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
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Page xi
... word to indicate a kind of confusion generated by a termi- nology that seems to make clear distinctions where clear dis- tinctions cannot—and should not—be made. In particular, I shall be examining the terminology that has been deployed ...
... word to indicate a kind of confusion generated by a termi- nology that seems to make clear distinctions where clear dis- tinctions cannot—and should not—be made. In particular, I shall be examining the terminology that has been deployed ...
Page 6
... we shall face. If we were to follow Lukács, we might define the opposition in terms of entertainment versus representation (allowing the word “rep- resentation " to stand for the complex issues Lukács addressed 6 Paradoxies.
... we shall face. If we were to follow Lukács, we might define the opposition in terms of entertainment versus representation (allowing the word “rep- resentation " to stand for the complex issues Lukács addressed 6 Paradoxies.
Page 11
... prehensible boredom . ( 248 ) " Fun , " of course , is a word that trivializes the pleasure to be obtained by works labeled kitsch , but the notion of a kind of existential boredom, a fear of the meaninglessness of a High and Low 11.
... prehensible boredom . ( 248 ) " Fun , " of course , is a word that trivializes the pleasure to be obtained by works labeled kitsch , but the notion of a kind of existential boredom, a fear of the meaninglessness of a High and Low 11.
Page 12
... word I hope to redeem) as their portion and the pleasure of audiences as their goal. I would thus distinguish between works that at- tempt to pass themselves off as high art by aping the super- ficial signs of superior achievement—true ...
... word I hope to redeem) as their portion and the pleasure of audiences as their goal. I would thus distinguish between works that at- tempt to pass themselves off as high art by aping the super- ficial signs of superior achievement—true ...
Page 16
... word " light " can be used to trivialize the comic as the word “ fun ” is used to trivialize pleasure . Both the comic and the serious are interpretive gestures toward a world that is neither comic nor serious , a world that is neutral ...
... word " light " can be used to trivialize the comic as the word “ fun ” is used to trivialize pleasure . Both the comic and the serious are interpretive gestures toward a world that is neither comic nor serious , a world that is neutral ...
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