Before Modernism Was Modern History and the Constituencies of Writing 1900-30

by Gilbert, Geoff

• ISBN13: 9780333770511
• ISBN10: 033377051X
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2005-01-01
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

Summary

Before Modernism Was places modernist writing within the texture of modern history. Texts by Woolf, James, Freud, Wyndham Lewis, Stein, Malinowski, and others are read through a range of figures that construct and disrupt modern meaning: the ghost that affects the value of your property; the sulky, graceless adolescent; the Pole who may not be Polish; the nervous owner of the dog; the addict and her smoke. Eccentric to its institutions, these figures are central to the constituency of modernism.

Author Biography

Geoff Gilbert is Professor of Comparative Literature, American University of Paris.

Table of Contents

Preface: Things That Matter	viii
Acknowledgements	xvii
Introduction: Modern History and the Disavowal of Possibility	1	(22)
Property: The Preoccupation of Modernism	23	(28)
Boys: Manufacturing Inefficiency	51	(23)
Poles: The Centre of Europe	74	(28)
Dogs: Small Domestic Forms	102	(33)
Smoke: Craving History	135	(32)
Notes	167	(35)
Bibliography	202	(16)
Index	218