The Modernist Novel
Leading scholar Stephen Kern offers a probing analysis of the modernist novel, encompassing American, British, and European works. Organized thematically, the book offers a comprehensive survey of the stunningly original formal innovations in novels by Conrad, Joyce, Woolf, Proust, Gide, Faulkner, Dos Passos, Kafka, Musil, and others. Kern contextualizes and explains how formal innovations captured the dynamic history of the period, reconstructed as ten master narratives. He also draws briefly on poetry and painting of the first half of the twentieth century. The Modernist Novel is set to become a fundamental source for discussions of the genre for students and scholars of modernism and twentieth-century literature.
STEPHEN KERN is a Humanities Distinguished Professor in the Department of History at Ohio State University. His publications include The Culture of Time and Space 18801918 (1983); The Culture of Love: Victorians to Moderns (1992); and A Cultural History of Causality: Science, Murder Novels, and Systems of Thought (2004).
CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
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Stephen Kern 2011
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First published 2011
Printed in the United Kingdom at the University Press, Cambridge
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Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication data
Kern, Stephen.
The modernist novel : a critical introduction / Stephen Kern.
p. cm.
Includes index.
ISBN 978-1-107-00811-3 ISBN 978-1-107-40042-9 (pbk.)
1. Modernism (Literature) I. Title.
PN56.M54K47 2011
809.39112dc22
2010050048
ISBN 978-1-107-00811-3 Hardback
ISBN 978-1-107-40042-9 Paperback
Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.
Contents
Conrad, Barnes, Woolf
Sartre, Musil
Dblin, Stein
Lawrence, Joyce, Gide
Hemingway, Ford, Joyce
Dos Passos, Mann, Woolf, Joyce
James, Proust, Joyce, Woolf
Faulkner, Musil, Camus, Gide
Musil, Woolf, Joyce, Picasso
Conrad, Forster, Kafka
Ford, Conrad, Woolf, Schnitzler, Richardson, Faulkner, Joyce
Dos Passos, Woolf, Joyce, Bely
Stein, Mann, Joyce, Lewis
Musil, Proust, Woolf, Joyce
Mann, Joyce, Woolf, Faulkner, Conrad, Ford
Musil, Proust, Faulkner, Conrad, Mann, Joyce, Stein
Joyce, Kafka, Woolf, Ford, Faulkner, Rilke, Camus
Gide, Lewis, Hemingway, Faulkner, Barnes, James, Lawrence
Hemingway, Proust, Faulkner, Stein, Joyce
Hofmannsthal, Gide, Lawrence, Kafka, Proust, Joyce
Richardson, Woolf, Kandinsky, Lewis, Stein, Breton, Joyce, Dblin
James, Conrad, Woolf, Gide
Faulkner, Richardson, Gide, Broch, Joyce
Kafka, Bely, Conrad, Faulkner
Acknowledgments
Thanks to the members of the modernist study group at Ohio State University, who provided a wealth of knowledge and advice, astute readings of chapters, and a supportive community of interest: Morris Beja, Sarah Copland, Katherine Elkins, Lois Florman, David Herman, Martin Hipsky, Sebastian Knowles, Ellen Carol Jones, Karen Leick, Jesse Matz, Brian McHale, William Palmer, James Phelan, Jessica Prinz, and Paul Reitter. Other colleagues read chapters and shared their expertise: Arved Ashby, Alan Beyerchen, Kevin Boyle, John Burnham, Alice Conklin, Thomas Davis, Carole Fink, Steven Fink, David Frantz, Myroslava Mudrak, and Christopher Otter. From outside my university Robert Brenner, Suzette Henke, Brian Richardson, Alpana Sharma, Jeff Wallace, and Philip Weinstein also read individual chapters. Amanpal Garcha read the entire manuscript with special attention to realist novels. Porter Abbott, Jay Clayton, Gerald Prince, and Vincent Sherry responded to specific questions about narrative theory. My students Mark De Groh, Steven Gallick, Ryan McMillin, and Anne Sealey discussed pages in progress, while Nicholas Steneck asked one probing question to which this book is an extended reply. My children Justin and Simone helped sort out what made sense and what did not.
Four long-time friends took on the challenge of this book personally from my initial inquiries to its completion. Rudolph Binion read the book with scrupulous care and rigorous attention to historical accuracy. Brian McHale sharpened my use of narrative theory and addressed countless interpretive problems. Bill Palmer read every chapter along the way and helped me navigate the rocks of dubious science, faulty logic, and unnecessary jargon. Sean Shesgreen commented on each of my chapters as he has on all the others going back three decades, when he has generously shared his subtle aesthetic sensibility and insistence on clarity and simplicity.
Abbreviations
A
James, Henry. The Ambassadors . 1903. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 2003.
AA
Faulkner, William. Absalom, Absalom! 1936. New York: Vintage, 1990.
AD
Faulkner, William. As I Lay Dying . 1930. New York: Vintage, 1990.
C
Gide, Andr. The Counterfeiters with Journal of The Counterfeiters. 1925, 1927. Translated by Dorothy Bussy. New York: Vintage, 1973.
HD
Conrad, Joseph. Heart of Darkness . 1902. 4th edn, Harmondsworth: Norton, 2006.
JR
Woolf, Virginia. Jacobs Room . 1922. In Jacobs Room & The Waves . New York: Harcourt, 1959.
LJ
Conrad, Joseph. Lord Jim . 18991900. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983.
MA
Stein, Gertrude. The Making of Americans . 1925. Normal, Ill.: Dalkey, 1999.
MD
Woolf, Virginia. Mrs. Dalloway . 1925. New York: Harcourt, 1981.
MM
Mann, Thomas. The Magic Mountain . 1924. Translated by John E. Woods. New York: Knopf, 2005.
MQ
Musil, Robert. The Man Without Qualities . 2 vols. 1952, 1978. Translated by Sophie Wilkins. New York: Knopf, 1995.
P
Richardson, Dorothy. Pilgrimage . 191538. 4 vols. London: Virago, 1982.
PA
Joyce, James. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man . 1916. New York: Viking, 1956.
RP
Proust, Marcel. Remembrance of Things Past . 191327. 3 vols. Translated by C. K. Scott Moncrieff and Terence Kilmartin. New York: Random House, 1981.
SF
Faulkner, William. The Sound and the Fury . 1929. New York: Vintage, 1990.
TL
Woolf, Virginia. To The Lighthouse . 1927. New York: Harcourt, 1981.
U
Joyce, James. Ulysses . 1922. New York: Vintage, 1986.
