Synopses & Reviews
Henri Bergson is frequently cited amongst the holy trinity of major influences on Modernism-literary and otherwise-alongside Sigmund Freud and William James. Gilles Deleuze's Bergsonism has re-popularized Bergson for the 21st century, so much so that, perhaps, our Bergson is Deleuze's Bergson.
Despite renewed interest in Bergson, his influence remains understudied and consequently undervalued. While books examining the impact of Freud and James on Modernism abound, Bergson's impact, though widely acknowledged, has been closely examined much more rarely. Understanding Bergson, Understanding Modernism remedies this deficiency in three ways. First, it offers close readings and critiques of six pivotal texts. Second, it reassesses Bergson's impact on Modernism while also tracing his continuing importance to literature, media, and philosophy throughout the twentieth and into the 21st century. In its final section it provides an extended glossary of Bergsonian terms, complete with extensive examples and citations of their use across his texts. The glossary also maps the influence of Bergson's work by including entries on related writers, all of whom Bergson either corresponded with or critiqued.
Synopsis
A wide-ranging reassessment of Henry Bergson's immense influence on literary Modernism.
About the Author
Laci Mattison is a PhD candidate in English Literature at Florida State University, USA.
Table of Contents
Foreword,
Suzanne Guerlac Abbreviations
Contributors
Introduction,
Paul Ardoin, S. E. Gontarski, and Laci Mattison Part 1. Conceptualizing Bergson1. (Re)Reading
Time and Free Will : (Re)Discovering Bergson for the Twenty-First Century,
Mary Ann Gillies2. Bergsons
Matter and Memory : From Time to Space,
David Addyman 3. Comedies of Errors: Bergsons
Laughter in Modernist Contexts,
Jan Walsh Hokenson 4.
Sub Specie Durationis, or the Free Necessity of Lifes Creativeness in Bergsons
Creative Evolution,
David Scott 5. A Reading of
Two Sources of Morality and Religion, or Bergsonian Wisdom, Emotion, and Integrity,
Michael R. Kelly 6. The Inclination of Philosophy:
The Creative Mind and the Articulation of a Bergsonian Method,
Paul Atkinson Part 2. Bergson and Aesthetics7. Bergson, Vitalism, and Modernist Literature,
Paul Douglass 8. Perception Sickness: Bergsonian Sensitivity and Modernist Paralysis,
Paul Ardoin 9. “ Blast . . . Bergson? ” Wyndham Lewis s “ Guilty Fire of Friction ”,
Charlotte de Mille 10. Bergson and Proust: A Question of Influence,
Pete A. Y. Gunter 11. Joyces Matter and Memory: Perception and Memory-Events in
Finnegans Wake,
Dustin Anderson 12. Minds Meeting: Bergson, Joyce, Nabokov, and the Aesthetics of the Subliminal,
Leona Toker 13. Modernist Energeia: Henri Bergson and the Romantic Idea of Language,
Sarah Posman 14. H.D.s Intuitional Imagism: Memory, Desire, and the Image in Process,
Laci Mattison 15. Bergson and the Comedy of Horrors,
John Mullarkey 16. Time and Free Will: Bergson, Modernism, Superheroes, and
Watchmen,
Eric Berlatsky 17. The Joys of Atavism,
Claire Colebrook Part 3. Glossary
Index