Paradoxy of ModernismIn this lively, personal book, Robert Scholes intervenes in ongoing discussions about modernism in the arts during the crucial half-century from 1895 to 1945. While critics of and apologists for modernism have defined modern art and literature in terms of binary oppositions—high/low, old/new, hard/soft, poetry/rhetoric—Scholes contends that these distinctions are in fact confused and misleading. Such oppositions are instances of “paradoxy”—an apparent clarity that covers real confusion. Closely examining specific literary texts, drawings, critical writings, and memoirs, Scholes seeks to complicate the neat polar oppositions attributed to modernism. He argues for the rehabilitation of works in the middle ground that have been trivialized in previous evaluations, and he fights orthodoxy with such paradoxes as “durable fluff,” “formulaic creativity,” and “iridescent mediocrity.” The book reconsiders major figures like James Joyce while underscoring the value of minor figures and addressing new attention to others rarely studied. It includes twenty-two illustrations of the artworks discussed. Filled with the observations of a personable and witty guide, this is a book that opens up for a reader’s delight the rich cultural terrain of modernism. |
From inside the book
Results 1-5 of 45
Page vii
... Joyce and Others 120 PART II Paradoxes FIVE Durable Fluff : The Importance of Not Being Earnest 143 SIX Iridescent Mediocrity : Dornford Yates and Others 162 SEVEN Formulaic Creativity : Simenon's Maigret Novels 195 PART III Contents.
... Joyce and Others 120 PART II Paradoxes FIVE Durable Fluff : The Importance of Not Being Earnest 143 SIX Iridescent Mediocrity : Dornford Yates and Others 162 SEVEN Formulaic Creativity : Simenon's Maigret Novels 195 PART III Contents.
Page x
... Joyce , whose papers I catalogued at Cornell University , and William Faulkner , who was at the University of Virginia when I first taught there ( when I taught Absalom , Absalom ! in an undergraduate honors seminar , he sat in on the ...
... Joyce , whose papers I catalogued at Cornell University , and William Faulkner , who was at the University of Virginia when I first taught there ( when I taught Absalom , Absalom ! in an undergraduate honors seminar , he sat in on the ...
Page xiv
... Joyce in the world of prostitutes and brothels in Chapter 9 . This whole book , then , will constitute a sort of descensus ad avernum . ( Did I mention that Virgil came to my class when I taught the Aeneid ? Actually , he didn't , but ...
... Joyce in the world of prostitutes and brothels in Chapter 9 . This whole book , then , will constitute a sort of descensus ad avernum . ( Did I mention that Virgil came to my class when I taught the Aeneid ? Actually , he didn't , but ...
Page 24
... Joyce and T. S. Eliot to task , respectively , for indecency and obscurity . We may find her wrong on both counts , if we choose , but we should also find food for thought in the way she posed the problem of Joyce and Eliot . She saw it ...
... Joyce and T. S. Eliot to task , respectively , for indecency and obscurity . We may find her wrong on both counts , if we choose , but we should also find food for thought in the way she posed the problem of Joyce and Eliot . She saw it ...
Page 59
... Modernism of Joyce or Stein but remained something of a Post - Impressionist to the end . Which is just one more reason why we need to see UNDERWEAR & SPORTS ETC ECHAPEL ESTEPNEY BON SPITALFI ... IKYLAND. Old and New 59 59.
... Modernism of Joyce or Stein but remained something of a Post - Impressionist to the end . Which is just one more reason why we need to see UNDERWEAR & SPORTS ETC ECHAPEL ESTEPNEY BON SPITALFI ... IKYLAND. Old and New 59 59.
Contents
1 | |
3 | |
33 | |
Poetry and Rhetoric in the Modernist Montage | 95 |
Hard and Soft Joyce and Others | 120 |
PART II Paradoxes | 141 |
Durable Fluff The Importance of Not Being Earnest | 143 |
Iridescent Mediocrity Dornford Yates and Others | 162 |
Formulaic CreativitySimenons Maigret Novels | 195 |
PART III Doxies | 219 |
Model Artists in ParisHastings Hamnett and Kiki | 221 |
The Aesthete in the Brothel Proust and Others | 257 |
Works Cited | 281 |
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Common terms and phrases
abstract aesthetic Anthony Ludovici argue artists Beatrice Hastings beauty Berry brothel called chapter characters Clement Greenberg comedy course Cubist culture discussion Dornford Yates doxy drawing durable fluff Eisenstein Eliot emotion English Epstein ernism essay Ezra Pound fiction formula French Georges Simenon Greenberg Gwendolen Hastings Henri Gaudier-Brzeska High and Low Hulme Hulme's images irony issue Joyce Joyce's Kiki Kiki's kind kitsch Lady Bracknell literary literature London look Ludovici Lukács magazine Marcel mediocrity middlebrow Modernist Modernist critical modes Modigliani montage narrative narrator Neo-Realists never Nina Hamnett painter painting paradoxy of Modernism Paris passage perhaps Picasso play pleasure poem poet poetry Post-Impressionist Pound Proust readers realistic rhetoric scene seems sentiment serious Simenon social story T. E. Hulme T. S. Eliot texts things thought tion translation ture turn Ulysses visual art Walter Sickert Woolf word writers Wyndham Lewis