The Art of Restoration - Kirsten Sandrock

Ali Smith’s seasonal quartet partakes in the recent revival of Shakespeare’s romances by creating complex intertextual dialogues between the novels and the plays. The quartet forges a connection between the art of restoration in the romance tradition and the need for regenerative artforms at the present time. Autumn (2016) engages with The Tempest (c.1610–1611), Winter (2017) with Cymbeline (c.1609–1611), Spring (2019) with Pericles (c.1607–1608), and Summer (2020) with The Winter’s Tale (c.1609–1611). Smith’s novels form what Rita Felski calls “aesthetic attachments” to Shakespeare’s romances by connecting each of the four novels to generic motifs of the plays and turning key characters into nodes that disseminate affective and aesthetic bonds to them. Central characters negotiate the forms and function of attachments to the romances while generic ties are created through the seasonal quartet’s focus on temporality and crisis, the transformational power of art, and the quest motif as a source of future hope. Smith ties her quartet closely to Shakespeare’s romances, partly to illustrate how times of crises can be confronted with the transformative power of the arts.

The Art of Restoration in: Poetica Band 55 Ausgabe 3-4 (2024)