Shakespeare and Modernism

A study of how modernist writers and artists engaged with the cultural traditions of Shakespeare.

Cary DiPietro (Author)

9780521845397, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 6 February 2006

244 pages, 13 b/w illus.
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.7 cm, 0.53 kg

'… persuasive contribution to the critical history of the Modernist of Avon.' The Times Literary Supplement

Artists and writers in early twentieth-century England engaged in a variety of ways with the cultural traditions of Shakespeare as a means of defining and relating what they understood to be their own unique historical experience. In Shakespeare and Modernism, Cary DiPietro expands upon the established studies of this field by uncovering the connections and contexts that unite a broad range of cultural practices, from theatrical and book production, including that of Edward Gordon Craig and Harley Granville-Barker, to literary constructions of Shakespeare by high modernists such as T. S. Eliot, James Joyce and Virginia Woolf. Important contexts for the discussion include Marxist aesthetic theory contemporary with the period, the Nietzschean and Freudian contexts of English modernism and early twentieth-century feminism. An original and accessible study, this book will appeal to students and scholars of both Shakespeare and modernism alike.

List of illustrations
Acknowledgements
Introduction
1. The Shakespeare revolution
2. Sex, lies and historical fictions
3. The theatre and a changing civilization
4. Shakespeare's text in performance, circa 1923
5. How many children had Virginia Woolf?
Notes
Index.

Subject Areas: Literary studies: general [DSB]