The thesis is an interdisciplinary study of projections of scepticism in novels by D. Lodge, M. Bradbury, D. Lessing, W. Golding, L. Clarke, J. Barnes, and G. Swift. Modern British novelists, who represent different literary generations, effectively realize in their writing a sceptical thinking of various forms, however, remain open to truth-claim that the intellect can make. Critical studies on literary scepticism (the term coined by Chloe Preedy in Marlowe's Literary Scepticism: Politic Religion and Post-Reformation Polemic, 2013) have grown considerably in the last decade. Since the resurgence of interest in scepticism at the turn of the 1990s, it is no longer reduced to detachment from the social world or pessimistic picture of the world, but is conceptualized as an intellectual practice with some possible result. It is seen as "a synthesis, a way of incorporating the sceptical awareness of plurality and indeterminacy within the activity of positive inquiry" (F. Parker). This study attempts conceptualization of modern literary scepticism, and demonstrates its complex nature, in both manifestations (or projections) and origins. It contextualizes literary scepticism within the tradition in English literature since the Rennaisance, as well as points out its possible connection with the issues of national identity. As identical marker sceptical thinking is voiced by more and more writers and critics, as well as is acknowledged by recent sociology. The novels that are examined in the study are permeated with the sceptic willingness to suspend judgment (elenchus) that, although implements (or echoes) postmodernist resistance to notions of finality, can also be treated in broader context. While critics have drawn connections between modern writing and postmodernist scepticism, little has been done to integrate literary practices in the context of a longstanding philosophical tradition. This study puts Ancient Greek, French, English theories designed to forestall or refute scepticism into dialogue with contemporary literary texts. The overview of philosophical concepts precedes the analytical part of the research. Using the past to engage the questions of vital concern of our times, the study broadens the relations between postmodernist writing and scepticism, on the one hand, and on the other hand, encourages further appropriation of the philosophical category in literary terrain. Based on close analysis of fourteen novels the study theorizes taxonomy of literary scepticism, which includes epistemological, religious, feminist and moral types. The boundaries of these types can be blurred. Moreover, explicit and implicit projections of scepticism have distinct poetical instruments. The modality of scepticism in modern novels ranges from a mitigated to a radical one. The thesis demonstrates that doubt, scepticism's key strategy, may have different consequences - sometimes destructive but more often beneficial to the process of truth-claiming across sociocultural and epistemological boundaries. British writers prefer to examine the issues of knowledge (The Darkness Visible by Golding, Doctor Criminale by Bradbury), belief ( Nice Work, Paradise News by Lodge, The Spire by Golding, A History of the World in 10 ? Chapters by Barnes, Waterland by Swift), gender (The Cleft by Lessing) or "basic morality" (The Lord of the Flies by Golding) from multiple angles, which are further put in a sceptical milieu so that a possible true opinion is presented as provisional.
