Synopses & Reviews
The Oxford English Literary History is the new century's definitive account of a rich and diverse literary heritage that stretches back for a millennium and more.
Each of these groundbreaking volumes offers a leading scholar's considered assessment of the authors, works, cultural traditions, events, and the ideas that shaped the literary voices of their age. The series will enlighten and inspire not only everyone studying, teaching, and researching in English Literature, but all serious readers.
This exciting new volume provides a freshly inclusive account of literature in England in the period before, during, and after the First World War. Chris Baldick places the modernist achievements of Virginia Woolf, T. S. Eliot, and James Joyce within the rich context of non-modernist writings across all major genres, allowing "high" literary art to be read against the background of "low" entertainment. Looking well beyond the modernist vanguard, Baldick highlights the survival and renewal of realist traditions in these decades of post-Victorian disillusionment. Ranging widely across psychological novels, war poems, detective stories, satires, and children's books, The Modern Movement provides a unique survey of the literature of this turbulent time.
Review
'\"Baldick argues persuasively that modernism, as exemplified by such authors as Eliot, Woolf, and Joyce, did not suddenly dominate British literature in the period 1910-40; realistic novels and traditional poetic and dramatic forms continued to flourish.... The individual author bibliographies are a
tremendous asset. Recommended for all academic libraries, especially at the undergraduate level.\"--Library Journal
'
Review
"This volume strikes a superb balance between compiling literary-historical facts and providing an important critical reassessment of a period surely in need of one.... It will surely have the impact of sending readers out to read books they now can't believe they've neglected."--Patrick Query, Evelyn Waugh Newsletter and Studies
"Baldick argues persuasively that modernism, as exemplified by such authors as Eliot, Woolf, and Joyce, did not suddenly dominate British literature in the period 1910-40; realistic novels and traditional poetic and dramatic forms continued to flourish.... The individual author bibliographies are a tremendous asset. Recommended for all academic libraries, especially at the undergraduate level."--Library Journal
About the Author
Chris Baldick is Professor of English, Goldsmiths College, University of London.
Table of Contents
Introduction Part One: Elements
1. The Modern Literary Market
2. Modern Authorship
3. Modern English Usage
Part Two: Forms
4. Modern Poetry
5. Modern Drama
6. Modern Short Stories
7. The Modern Novel
8. The Modern Novel as Social Chronicle
9. The Modern Psychological Novel
10. Modern Romance, Fable, and Historical Fiction
11. Modern Satire
12. Modern Essays, Biographies, Memoirs, and Travel Books
13. Modern Entertainment: Forms of Light Reading
Part Three: Occasions
14. England and the English
15. The Great War
16. Childhood and Youth
17. Sex and Sexualities
Retrospect: Three Decades of Modern Realism