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The Medieval Presence in Modernist Literature: The Quest to Fail

The Medieval Presence in Modernist Literature: The Quest to Fail in James: the sacrifice of the sexual for the endeavor of art. To champion “vagueness” in itself as the effect or primary feature of his texts is perhaps to lose a sense of the origins of the force that they muster, which rests on at least the phantasm of an unrevealed secret or sensational core. In its analysis of both James and Woolf, the study regards vagueness as a rejection of the concrete, without either allowing it to have specific motivations or scrutinizing how it is produced and recognized as an aesthetic effect. Anyone who loves, enjoys, and continues to study the classic works Quigley explores will greatly appreciate her careful and nuanced tracing of their complex unfolding, and of the careers of artistic development in which they figure. Her philosophical framework, though its larger disciplinary stakes might be questioned, also clarifies pressures, parallels, and evocative contemporary countercurrents that serve as a reminder of the extraordinary context of modernism, even if analytic philosophy cannot be said to be in dialogue with or dynamic opposition to the experiments of fiction. The central challenge of the book emerges from a problem of disciplinary justification that has beset literary studies in http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Comparative Literature Duke University Press

The Medieval Presence in Modernist Literature: The Quest to Fail

Spurr, David
Comparative Literature , Volume 69 (3) – Sep 1, 2017
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Publisher
Duke University Press
Copyright
Copyright � Duke Univ Press
ISSN
0010-4124
eISSN
1945-8517
DOI
10.1215/00104124-4164499
Publisher site
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Abstract

in James: the sacrifice of the sexual for the endeavor of art. To champion “vagueness” in itself as the effect or primary feature of his texts is perhaps to lose a sense of the origins of the force that they muster, which rests on at least the phantasm of an unrevealed secret or sensational core. In its analysis of both James and Woolf, the study regards vagueness as a rejection of the concrete, without either allowing it to have specific motivations or scrutinizing how it is produced and recognized as an aesthetic effect. Anyone who loves, enjoys, and continues to study the classic works Quigley explores will greatly appreciate her careful and nuanced tracing of their complex unfolding, and of the careers of artistic development in which they figure. Her philosophical framework, though its larger disciplinary stakes might be questioned, also clarifies pressures, parallels, and evocative contemporary countercurrents that serve as a reminder of the extraordinary context of modernism, even if analytic philosophy cannot be said to be in dialogue with or dynamic opposition to the experiments of fiction. The central challenge of the book emerges from a problem of disciplinary justification that has beset literary studies in

Journal

Comparative Literature – Duke University Press

Published: Sep 1, 2017

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