Revolutionary Closure in A. S. Byatt’s Neo-Victorian Fiction

Bearing in mind A. S. Byatt’s stand regarding endings and narrative in 1990—‘I think closure is the really revolutionary narrative mode at the moment’ (Tredell), this paper examines the notion of closure in her neo-Victorian fiction, the latter genre being generally considered to be timid or reactionary when it comes to conclusions, offering merely a repetition of the closure commonly attributed to Victorian fiction. The endings to ‘Precipice-Encurled’, Possession (including its mini-sequel in Victorian Poetry) and Angels and Insects are thus discussed in the light of Earl Ingersoll’s paradigms in his study of endings in relation to gender, Waiting for The End. Finally, the issue of closure and endings is harnessed to the question of Byatt’s appraisal and concern for the representation of the past. Indeed, the three neo-Victorian works display different appropriations of closure that attest to a self-reflexive and self-conscious approach to the representation of the past