Tying Victorian Bond(s) for the Resurrection of Her Majesty’s Secret Service

  • Eduardo Valls Oyarzun Universidad Complutense de Madrid
DOI: https://doi.org/10.5209/AMAL.55103
Keywords: James Bond, Victorian ideology, Thomas Carlyle, Hero, Skyfall.

Abstract

The James Bond phenomenon has been approached to discuss notions of British identity, imperialistic ethos, issues of masculinity and commodified middle-class. However, the critical canon of the James Bond mythos has not delved into the ideological origins of the myth, namely Thomas Carlyle’s (1795-1881) myth of the Hero, the “blueprint” of Victorian ideology. The article explores Sam Mendes’ Skyfall (2012) as a thorough analysis of the Bond mythos as Carlylean—say Victorian—construct, most notably through the notion of “resurrection”—a significant motif in the film. The article concludes the film embraces and celebrates Victorian ideology, laden with notions of stability and dependence, embedded in the James Bond mythos.

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Author Biography

Eduardo Valls Oyarzun, Universidad Complutense de Madrid

Eduardo Valls Oyarzun is senior lecturer at the Department of English and American Literature, Complutense University, Madrid (Spain). He received his PhD degree at this same institution –where he also took his undergraduate degree– in 2006. He is the first doctor in English Philology that obtained the mention Doctor Europeus.

His research interests focus on the English 19th-century fiction, the history of ideas (Nietzsche and the fin de siècle), Victorian studies, Modernism, both British (with special attention to Dickens, Lewis Carroll and Joseph Conrad) and American (with special focus on Francis Scott Fitzgerald) and popular fiction. Additionally, he has also researched on Shakespeare and Elisabethan drama or the cultural relationships between music and literature. Currently, he is a member of the research group "Literary Contexts of Modernity”, which deals with the genesis and development of ideology in modernity and postmodernity in the English-speaking world and Head of the Research Project "Litrerary and Artistic Representation at the Crossroads of European Crisis" (UCM).

He has published a number of articles and chapters of books about the influence of the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche on Joseph Conrad, Oscar Wilde and Francis Scott Fitzgerald. He has also devoted some time to translation Dylan como Poeta, by Christopher Ricks (Langre, 2007), the translation and critical edition of the essay El perfecto wagneriano by George Bernard Shaw (Alianza Editorial, 2011), as well as Alice in Wonderland (Lewis Carroll, Escolar y Mayo, 2015), Throught the Looking Glass (Lewis Carroll, Escolar y Mayo, 2016) and Great Expectations (Charles Dickens, Escolar y Mayo, 2014). Moreover, he has delivered several lectures in Universities such as Amsterdam, Leiden, Kent, Bard College (USA), Lublin and Jagiellonska (Poland), Lisboa or Santiago de Compostela. He is a member of the Joseph Conrad International Society of London.

 

English Department II

College of Humanities (Faculta de Filología)

Universidad Complutense de Madrid

Avda. Complutense s/n

28040 Madrid

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Published
2017-09-15
How to Cite
Valls Oyarzun E. (2017). Tying Victorian Bond(s) for the Resurrection of Her Majesty’s Secret Service. Amaltea. Revista de mitocrítica, 9, 43-60. https://doi.org/10.5209/AMAL.55103
Issue
Vol. 9 (2017): Myth and Cinema in the 21st Century
Section
Articles | Thematic Issue

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