E-Book Overview
Tracing the developing modernist aesthetic in the thought and writings of James Joyce, Dorothy Richardson and Virginia Woolf, Deborah Parsons considers the cultural, social and personal influences upon the three writers. Exploring the connections between their theories, Parsons pays particular attention to their work on:
- forms of realism
- characters and consciousness
- gender and the novel
- time and history.
An understanding of these three thinkers is fundamental to a grasp on modernism, making this an indispensable guide for students of modernist thought. It is also essential reading for those who wish to understand debates about the genre of the novel or the nature of literary expression, which were given a new impetus by the pioneering figures of Joyce, Richardson and Woolf.
E-Book Content
THEORISTS OF THE MODERNIST NOVEL
In the early twentieth century the modernist novel exploded literary conventions and expectations, challenging representations of reality, consciousness and identity.These novels were not simply creative masterpieces but also crucial articulations of revolutionary developments in critical thought. In this volume Deborah Parsons traces the developing modernist aesthetic in the thought and writings of James Joyce, Dorothy Richardson and Virginia Woolf. Considering cultural, social and personal influences upon the three writers and connections between their theories, Parsons pays particular attention to their work on: • • • •
forms of realism the representation of character and consciousness gender and the novel concepts of time and history.
An understanding of these three thinkers is fundamental to a grasp of modernism, making this an indispensable guide for students of modernist thought. It is also essential reading for those who wish to understand debates about the genre of the novel or the nature of li