
Writing Life
Early Twentieth-Century Autobiographies of the Artist-Hero
Mhairi Pooler(Author)
Liverpool University Press
Will be published approx. on 1. December 2015
Book
Hardback
224 pages
978-1-78138-197-7 (ISBN)
Description
Writers' lives are endlessly fascinating for the reading public and literary scholars alike. By examining the self-representation of authors across the schism between Victorianism and Modernism via the First World War, this study offers a new way of evaluating biographical context and experience in the individual creative process at a crucial point in world and literary history.
Writing Life explores how and why a select group of early twentieth-century writers, including Edmund Gosse, Henry James, Siegfried Sassoon and Dorothy Richardson, adapted the model of the German Romantic Kuenstlerroman, or artist narrative, for their autobiographical writing. Instead of (mis)reading these autobiographies as historical documentation, Pooler examines how these authors conduct a Romantic-style conversation about literature through literature as a means of reconfirming the role of the artist in the face of shifting values and the cataclysm of the Great War.
Writing Life explores how and why a select group of early twentieth-century writers, including Edmund Gosse, Henry James, Siegfried Sassoon and Dorothy Richardson, adapted the model of the German Romantic Kuenstlerroman, or artist narrative, for their autobiographical writing. Instead of (mis)reading these autobiographies as historical documentation, Pooler examines how these authors conduct a Romantic-style conversation about literature through literature as a means of reconfirming the role of the artist in the face of shifting values and the cataclysm of the Great War.
Reviews / Votes
Reviews'[Pooler] convincingly demonstrates that these writers consciously constructed their individual stories of artistic development in novelistic terms, incorporating key features of the Kuenstlerroman into their autobiographical narratives ... Pooler's book makes a valuable contribution to the field of autobiography studies, as it foregrounds the stylistic concerns that occupied many life writers at the start of the twentieth century.'
Alexander McKee, Life Writing 'In charting influence and tracing the development of genres, Pooler is lucid and engaging. This monograph should be a reference point for anyone who has wondered about the exact relationship between Pilgrimage and the Bildungsroman and where the line can be drawn in her text between autobiography and fiction.'
Rebecca Bowler, Pilgrimages: A Journal of Dorothy Richardson Studies
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Liverpool
United Kingdom
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Dimensions
Height: 239 mm
Width: 163 mm
ISBN-13
978-1-78138-197-7 (9781781381977)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
Mhairi Pooler is a Research Fellow at the University of Aberdeen.
Content
Acknowledgements
Introduction: 'The Very Complexion of the Mirror'
?i. The Historical Horizon
?ii. Creative Autobiography
1. The Writer Reading
?i. Tradition and Inheritance: The Kuenstlerroman
?ii. 'Influence (Inflowing)'
2. The Anxiety of Inheritance: Edmund Gosse's Father and Son
?i. Victorian and Modern
?ii. Religion and Literature
3. The Art of Life: Henry James's A Small Boy and Others and Notes of a Son and Brother
?i. Making a Scene
?ii. The Fostered Imagination
?iii. 'Convert, convert, convert!'
4. A Twofold Experiment with Time: Siegfried Sassoon's The Old Century, The Weald of Youth and Siegfried's Journey
?i. 'Fictionalized Reality, Essayized Autobiography'
?ii. 'Nostalgic and Breezy Reminiscences'
?iii. 'England's Young Soldier-Poet'
5. An Investigation of Reality: Dorothy Richardson's Pilgrimage
?i. The Art of Fiction
?ii. Pilgrimage's Progress
?iii. Of Language, of Meaning, of Mr Henry James
Conclusion: Reading the Writer
Bibliography
Index
Introduction: 'The Very Complexion of the Mirror'
?i. The Historical Horizon
?ii. Creative Autobiography
1. The Writer Reading
?i. Tradition and Inheritance: The Kuenstlerroman
?ii. 'Influence (Inflowing)'
2. The Anxiety of Inheritance: Edmund Gosse's Father and Son
?i. Victorian and Modern
?ii. Religion and Literature
3. The Art of Life: Henry James's A Small Boy and Others and Notes of a Son and Brother
?i. Making a Scene
?ii. The Fostered Imagination
?iii. 'Convert, convert, convert!'
4. A Twofold Experiment with Time: Siegfried Sassoon's The Old Century, The Weald of Youth and Siegfried's Journey
?i. 'Fictionalized Reality, Essayized Autobiography'
?ii. 'Nostalgic and Breezy Reminiscences'
?iii. 'England's Young Soldier-Poet'
5. An Investigation of Reality: Dorothy Richardson's Pilgrimage
?i. The Art of Fiction
?ii. Pilgrimage's Progress
?iii. Of Language, of Meaning, of Mr Henry James
Conclusion: Reading the Writer
Bibliography
Index