Modernism, Male Friendship, and the First World WarSarah Cole examines the rich literary and cultural history of masculine intimacy in the twentieth century. Cole approaches this complex and neglected topic from many perspectives - as a reflection of the exceptional social power wielded by the institutions that housed and structured male bonds; as a matter of closeted and thwarted homoerotics; as part of the story of the First World War. Cole shows that the terrain of masculine fellowship provides an important context for understanding key literary features of the modernist period. She foregrounds such crucial themes as the over-determined relations between imperial wanderers in Conrad's tales, the broken friendships that permeate Forster's fictions, Lawrence's desperate urge to make culture out of blood brotherhood and the intense bereavement of the war poet. Cole argues that these dramas of compelling and often tortured male friendship have helped to define a particular spirit and voice within the literary canon. |
From inside the book
Results 6-10 of 86
Page 14
... seems that modernism effectively usurps the voice of the scarred friend for its own purposes; at other times, the figure of the lost friend is offered as an emblem of modernity; friendship can stand either as a bulwark against ...
... seems that modernism effectively usurps the voice of the scarred friend for its own purposes; at other times, the figure of the lost friend is offered as an emblem of modernity; friendship can stand either as a bulwark against ...
Page 15
... seem to hold potential for voice, embodiment, and narrative promise in an unprecedented sense, and have focused on specific locations where women's partnerships devel- oped and prospered – Paris' Left Bank, the literary salon, new ...
... seem to hold potential for voice, embodiment, and narrative promise in an unprecedented sense, and have focused on specific locations where women's partnerships devel- oped and prospered – Paris' Left Bank, the literary salon, new ...
Page 19
... seem arrested in states of painful stasis, simultaneously demanding and resisting cultural accommodation and change. What I hope to show is that these developments can produc- tively offer a new interpretive lens for modernist ...
... seem arrested in states of painful stasis, simultaneously demanding and resisting cultural accommodation and change. What I hope to show is that these developments can produc- tively offer a new interpretive lens for modernist ...
Page 21
... seem to proceed directly out of Forster's personal fantasies , to function in part as a sexualization of his humanist ideal . Moreover , when Forster imagines male bonds as a tempting alternative to the confines of the family and its ...
... seem to proceed directly out of Forster's personal fantasies , to function in part as a sexualization of his humanist ideal . Moreover , when Forster imagines male bonds as a tempting alternative to the confines of the family and its ...
Page 22
... seem to suggest that his aim is primarily to pro- tect and elevate homoerotic bonds, his texts in fact expose the futility and tragic inadequacy of such an enterprise. No harmonious movement from personal desire to social practice will ...
... seem to suggest that his aim is primarily to pro- tect and elevate homoerotic bonds, his texts in fact expose the futility and tragic inadequacy of such an enterprise. No harmonious movement from personal desire to social practice will ...
Contents
1 | |
21 | |
CHAPTER 2 Conradian alienation and imperial intimacy | 92 |
friendship and comradeship at war | 138 |
DHLawrence and the aftermath of war | 185 |
Notes | 252 |
Index | 292 |
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Common terms and phrases
Aaron’s aesthetic aestheticized alienation Birkin British Cambridge Carpenter’s century characterized civilian combat comradeship Conrad conventional create critics cultural D. H. Lawrence death desire discussion E. M. Forster England English erotic ethos Fiction figure former soldiers Forster gender Greek Heart of Darkness Hellenism homoerotic homosexual idea ideal imagined imperial individual institutions isolation Joseph Conrad Kemp kind language Lawrence’s literary literature London Longest Journey Lord Jim male body male bonds male community male fellowship male friendship male intimacy male love male relations Marlow masculine Maurice men’s modernist modernity narrative novel organization Oxford Passage to India Pater perhaps physical poem poet political post-war problem public schools racial represents returned rituals romance Sassoon seems sense Septimus sexual Shere Ali social spirit story stress structure suggests Symonds T. S. Eliot text’s tradition University Press Victorian voice war’s women Women in Love Woolf writing York