The Counter-Memorial Impulse in Twentieth-Century English Fiction

by S. Henstra

Overview

A wide-ranging study that examines the tendency in 20th-century English fiction to treat grief as an occasion for social critique, unconventional readings of works by Ford, Lessing, and Winterson demonstrate how narrative experimentation in this period responds to socio-historic conditions like post-imperial melancholy, nuclear fear and homophobia.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781349366934
Publisher:	Palgrave Macmillan UK
Publication date:	11/12/2009
Edition description:	1st ed. 2009
Pages:	182
Product dimensions:	5.51(w) x 8.50(h) x (d)

About the Author

SARAH HENSTRA is Assistant Professor of English at Ryerson University, Toronto, Canada. She has previously published in such journals as Papers in Language and Literature, Studies in the Novel, Textual Practice, and Twentieth Century Literature.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements Introduction: Literature Beyond Consolation Melancholia, Group Psychology, Irony: Psychoanalytic Foundations The End of Empire: Grieving, Englishness, and Ford Madox Ford's The Good Soldier Mourning the Future: The Nuclear Threat, Prophecy, and Doris Lessing's The Golden Notebook Embodied Grief: Jeanette Winterson's Written on the Body and the Elegiac Tradition Conclusion: A Literature of Hope: Ethics and Mourning Notes Bibliography Index