Modernism, 1910-1945: Image to Apocalypse (Transitions)

337 Pages·2004·0.85 MB·English

by  Jane Goldman

Modernism, 1910–1945
transitions
General Editor: Julian Wolfreys
Published titles
ORWELL TO THE PRESENT: LITERATURE IN ENGLAND, 1945–2000 John Brannigan
CHAUCER TO SHAKESPEARE, 1337–1580 SunHee Kim Gertz
MODERNISM, 1910–1945: IMAGE TO APOCALYPSE Jane Goldman
POPE TO BURNEY, 1714–1779 Moyra Haslett
PATER TO FORSTER, 1873–1924 Ruth Robbins
BURKE TO BYRON, BARBAULD TO BAILLIE, 1790–1830 Jane Stabler
MILTON TO POPE, 1650–1720 Kay Gilliland Stevenson
SIDNEY TO MILTON, 1580–1660 Marion Wynne-Davies
BATAILLE Fred Botting and Scott Wilson
NEW HISTORICISM AND CULTURAL MATERIALISM John Brannigan
GENDER Claire Colebrook
POSTMODERN NARRATIVE THEORY Mark Currie
FORMALIST CRITICISM AND READER-RESPONSE THEORY Todd F. Davis and Kenneth Womack
IDEOLOGY James M. Decker
QUEER THEORIES Donald E. Hall
MARXIST LITERARY AND CULTURAL THEORY Moyra Haslett
LOUIS ALTHUSSER Warren Montag
RACE Brian Niro
JACQUES LACAN Jean-Michel Rabaté
LITERARY FEMINISMS Ruth Robbins
DECONSTRUCTION •DERRIDA Julian Wolfreys
Forthcoming titles
DICKENS TO HARDY, 1837–1884 Julian Wolfreys
TERRY EAGLETON David Alderson
JULIA KRISTEVA AND LITERARY THEORY Megan Becker-Leckrone
NATIONAL IDENTITY John Brannigan
HÉLÈNE CIXOUS: WRITING AND SEXUAL DIFFERENCE Abigail Bray
HOMI BHABHA Eleanor Byrne
POSTMODERNISM•POSTMODERNITY Martin McQuillan
ROLAND BARTHES Martin McQuillan
MODERNITY David Punter
PSYCHOANALYSIS AND LITERATURE Nicholas Rand
SUBJECTIVITY Ruth Robbins
POSTCOLONIAL THEORY Malini Johan Schueller
TRANSGRESSION JuIian Wolfreys
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M o d e r n i s m ,
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I m a g e t o A p o c a l y p s e
Jane Goldman
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Modernism,(cid:1)1910–1945 :(cid:1)image to apocalypse / Jane Goldman.(cid:1)
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ISBN 0–333–69620–4 (cloth) — ISBN 0–333–69621–2 ((cid:1)paper)

1.(cid:1)English literature—20th century—History and criticism.(cid:1)
2.(cid:1)Modernism (Literature)—Great Britain.(cid:1)3.(cid:1)American literature—20th
century—History and criticism.(cid:1)4.(cid:1)Modernism (Literature)—United States.(cid:1)
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Oh, give me liberty! for even were paradise my prison,
Still I should long to leap the crystal walls
(John Dryden)
For Gus and Roberta, with love
C o n t e n t s

General Editor’s Preface ix
Preface xi
Acknowledgements xxiii
1 Introduction: “Make It New”
A Guide to Transitions in the Period of Modernism and
the Avant-Garde 1
Part I 1910: Image, Order, War 31
2 Literature after 1910:
Formalism, the Visual Arts and Cultural Change 33
3 Tradition, Order, War and the Dead:
Critical and Cultural Contexts for T. S. Eliot’s “Tradition
and the Individual Talent” 77
4 The Egoist, War, Hell and Image:
T. S. Eliot, Dora Marsden, John Rodker, Ezra Pound and
Richard Aldington 104
5 “Tradition” and “Mrs Brown”:
T. S. Eliot and Virginia Woolf 143
Part II Image, Gender, Apocalypse 161
6 Rude Mouths:
Wyndham Lewis, Gertrude Stein, H.D., Virginia Woolf,
Nathanael West and Ezra Pound 163
vii
viii Contents
7 Gender Wars in Hell:
James Joyce, Kurt Schwitters, Gertrude Stein and
Virginia Woolf 199

Part III Apocalypse 1945 209

8 Order, Night, Rage:
Wallace Stevens, Gertrude Stein, Eugene Jolas, James Joyce,
W. H. Auden and Nathanael West 211

9 Apocalypse, Auschwitz, the Bomb and After:
Virginia Woolf, David Gascoyne, Paul Celan, Ezra Pound,
William Carlos Williams, Gertrude Stein and Kurt Schwitters 237

Chronology 256

Annotated Bibliography 272

Bibliography and References 276

Index 291
G e n e r a l E d i t o r ’s P r e f a c e

Transitions: transition–, n. of action. 1. A passing or passage from one
condition, action or (rarely) place, to another. 2. Passage in thought,
speech, or writing, from one subject to another. 3. a. The passing
from one note to another. b. The passing from one key to another,
modulation. 4. The passage from an earlier to a later stage of develop-
ment or formation . . . change from an earlier style to a later; a style of
intermediate or mixed character . . . the historical passage of
language from one well-defined stage to another.
The aim of Transitions is to explore passages and movements in
language, literature and culture from Chaucer to the present day. The
series also seeks to examine the ways in which the very idea of transi-
tion affects the reader’s sense of period so as to address anew ques-
tions of literary history and periodisation. The writers in this series
unfold the cultural and historical mediations of literature during what
are commonly recognised as crucial moments in the development of
English literature, addressing, as the OED puts it, the “historical
passage of language from one well-defined stage to another”.
Recognising the need to contextualise literary study, the authors
offer close readings of canonical and now marginalised or overlooked
literary texts from all genres, bringing to this study the rigour of
historical knowledge and the sophistication of theoretically informed
evaluations of writers and movements from the last 700 years. At the
same time as each writer, whether Chaucer or Shakespeare, Milton or
Pope, Byron, Dickens, George Eliot, Virginia Woolf or Salman
Rushdie, is shown to produce his or her texts within a discernible
historical, cultural, ideological and philosophical milieu, the text is
read from the vantage point of recent theoretical interests and
concerns. The purpose in bringing theoretical knowledge to the
reading of a wide range of works is to demonstrate how the literature
is always open to transition, whether in the instance of its production
or in succeeding moments of its critical reception.
ix