The Persistence of Modernism
Loss and Mourning in the Twentieth Century

This book examines the persistence of modernism into the twenty-first century, and argues for its continued relevance in relation to contemporary traumas.

Madelyn Detloff (Author)

9780521896429, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 22 January 2009

226 pages
23.4 x 16 x 1.7 cm, 0.51 kg

'… Detloff's book deserves enormous praise for the immense ground that it covers. The Persistence of Modernism performs valuable work within the field of literature while also adding to film and trauma studies.' Woolf Studies Annual

Modernism is commonly perceived as a response to the cataclysmic events of the early twentieth century. To what extent then can we explain its continued persistence? Madelyn Detloff argues for modernism's relevance to our own age, a time of escalating loss, retribution and desire. Some of the social formations that inspired modernist cultural production - xenophobic nationalism and imperial hubris - are still with us. Writers such as Virginia Woolf and Gertrude Stein, who saw themselves as outsiders with a precarious sense of belonging to their dominant culture, are, Detloff claims, still able to give us insight into our contemporary narratives of loss, recovery, memory and nation. Detloff extends her conceptualisation to include current writers like Pat Barker and Hanif Kureshi, who have taken up the modernist thread in their own work; the result is an ambitious study that will appeal to all students and scholars of modernism.

Introduction: 'The captivating spell of the past'
Part I. War, Time, Trauma: 1. Woolf's resilience
2. Stein's shame
3. H. D.'s wars
Part II. The Modernist Patch: 4. Pictures, arguments, and empathy
5. The promise and peril of metic intimacy
6. Orpheus, AIDS, and The Hours
Epilogue: towards a survivable public mourning.

Subject Areas: Literature & literary studies [D]