, significance and/or reception:
“There is something about the literary life that repels me, all this desperate building of castles on cobwebs, the long-drawn acrimonious struggle to make something important which we all know will be gone forever in a few years, the miasma of failure which is to me almost as offensive as the cheap gaudiness of popular success.”
—Raymond Chandler (1888–1959)
“History is the interpretation of the significance that the past has for us.”
—Johan Huizinga (1872–1945)
“He’s leaving Germany by special request of the Nazi government. First he sends a dispatch about Danzig and how 10,000 German tourists are pouring into the city every day with butterfly nets in their hands and submachine guns in their knapsacks. They warn him right then. What does he do next? Goes to a reception at von Ribbentropf’s and keeps yelling for gefilte fish!”
—Billy Wilder (b. 1906)