Modernism/Postmodernism in 20th Century British Fiction

We will first consider the development of literary modernism early in the century, focusing on fiction written by Katherine Mansfield and Virginia Woolf. Our discussions will involve how such fiction is related to major social, technological, and cultural changes of this era. We will explore several related issues here: the conflicted history of modernist canon formation;
the significance of personal relationships and literary coteries in literary production, and the influence of psychoanalysis and new sexual theories on modernist fiction. Of particular concern will be how these issues are related to the role of art and artist in modern life. Then, we will explore what happened after the consolidation of intellectual and aesthetic trends emergence now known as “High Modernism”. Using Woolf’s Between the Acts as a bridge between modernism and post/modernism, we will look at some examples of post-modernist British fiction. Here we will take up such issues as the effects of the waning of the British Empire on literary production in the later twentieth century, and the impact of the changing demographics of the U.K. in relation to the emergence of new kinds of literary texts.
In preparation for the course, students should take time over the summer to read E.M. Forster’s Howards End and Flaubert’s Madam Bovary.

Texts: Katherine Mansfield: Selected Stories; Virginia Woolf: To the Lighthouse; Between the Acts; Graham Swift: Waterland; Julian Barnes: Flaubert’s Parrot; Zadie Smith, On Beauty