Module Information
Learning Outcomes
By the end of this module you should have:
Investigated conceptions of gender in a selection of modernist writings; discussed and critiqued the theoretical concerns of modernist authors; gained familiarity with a variety of critical reappraisals of modernism, especially those which address the issue of sexual difference and gender; developed skills as a textual critic. The main aim of this module is to generate readings and interpretations of the primary texts in accordance with the intellectual interests of the group members and in the light of feminist and gender studies.
Texts to Buy
Barnes, Djuna. Nightwood
Cather, Willa. The Professor’s House
H.D. Her (also known as HERmione)
H.D. End to Torment: A Memoir of Ezra Pound
Pound, Ezra. Gaudier-Brzeska: A Memoir
Pound, Ezra. Selected Poems, 1908-1959.
Gertrude Stein. Three Lives
Rhys, Jean. Voyage in the Dark
Scott, Bonnie Kime ed. The Gender of Modernism: A Critical Anthology. Indiana University Press, 1990
Teaching Methods
Ten 2 hour seminars.
Individual tutorials based on essay work.
Assessed, researched essay (7-8,000 words)
Module Requirements
Attend seminars, having prepared the material indicated by the module information, together with any further instructions from the seminar tutor.
Be prepared to take part in seminar discussion each week. No formal presentations are required, but each student is required to present their responses to the text and to the secondary reading at the start of every seminar.
Submit first draft of essay in accordance with published instructions.
Meet with the tutor to discuss an essay plan and first draft of the researched essay. Attend further tutorials if requested.
Useful Background Reading
Benstock, Shari. Women of the Left Bank. London: Virago, 1987
Boone, Joseph Allen. Libidinal Currents: Sexuality and the Shaping of Modernism. Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1998
Bradbury, Malcolm & James McFarlane eds. Modernism: A Guide to European Literature 1890-1930. London: Penguin Books, 1991
Childs, Peter. Modernism. London: Routledge, 2000
Dickie, Margaret. On the Modernist Long Poem. University of Iowa Press, 1986
Dickie, Margaret & Thomas Travisano eds. Gendered Modernisms: American Women Poets and Their Readers. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1996
Gilbert, Sandra & Susan Gubar. No Man's Land. 3 vols. New Haven & London: Yale University Press, 1987 /89 /95
Hanscombe, Gillian & Virginia L. Smyers. Writing for Their Lives. London: The Women's Press, 1987
Levenson, Michael ed. The Cambridge Companion to Modernism. Cambridge University Press, 1999
Nadel, Ira B. ed. The Cambridge Companion to Ezra Pound. Cambridge University Press, 1999
Nicholls, Peter. Modernisms. Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1995
Rado, Lisa ed. Rereading Modernism: New Directions in Feminist Criticism. New York & London: Garland, 1994
Scott, Bonnie Kime. Refiguring Modernism 2 vols. Indiana University Press, 1995
Waugh, Patricia. Practising Postmodernism/Reading Modernism. London: Edward Arnold, 1992.
Module Outline
Week One: Gertrude Stein section from The Gender of Modernism pp. 479-530.
Further Reading
Carolyn Burke, “Getting Spliced: Modernism and Sexual Difference,” American Quarterly, 39 (1987) 98-121. (Photocopy provided).
Bonnie Kime Scott, Introduction, The Gender of Modernism (1990).
Week Two: Gertrude Stein, Three Lives (1909)
Further Reading
“Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas: Rue de Fleurus,” from Benstock (1987)
Catharine R. Stimpson, “Gertrude Stein and the Transposition of Gender,” in The Poetics of Gender, ed. by Nancy K. Miller (New York: Columbia University Press, 1986), pp. (1)-18.
Week Three: Ezra Pound section from The Gender of Modernism pp. 353-371.
Further Reading
Wayne Koestenbaum, “The Waste Land: T.S. Eliot's and Ezra Pound's Collaboration on Hysteria,” Twentieth Century Literature: 34, 2, (Summer 1988), 113-139.
Week Four: Ezra Pound, cantos 29 & 81
Further Reading
Lois Bar-Yaacov, “The Odd Couple: The Correspondence between Marianne Moore and Ezra Pound, 1918-392,” Twentieth Century Literature, 34, 4, (Winter, 1988), 507-527.
Eli Goldblatt, “Gender Matters in Pound's Cantos,” Journal of Modern Literature, 15, 1, (Summer, 1989), 35-53.
Helen M. Dennis, "Pound, women and gender," The Cambridge Companion to Ezra Pound. 264-283.
Helen M Dennis, "The Eleusinian Mysteries as an Organizing Principle in The Pisan Cantos." Paideuma X, 2 (Fall 1981). 273-82
Week Five: H.D. End to Torment and section from The Gender of Modernism pp. 85-138.
Further Reading
Cyrena N. Pondrom, “H.D. and the Origins of Imagism,” Sagetrieb, 4, 1, (Spring 1985), 73-97.
Week Six: H.D., Her (1981)
Further Reading
Helen Sword, “Orpheus and Eurydice in the Twentieth Century: Lawrence, H.D. and the Poetics of the Turn,” Twentieth Century Literature, 35, 4, (Winter 1989), 407-428.
Week Seven: Jean Rhys, Voyage in the Dark (1934). Together with Rhys section from The Gender of Modernism pp. 372-392.
Further Reading
Carole Angier, Jean Rhys, (London, Penguin , 1992) pp. 297-333.
Week Eight: Djuna Barnes, Nightwood (1936). Together with Barnes section from The Gender of Modernism pp. 19-45, and T.S. Eliot’s Introduction. The Gender of Modernism pp. 139-149.
Further Reading
Dianne Chisholm, “Obscene Modernism: Eros Noir and the Profane Illumination of Djuna,” American Literature: A Journal of Literary History, (Durham, NC) 69, no. 1 (Mar 1997), 167-206.
Week Nine: Willa Cather, The Professor’s House (1926). Together with Cather section from The Gender of Modernism pp. 46-62.
Further Reading
Maria Lindemann, “In a Prohibition Country,” Willa Cather: Queering America (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999) pp. 83-114.
Week Ten: Ezra Pound, Gaudier-Brzeska: A Memoir.
Followed by presentations by everyone on their essay topic.