Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
The thirteen essays in this volume range freely over the literature of the modernist period, from about the turn of the century to World War II. The contributors were invited to examine less familiar works--or aspects of the work--of major writers; to reconsider authors not usually thought of as modernist; or to explore received opinions about modernist theories and the assumptions that inform the literature of the time. Collectively the essays demonstrate, in fresh and varied ways, that reconsideration is not recapitulation, and that modernism is a phenomenon more supple, live, and approximate than we had imagined.
Table of Contents
Towards Early-Modern Autobiography: The Roles of Oscar Wilde, George Moore, Edmund Gosse, and Henry Adams
Jerome H. Buckley The Art of Arnold Bennett: Transmutation and Empathy in
Anna of the Five Towns and
Riceyman StepsDonald D. Stone William James and the Modernism of Gertrude Stein
Lisa Ruddick Contrived Lives: Joyce and Lawrence
Monroe Engel The Great War and Sassoon's Memory
Thomas Mallon Neither Worthy Nor Capable: The War Memoirs of Graves, Blunden, and Sassoon
John Hildebidle Modernism: The Case of Willa Cather
Phyllis Rose Jacob's Room and
Roger Fry: Two Studies in Still Life
Robert Kiely Mr. Carmichael and Lily Briscoe: The Rhythm of Creativity in
To The LighthouseJ. Hillis Miller Modern/ Postmodern: Eliot, Perse, Mallarmé, and the Future of the Barbarians
Ronald Bush Instances of Modernist Anti-Intellectualism
Robert Coles Modernism in History, Modernism in Power
Bruce Robbins Behind the Door of
1984: "The Worst Thing In The World"
Judith Wilt