Rhythm Nation: Pastiche and Spectral Heritage in English Music
ABSTRACT Peter Ackroyd's 1992 novel English Music offers a conflicted take on heritage. Appearing in the midst of debates about national heritage, the novel foregrounds legacies, both familial and cultural. The novel's allusions and intertexts suggest an ethnically restricted version of heritage; however, the novel's stress on pastiche and counterfeits suggest an alternative mode of conceiving legacy, one framed as a type of possession. This revised version of heritage offers a past open to those who might lay claim to it, a more fitting model for a multicultural society.