Modernism and the Ideology of History: Literature, Politics, and the Past

by Louise Blakeney Williams

Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521120937
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	10/01/2009
Pages:	276
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 9.10(h) x 0.80(d)
Lexile:	1520L (what's this?)

About the Author

Louise Blakeney Williams is Assistant Professor of British and Intellectual History at Central Connecticut State University.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements; Abbreviations; 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; Notes; Index.

Editorial Reviews

"...Williams offers an attractive thesis constructed around masses of primary materials that make for fascinating reading." English Literature in Transition 1880-1920

"Modernisn and the Ideology of History is a valuable contribution to modernist studies and to British literary history." Journal of Midwest Modern Language Association

From the Publisher

Williams (British and intellectual history, Central Connecticut State U.) examines the development of the historical theories of the British literary Modernists, as evidenced in the work of Yeats, Pound, Hulme, Ford, and Lawrence. The text is not a work of literary criticism, but rather a "collective intellectual biography" which considers the Modernists as thinkers as well as artists. Williams seeks to demonstrate how and why their thought collectively changed direction, and to reveal a new understanding of this group of literary figures and the time in which they were living. For literary and cultural historians. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

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