Dostoevsky and English modernism, 1900-1930 / Peter Kaye.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Kaye, Peter, 1952- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Dostoyevsky, Fyodor, 1821-1881--Influence.

Dostoyevsky, Fyodor.

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

English literature.

Modernism (Literature)--Great Britain.

Modernism (Literature).

Russian fiction--Appreciation--Great Britain.

Russian fiction.

English literature--Russian influences.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (viii, 248 pages) : digital, PDF file(s).

Edition:

1st ed.

Other Title:

Dostoevsky & English Modernism 1900-1930

Place of Publication:

Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 1999.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

When Constance Garnett's translations (1910-1920) made Dostoevsky's novels accessible in England for the first time they introduced a disruptive and liberating literary force, and English novelists had to confront a new model and rival. The writers who are the focus of this study - Lawrence, Woolf, Bennett, Conrad, Forster, Galsworthy and James - either admired or feared Dostoevsky as a monster who might dissolve all literary and cultural distinctions. Though their responses differed greatly, these writers were unanimous in their inability to recognize Dostoevsky as a literary artist. They viewed him instead as a psychologist, a mystic, a prophet and, in the cases of Lawrence and Conrad, a hated rival who compelled creative response. This study constructs a map of English modernist novelists' misreadings of Dostoevsky, and in so doing it illuminates their aesthetic and cultural values and the nature of the modern English novel.

Contents:

1. Introduction

2. Prophetic rage and rivalry: D.H. Lawrence

3. A modernist ambivalence: Virginia Woolf

4. Sympathy, truth, and artlessness: Arnold Bennett

5. Keeping the monster at bay: Joseph Conrad

6. Dostoevsky and the gentleman-writers: E.M. Forster, John Galsworthy, and Henry James.

Notes:

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 05 Oct 2015).

Includes bibliographical references (p. 229-242) and index.

ISBN:

1-107-11503-5

0-511-00558-X

1-280-15343-1

0-511-11691-8

0-511-14960-3

0-511-30975-9

0-511-48512-3

0-511-05062-3

OCLC:

437250271