The New Modernist Novel: Literary Criticism and the Task of Reading

New understandings of modernism have led to a broader selection of writers and works, but how can its modes of reading be relevant to newly recovered modernist writing? Elizabeth Pender's book explores this question by examining three new modernist novels that resist strategies of reading that helped construct a narrowed modernist canon at mid-century. These novels offer new thinking about the temporality of reading, style, and the ethics of narration, suggesting that other new modernist fiction may require revisions to vocabularies with which modernist literature has sometimes been read.

Format: Hardback
Length: 248 pages
Publication date: 31 August 2024
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press

New understandings of modernism have emerged in recent years, leading to a broader appreciation of a diverse range of writers. However, the academic study of modernism was initially centered around a more limited selection of writers and works, raising questions about the relevance of its modes of reading to newly recovered modernist writing. This book explores how close reading can evolve as the subjects of literary study change. Elizabeth Pender examines the concept of reading in the context of modernist literature around 1930 and 1960 and then considers how close reading might be applied to three new modernist novels: Djuna Barness Nightwood, John Rodker's Adolphe 1920, and Mina Loys Insel. These novels challenge traditional strategies of reading that contributed to the construction of a narrow modernist canon in the mid-century, such as the pursuit of coherence. They offer fresh perspectives on the temporality of reading, style, and the ethics of narration. Reading these novels today suggests that other new modernist fiction may also require revisions to the vocabularies traditionally associated with modernist literature.

Dimension: 234 x 156 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781474461481