Twentieth-century attitudes : literary powers in uncertain times / Brooke Allen.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Allen, Brooke.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

English literature--20th century--History and criticism.

English literature.

American literature--20th century--History and criticism.

American literature.

Physical Description:

xi, 241 pages ; 23 cm

Place of Publication:

Chicago : Ivan R. Dee, 2003.

Summary:

In eighteen enlightening essays, the critic Brooke Allen explores the lives and work of some of the last century's most brilliant and eccentric literary talents. It was a century that apotheosized ideology and frequently demanded evidence of political engagement from its artists and intellectuals. Some of the writers considered in "Twentieth-Century Attitudesfound a spiritual home in the left (George Bernard Shaw, Christopher Isherwood, Sylvia Townsend Warner); others, like Evelyn Waugh, in the right; still others maneuvered the shifting ideological sands with a more measured skepticism. It was also a century during which the dictates of fashion, both social and intellectual, changed with unprecedented rapidity. A few of the writers Ms. Allen considers, like James Baldwin and Saul Bellow, struggled honorably but not always with success to reconcile their artistic intentions with intellectual fashion; others, like Colette and H. G. Wells, took an avid role in the drama of their historical moment and triumphantly communicated that sense of drama to their descendants. Really good writers, as Ms. Allen shows, do not write well in spite of the foibles, prejudices, and fallacies of their times; instead they crystallize these oddities into something universal. The writers in "Twentieth-Century Attitudesembody in their very different ways the various attitudes of their contentious century and the success or failure of attempts to transcend these attitudes. Ms. Allen's essays, which combine extensive biographical information with new critical insights, richly illustrate the tenuous and often bizarre links between character and talent, between historical circumstances and individual vision.

Contents:

The Voice of a New Century: Colette 3

A Socialist Rivalry: H. G. Wells and George Bernard Shaw 21

Edith Wharton and the Rejection of Tradition 31

The Cult of Victimhood: Virginia Woolf and Modern Feminism 46

The Elusive Henry Green 62

Evelyn Waugh

with All the Warts 76

The Mitford Girls 89

Sylvia Townsend Warner 108

Brilliant Frivolity: Christopher Isherwood's Diaries 124

The Many Worlds of Angus Wilson 131

Carson McCullers: The Story of an Emotional Vampire 147

Backstage at The New Yorker 155

Iris Murdoch, Drawing-room Philosopher 171

The Better James Baldwin 183

Saul Bellow on Top 198

Cockeyed Optimist: Grace Paley and the Eternal Feminine 211

John Barth: Scheherazade's Exhaustion 216

Rohinton Mistry: A Butterfly on the Dung Heap 222.

Notes:

Includes index.

ISBN:

1566635209

OCLC:

51389114