Mary Butts and British Neo-Romanticism: The Enchantment of Place

Description

Mary Butts was an important figure in inter-war modernist circles and one who reviewed and associated with some of the major literary figures of the era, from T.S. Eliot to Gertrude Stein. Despite her importance and the varied nature of her writing, she has been a neglected figure in modernist scholarship. Providing a new analysis of the interwar literary period, Mary Butts and British Neo-Romanticism revisits her work - vividly experimental writings spanning memoir, poetry, polemic and fiction - through the lens of mid-20th-century British neo-Romanticism. The book argues that behind Butts's eco-feminist writings lies an intricate political and philosophical commentary.

Andrew Radford is a lecturer in the School of Critical Studies, Glasgow University, UK. His publications include Mapping the Wessex Novel: Landscape, History and the Parochial in British Literature, 1870-1940 (Continuum, 2010) and Thomas Hardy and the Survivals of Time (2003).

The book does much more, however, than recover a 'forgotten' woman writer; it expertly excavates a broad historical and cultural terrain, including visual art, high modernist debates about art, and surrealist archaeological theory. -- Rochelle Rives, City University of New York, US * The Review of English Studies * Successfully incorporates an emphasis upon the neo-romantic elements of Butts's work with a balanced and insightful assessment of its political implications. * The BARS Review * Discussion ranges seamlessly and somewhat indiscriminately across mysticism, magic, the paranormal, the psychic, the ineffable, the unseen, the "sheer force that lies behind" ... Radford offers penetrating glances into a variety of traditions and figures, including (though not limited to) artists such as Paul Nash and John Piper ... Even those who know the works of this curiously neglected author well will find fresh insights here. * Times Literary Supplement *