The Cambridge Companion to the Modernist Novel

Description

The novel is modernism's most vital and experimental genre. In this 2007 Companion leading critics explore the very significant pleasures of reading modernist novels, but also demonstrate how and why reading modernist fiction can be difficult. No one technique or style defines a novel as modernist. Instead, these essays explain the formal innovations, stylistic preferences and thematic concerns which unite modernist fiction. They also show how modernist novels relate to other forms of art, and to the social and cultural context from which they emerged. Alongside chapters on prominent novelists such as James Joyce and Virginia Woolf, as well as lesser-known authors such as Dorothy Richardson and Djuna Barnes, themes such as genre and geography, time and consciousness are discussed in detail. With a chronology and guide to further reading, this is the most accessible and informative overview of the genre available.

Morag Shiach is Vice-Principal (Teaching and Learning) at Queen Mary, University of London, where she is also professor of Cultural History in the School of English and Drama. Her most recent books are Modernism, Labour and Selfhood in British Literature and Culture, 1890-1930 (Cambridge, 2004) and (ed.) The Cambridge Companion to the Modernist Novel (Cambridge, 2007). She has published a wide range of articles on aspects of modernism, including language reform, domestic interiors and philosophies of history. She edited Feminism and Cultural Studies (1999) and has published widely on the French novelist, essayist and playwright Helene Cixous.