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Modernism, Narrative and Humanism

Name: Modernism, Narrative and Humanism
Author: Sheehan, Paul
ISBN: 9780521099127

by Sheehan, Paul

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Overview

In Modernism, Narrative and Humanism, Paul Sheehan attempts to redefine modernist narrative for the twenty-first century. For Sheehan modernism presents a major form of critique of the fundamental presumptions of humanism. By pairing key modernist writers with philosophical critics of the humanist tradition, he shows how modernists sought to discover humanism's inhuman potential. He examines the development of narrative during the modernist period and sets it against, among others, the nineteenth-century philosophical writings of Schoepenhauer, Darwin and Nietzsche. Focusing on the major novels and poetics of Conrad, Lawrence, Woolf and Beckett, Sheehan investigates these writers' mistrust of humanist orthodoxy and their consequent transformations and disfigurations of narrative order. He reveals the crucial link between the modernist novel's narrative concerns and its philosophical orientation in a book that will be of compelling interest to scholars of modernism and literary theory.

Synopsis

Paul Sheehan attempts to redefine Modernist narrative for the twenty-first century. According to Sheehan, Modernism presents a major form of critique of the fundamental presumptions of humanism. By pairing key Modernist writers with philosophical critics of the humanist tradition, he shows how Modernists sought to discover humanism's inhuman potential. He reveals the crucial link between the Modernist novel's narrative concerns and its philosophical orientation in a book that will be of interest to scholars of Modernism and literary theory.

About the Author, Sheehan, Paul

Paul Sheehan is a Sydney-based writer and researcher. He studied at Birkbeck College, London, and has published articles on Dickens and Beckett.

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Editorials

Booknews

Identifying a fundamental shift between 1850 and 1950, a turning away from the human as a given towards the human as a problem, the author examines how English language novelists grappled with the unmooring of humanism. He relates the writings of Conrad, Beckett, Woolf, and Lawrence to the philosophies of Darwin, Nietzsche, and Schopenhauer, investigating their varying valuations of the human. The writers' use of narrative form is identified as being central to their contribution to an antihumanist discourse. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

From the Publisher

"... a brilliant study that sheds considerable light on the antihumanist and counterhumanist tendencies in literature, philosophy, and critical theory over the past 150 years." Modern Fiction Studies

"...very interesting and persuasive..." Modern Philology