Synopses & Reviews
Louise Williams explores the cyclical nature of historical memory in the work of five major Modernists: Yeats, Pound, Eliot, Ford and Lawrence. These Modernists, Williams argues, started their careers with historical assumptions derived from the nineteenth century. But their views on the universal structure of history, the abandonment of progress and the adoption of a cyclical sense of the past, were the result of the important conflicts and changes within the Modernist period. This wide ranging and inter-disciplinary study will be essential reading for anyone interested in modernist writing.
Review
"...Williams offers an attractive thesis constructed around masses of primary materials that make for fascinating reading." English Literature in Transition 1880-1920
Synopsis
Includes bibliographical references (p. 213-257) and index.
Synopsis
Explores the cyclical nature of historical memory in Yeats, Pound, Hulme, Ford and Lawrence.
About the Author
Louise Blakeney Williams is Assistant Professor of British and Intellectual History at Central Connecticut State University.
Table of Contents
Introduction; 1. 'Immaterial pleasure houses'; the initial aesthetic dilemma; 2. 'A more dream-heavy hour': medievalist and progressive beginnings; 3. 'Pedantry and hysteria'; contemporary political problems; 4. 'A certain discipline': radical conservative solutions; 5. 'A particularly lively wheel'; cyclic views emerge; 6. 'Our own image': the example of Asian and non-Western cultures; 7. In 'the grip of the ... vortex': the proof of Post-Impressionist art; 8. The 'cycle dance'; cyclic history arrives; 9. 'The nightmare' and beyond: World War I and mature cyclic theories; Conclusion.