The Beatles as Performers of Cultural Memory

Abstract

Critical commentary on neo-Victorian art focuses predominantly on prose fiction produced by a single author. This focus generates definitions that can prove limiting when applied to other media. Neglected are works that are clearly neo-Victorian in character, but which are collaborative in origin, or are fanciful or ludic, which are expressed in mixed media, or which predate the development of neo-Victorian critical theory – all of which are true of the Beatles’ album Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967) and their film Yellow Submarine (1968). Concepts drawn from theorists of cultural memory can expand the canon of neo-Victoriana to include these and other works of art and craft which would otherwise remain marginalised, unrecognised, or insignificant.