Modernist Fiction
An Introduction
2nd edition
Edited by Randall Stevenson
Oct 1997
Pearson Education / Longman
ISBN: 013837659X
264 pages
$57.50 Paper original
In the revised edition of this popular text, Randall Stevenson has expanded, re-emphasized and amended his work to make it even more relevant to today's student studying the Modernist period in literature. The book covers a wide range of modernist novelists and novels, and also provides an invaluable guide to key developments in the genre. Stevenson has developed his text by adding a discussion of Conrad's Heart of Darkness, which is now taught more regularly than Lord Jim.In addition he takes a fresh look at the politics of the Modernists, in conjunction with the politics of their texts, pointing out the drawbacks of politically-progressive readings of many modernist novels. Finally, in the section on gender, Stevenson includes discussions of such significant figures as Djuna Barnes, HD, Katherine Mansfield and Rebecca West, as well as expanding the reference to Gertrude Stein throughout. The revisions in this updated text serve to make the authors' arguments sharper and allow the text to remain central to the discussion of modernism, modernity and the novel.
Contents
• (Text) William Shakespeare's Hamlet (Critics): J Lacan, T.S.Eliot, J Rose, L Jardine
• (Text) William Wordsworth's "Intimations of Immortality" Ode. (Critics): C Brooks, G Hartmann, M Levinson
• (Text) Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre (Critics): V. Woolf, Marxist Feminist Collective, S Gilbert and S Gubar, G. Spivak
• (Text) George Eliot's Middlemarch. (Critics): R. Williams, F.R. Leavis, T Eagleton, C MacCabe, J,.Hills Miller
• (Texts by) Oscar Wilde. (Critics): Eve Sedgwick, J Dollimore, T Eagleton, J Bristow, A Sinfield
• (Text) Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness. (Critics): W. Iser, F Jameson, J Derrida, R Williams, H Cixous
• (Texts by) Bertold Brecht. (Critics) W. Benjamin, G Lukacs, R. Barthes, L Althusser, H. Marcuse, J. Fuegi
• (Text) Toni Morrison's Beloved. (Critics) P Nicholls, P Gilroy, M. Henderson, H Bhabha, L. Pearce
• (Texts by) Salman Rushdie (Critics) L. Hutcheon, A Ahmad, G. SpivakFeatures
New discussion of Heart of Darkness and renewed emphasis on empire; civilization/anarchy; symbolism and symbolic narrative.
Expanded section on gender.
Revised section on the politics of Modernism.Reviews
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'An excellent guide...'
The Yearbook of English Studies
'...a clear and illuminating discussion of (the) issues, refreshingly jargon-free, but sacrificing neither depth nor scope in lucidity'
Critical Survey