scholarly journals Sound Words: Hymns in Twentieth-Century Literature

2019 ◽  
Vol 70 (296) ◽  
pp. 732-751
Author(s):  
Noreen Masud
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Focal Point ◽  
Solid Substance ◽  
Twentieth Century Literature ◽  
Modernist Literature ◽  
Archival Material ◽  
Religious Writing ◽  
Stevie Smith ◽  
Literary Writing ◽  
Century Literature

Abstract Why, in the twentieth century, do atheist or agnostic authors write so many hymns into their poems and novels? This essay contends that attending to the frequent but overlooked hymn episodes in early to mid-twentieth-century literature, and to their historical contexts, can complicate our understanding of literary postures of faith, and of everyday sounds as ‘filler’ in modernist literature. Focusing on Stevie Smith and D. H. Lawrence, with reference to a range of other writers, it draws on unpublished archival material to argue that hymn-history reveals an alternative narrative to that of religious writing as conservative, and literary writing as radical. Hymn-compilers often sought modernity, while poets and novelists tended to privilege older, more dated hymns. This ideological clash led to a literary approach which defiantly accommodated ‘bad old hymns’ through nostalgic reminiscence and extensive quotation. Used in this way, hymn oscillates between a status as textual padding and as focal point: an embarrassingly excessive and solid substance which nevertheless enables embarrassment to be discharged. Ultimately, the muffling, ostensibly authoritative substance of hymn, in twentieth-century literature, fills up gaps in which too much might resound or be revealed: it offers literary writing an opportunity to accommodate and neutralize awkwardness, failure and error.

The Work of V.V. Mayakovsky. Issue 4. Book 2: Vladimir Mayakovsky in the context of world culture

2020 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
World Literature ◽  
Textual Criticism ◽  
Twentieth Century Literature ◽  
World Culture ◽  
Vladimir Mayakovsky ◽  
Archival Material ◽  
Scholarly Publications ◽  
Academy Of Sciences ◽  
Century Literature

The second book of collected scholarly articles The Work of Mayakovsky: Vladimir Mayakovsky in the Context of World Culture is a continuation of the series of scholarly publications that accompanies the publication of The Complete Works of V.V. Mayakovsky (20 volumes). Articles by Russian and foreign scholars deal with the poetics of Mayakovsky’s works, textual criticism used on his works, his multifaceted creative connection to other authors, the reception of his poems, new ways to understand the features of the literary processes of the 1910s — 1920s, and previously unknown archival material. Several of the articles are dedicated to the 90th year since the birth of A.M. Ushakov (1930–2018), the irreplaceable director of the group of scholars preparing The Complete Works of Mayakovsky (20 volumes) at the A.M. Gorky Institute of World Literature of the Russian Academy of Sciences. This book is intended for Russian twentieth century literature specialists as well as college teachers and their students in the humanities.

Filthy Material

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chris Forster
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
New Media ◽  
Twentieth Century Literature ◽  
Modernist Literature ◽  
Literary Value ◽  
Radclyffe Hall ◽  
Media Technologies ◽  
The Face ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Media

Modernist literature is inextricable from the history of obscenity. The trials of such figures as James Joyce, D. H. Lawrence, and Radclyffe Hall loom large in accounts of twentieth-century literature. Filthy Material: Modernism and the Media of Obscenity reveals the ways that debates about obscenity and literature were shaped by changes in the history of media. The emergence of film, photography, and new printing technologies shaped how “literary value” was understood, altering how obscenity was defined and which texts were considered obscene. Filthy Material rereads the history of modernist obscenity to discover the role played by technological media in debates about obscenity. The shift from the intense censorship of the early twentieth century to the effective “end of obscenity” for literature at the middle of the century was not simply a product of cultural liberalization but also of a changing media ecology. Filthy Material brings together media theory and archival research to offer a fresh account of modernist obscenity with novel readings of works of modernist literature. It sheds new light on figures at the center of modernism’s obscenity trials (such as Joyce and Lawrence), demonstrates the relevance of the discourse of obscenity to understanding figures not typically associated with obscenity debates (such as T. S. Eliot and Wyndham Lewis), and introduces new figures to our account of modernism (such as Norah James and Jack Kahane). It reveals how modernist obscenity reflected a contest over the literary in the face of new media technologies.

scholarly journals Michael Katz's Contribution to Social and Social Welfare History

2017 ◽  
Vol 41 (4) ◽  
pp. 768-771
Author(s):  
Mark J. Stern
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Social Welfare ◽  
Reagan Administration ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Poor People ◽  
Twentieth Century Literature ◽  
Welfare History ◽  
Social Welfare History ◽  
Undeserving Poor ◽  
Century Literature

Michael Katz began work on social welfare during the late 1970s with a project entitled “The Casualties of Industrialization.” That project led to a series of essays, Poverty and Policy in American History (Katz 1983), and a few years later to In the Shadow of the Poorhouse (Katz 1986). His reading in twentieth-century literature for Shadow—and the ideological and policy nostrums of the Reagan administration—allowed Katz to pivot to two books that frame contemporary welfare debates in their historical context—The Undeserving Poor in 1989 and The Price of Citizenship in 2001, as well as a set of essays Improving Poor People (Katz 1995) that he published between the two.

scholarly journals Psychotherapy Ethics in Twentieth-Century Literature

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Magdalena Elsner
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Informed Consent ◽  
Therapeutic Relationship ◽  
Ethical Issues ◽  
Ethical Dilemmas ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
Twentieth Century Literature ◽  
Ethical Challenges ◽  
Key Characteristics ◽  
Century Literature

Ethical issues arising in the practice of psychotherapy, such as confidentiality, boundaries in the therapeutic relationship, and informed consent, figure prominently in a range of twentieth-century literary texts that portray psychotherapy. This chapter analyzes the portrayal of these conflicts, but also stresses that they are often marginal to the overall plot structures of these narratives and that literary depictions of psychotherapy are often vague or even inaccurate concerning key characteristics of psychotherapeutic practice. Focusing on examples that either illustrate professionalism and the absence of ethical challenges in psychotherapy, or take up the ethical reservations that fueled anti-Freudianism or the anti-psychiatry movement, the chapter proposes that selected literary depictions of psychotherapy can play a key role in sensitizing therapists to the complex make-up of ethical dilemmas as well as illustrating the cultural and historical contexts of these dilemmas.

The Autonomy of Art and the Legitimization of Biofiction: An Aesthetic Turning Point in Twentieth-Century Literature

2021 ◽  
Vol 82 (3) ◽  
pp. 345-369
Author(s):  
Michael Lackey
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Literary History ◽  
Turning Point ◽  
Twentieth Century Literature ◽  
Robert Penn Warren ◽  
William Styron ◽  
Literary Forms ◽  
Historical Figure ◽  
One Year ◽  
Century Literature

Abstract Biofiction is literature that names its protagonist after a historical figure, and since the 1990s it has become one of the most dominant literary forms. This is surprising because many prominent scholars, critics, and writers have criticized and even condemned it. This essay hypothesizes that postmodern theories of truth and concomitant transformations in reader sensibilities partly account for the legitimization and now dominance of biofiction. The essay analyzes a 1968 literary debate among Ralph Ellison, William Styron, and Robert Penn Warren, which on the surface concerned the uses of history in literature. But because it happened just one year after the publication of Styron’s controversial novel about Nat Turner, the debate ended up focusing primarily on the nature and value of biofiction. By analyzing the discussion in relation to contemporary formulations about and theorizations of biofiction, this essay illustrates why the forum represents a turning point in literary history, resulting in the decline of a traditional type of literary symbol and the rise of a more anchored and empirical symbol—that is, the type of symbol found in biofiction.

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