Modern character : 1888-1905 /
How was modern character made or remade at the turn of the twentieth century? Modern Character: 1888-1905 considers a range of literary and dramatic texts, showcasing the extraordinary efforts of various writers to rethink and reinvent 'human character' during this period. Arguing that man...
| Main Author: | |
|---|---|
| Format: | Book |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Oxford ; New York :
Oxford University Press,
[2023].
|
| Subjects: |
| Summary: | How was modern character made or remade at the turn of the twentieth century? Modern Character: 1888-1905 considers a range of literary and dramatic texts, showcasing the extraordinary efforts of various writers to rethink and reinvent 'human character' during this period. Arguing that many of the most significant breakthroughs happened in the small theaters of Europe in the 1890s, the book's first section demonstrates how the countervailing currents of Naturalism and Symbolism created a vortex in which time-honored truisms about character consistency, depth and verisimilitude were jettisoned. Works by Ibsen, Strindberg, Maeterlinck and Chekhov provide evidence of a searching and critical campaign against assumed models of characterization. The second section turns to contemporary prose narratives, with attention to Knut Hamsun, Oscar Wilde, Joris-Karl Huysmans, Gabriele D'Annunzio, Henry James, George Egerton, Edith Wharton, Kate Chopin and Joseph Conrad, to ask what writers working in the novel, novella and short-story forms were doing to contest prevailing expectations about represented persons. Inconsistency, bad faith, fragmentation and unconscious motives creep into the character spaces of these fictions. Character description recedes and plots disintegrate. A penumbral negativity intrudes just where identification and sympathy might have been achieved. Ultimately, Julian Murphet proposes that the 'modern character' emerging over this decade and a half presents a radical rethinking of a venerable category of narrative and dramatic art, with profound consequences for the coming century. |
|---|---|
| Physical Description: | x, 264 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm. |
| Bibliography: | Includes bibliographical references (pages [247]-260) and index. |
| ISBN: | 0192863126 9780192863126 |