Sean Latham
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- May 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780195379990
- eISBN:
- 9780199869053
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195379990.003.0006
- Subject:
- Literature, 20th-century Literature and Modernism
The continuing expansion of the mass media in the 20th century, and particularly the emergence of mass-mediated celebrity culture, meant that an ever-growing audience imagined they had access to even ...
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The continuing expansion of the mass media in the 20th century, and particularly the emergence of mass-mediated celebrity culture, meant that an ever-growing audience imagined they had access to even the most exclusive circles. Uniquely positioned to exploit this fraught tension between the public and the private, the roman à clef became an increasingly popular genre, catering to a market hungry for scandal and snobbery. This chapter focuses narrowly on two such coteries, one in England and the other in Paris. The first organized itself around the imposing figure of Lady Ottoline Morrell, who, despite her generosity, was frequently satirized in romans à clef by D. H. Lawrence, Aldous Huxley, and others. Far from simpleminded acts of revenge, these works deliberately exploit the genre in order to escape the hermetic aestheticism of highbrow modernism and thus reap the considerable rewards of the wider literary marketplace. In expatriate Paris, Jean Rhys deployed the roman à clef in similarly strategic ways, using the masochistic protagonist in Quartet to attack Ford Madox Ford’s misogynistic bohemianism. Poised at the boundary between public and private, the roman à clef thrives at the intersection between gender, genre, modernism, and celebrity.Less
The continuing expansion of the mass media in the 20th century, and particularly the emergence of mass-mediated celebrity culture, meant that an ever-growing audience imagined they had access to even the most exclusive circles. Uniquely positioned to exploit this fraught tension between the public and the private, the roman à clef became an increasingly popular genre, catering to a market hungry for scandal and snobbery. This chapter focuses narrowly on two such coteries, one in England and the other in Paris. The first organized itself around the imposing figure of Lady Ottoline Morrell, who, despite her generosity, was frequently satirized in romans à clef by D. H. Lawrence, Aldous Huxley, and others. Far from simpleminded acts of revenge, these works deliberately exploit the genre in order to escape the hermetic aestheticism of highbrow modernism and thus reap the considerable rewards of the wider literary marketplace. In expatriate Paris, Jean Rhys deployed the roman à clef in similarly strategic ways, using the masochistic protagonist in Quartet to attack Ford Madox Ford’s misogynistic bohemianism. Poised at the boundary between public and private, the roman à clef thrives at the intersection between gender, genre, modernism, and celebrity.
Jonathan Atkin
- Published in print:
- 2002
- Published Online:
- July 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780719060700
- eISBN:
- 9781781700105
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719060700.003.0003
- Subject:
- Literature, 20th-century Literature and Modernism
What were the anti-war feelings chiefly expressed outside ‘organised’ protest and not under political or religious banners – those attitudes that form the raison d'être for this study? As the Great ...
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What were the anti-war feelings chiefly expressed outside ‘organised’ protest and not under political or religious banners – those attitudes that form the raison d'être for this study? As the Great War becomes more distant in time, certain actions and individuals become greyer and more obscure, whilst others seem to become clearer and imbued with a dash of colour amid the sepia. One thinks particularly of the so-called Bloomsbury Group. The small circle of Cambridge undergraduates, whose mutual appreciation of the thoughts and teachings of the academic and philosopher G. E. Moore led them to form lasting friendships, became the kernel of what would become labelled ‘the Bloomsbury Group’. The emotions of Bloomsbury mirrored to a large extent those of its mentors. For one of the ‘fathers’ of Bloomsbury, the older Cambridge academic and humanist Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson, the coming of war was disastrous. This chapter looks at the views of some Bloomsbury members about the Great War, including Dickinson, Bertrand Russell, Virginia Woolf, John Maynard Keynes, Lytton Strachey, Ottoline Morrell and Vanessa Bell.Less
What were the anti-war feelings chiefly expressed outside ‘organised’ protest and not under political or religious banners – those attitudes that form the raison d'être for this study? As the Great War becomes more distant in time, certain actions and individuals become greyer and more obscure, whilst others seem to become clearer and imbued with a dash of colour amid the sepia. One thinks particularly of the so-called Bloomsbury Group. The small circle of Cambridge undergraduates, whose mutual appreciation of the thoughts and teachings of the academic and philosopher G. E. Moore led them to form lasting friendships, became the kernel of what would become labelled ‘the Bloomsbury Group’. The emotions of Bloomsbury mirrored to a large extent those of its mentors. For one of the ‘fathers’ of Bloomsbury, the older Cambridge academic and humanist Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson, the coming of war was disastrous. This chapter looks at the views of some Bloomsbury members about the Great War, including Dickinson, Bertrand Russell, Virginia Woolf, John Maynard Keynes, Lytton Strachey, Ottoline Morrell and Vanessa Bell.
Sydney Janet Kaplan
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780748641482
- eISBN:
- 9780748671595
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748641482.003.0004
- Subject:
- Literature, 20th-century and Contemporary Literature
The chapter begins with an intertextual reading of Mansfield's short story, ‘Bliss’ and Murry's Still Life. That reading emphasises differences between Murry and Mansfield in their fictional ...
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The chapter begins with an intertextual reading of Mansfield's short story, ‘Bliss’ and Murry's Still Life. That reading emphasises differences between Murry and Mansfield in their fictional treatment of the concept of ‘bliss’, female sexuality, bisexuality, and the power dynamics of marriage. The chapter then explores the ways that Murry's and Mansfield's relations with Lady Ottoline Morrell underlie the structure of ‘Bliss’. It considers how these relations mark a general shift from the influence of Lawrence to that of Bloomsbury on Murry and Mansfield.Less
The chapter begins with an intertextual reading of Mansfield's short story, ‘Bliss’ and Murry's Still Life. That reading emphasises differences between Murry and Mansfield in their fictional treatment of the concept of ‘bliss’, female sexuality, bisexuality, and the power dynamics of marriage. The chapter then explores the ways that Murry's and Mansfield's relations with Lady Ottoline Morrell underlie the structure of ‘Bliss’. It considers how these relations mark a general shift from the influence of Lawrence to that of Bloomsbury on Murry and Mansfield.
Karina Jakubowicz
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781474439657
- eISBN:
- 9781474453813
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474439657.003.0006
- Subject:
- Literature, 20th-century Literature and Modernism
The mystery of whether Katherine Mansfield inspired Virginia Woolf's story 'Kew Gardens,' has long been of interest to both Woolf and Mansfield scholars. This article returns to this contested ...
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The mystery of whether Katherine Mansfield inspired Virginia Woolf's story 'Kew Gardens,' has long been of interest to both Woolf and Mansfield scholars. This article returns to this contested question, but rather than focusing on the issue of attribution, it explores what appears to be a ferment of interest surrounding gardens as a literary theme. It argues that Mansfield, Woolf, and their mutual friend, Ottoline Morrell, were discussing their work with one another during the summer of 1917, and were all choosing to write about gardens during this period. This article asks why these three women were interested in gardens as a subject, and demonstrates the degree to which they were sharing ideas.Less
The mystery of whether Katherine Mansfield inspired Virginia Woolf's story 'Kew Gardens,' has long been of interest to both Woolf and Mansfield scholars. This article returns to this contested question, but rather than focusing on the issue of attribution, it explores what appears to be a ferment of interest surrounding gardens as a literary theme. It argues that Mansfield, Woolf, and their mutual friend, Ottoline Morrell, were discussing their work with one another during the summer of 1917, and were all choosing to write about gardens during this period. This article asks why these three women were interested in gardens as a subject, and demonstrates the degree to which they were sharing ideas.
Celia Marshik
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- September 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780231175043
- eISBN:
- 9780231542968
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Columbia University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7312/columbia/9780231175043.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, 20th-century Literature and Modernism
Argues that the evening gown expresses tensions between women's evolving social, sexual and economic opportunities and a sartorial genre that encodes conservative forms of femininity. Popular texts ...
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Argues that the evening gown expresses tensions between women's evolving social, sexual and economic opportunities and a sartorial genre that encodes conservative forms of femininity. Popular texts represent the dress as threatening to the women who wear it, while the professional work of modernist writers at once criticizes and expresses longing for the form. Even women who wanted to experiment with the form found themselves caricatured for doing so.Less
Argues that the evening gown expresses tensions between women's evolving social, sexual and economic opportunities and a sartorial genre that encodes conservative forms of femininity. Popular texts represent the dress as threatening to the women who wear it, while the professional work of modernist writers at once criticizes and expresses longing for the form. Even women who wanted to experiment with the form found themselves caricatured for doing so.
Sean Latham
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- May 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780195379990
- eISBN:
- 9780199869053
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195379990.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 20th-century Literature and Modernism
This book advances a relatively simple claim with far-reaching consequences for modernist studies: writers and readers throughout the early 20th century revived the long-despised codes of the roman ...
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This book advances a relatively simple claim with far-reaching consequences for modernist studies: writers and readers throughout the early 20th century revived the long-despised codes of the roman à clef as a key part of that larger assault on Victorian realism we now call modernism. In the process, this resurgent genre took on a life of its own, reconfiguring the relationship between literature, celebrity, and the law. This book explores the complex process in which the roman à clef emerged to challenge fiction’s apparent autonomy from the social and political world. These diffuse yet potent experiments conducted by readers, writers, and critics provoked not only a generative aesthetic crisis, but a gradually unfolding legal quandary that led Britain’s highest courts to worry that fiction itself might be illegal. Writers like James Joyce, Jean Rhys, Oscar Wilde, and D. H. Lawrence deliberately employed elements of the roman à clef, only to find that it possessed an uncanny and even dangerous agency of its own. Close reading and archival excavation mix in chapters on the anonymous case study, Oscar Wilde’s trial, libel law, celebrity salons, and Parisian bohemia. This book thus both salvages the roman à clef and traces its weird itinerary through the early 20th century. In the process, it elaborates an expansive concept of modernism that interweaves coterie culture with the mass media, psychology with celebrity, and literature with the law.Less
This book advances a relatively simple claim with far-reaching consequences for modernist studies: writers and readers throughout the early 20th century revived the long-despised codes of the roman à clef as a key part of that larger assault on Victorian realism we now call modernism. In the process, this resurgent genre took on a life of its own, reconfiguring the relationship between literature, celebrity, and the law. This book explores the complex process in which the roman à clef emerged to challenge fiction’s apparent autonomy from the social and political world. These diffuse yet potent experiments conducted by readers, writers, and critics provoked not only a generative aesthetic crisis, but a gradually unfolding legal quandary that led Britain’s highest courts to worry that fiction itself might be illegal. Writers like James Joyce, Jean Rhys, Oscar Wilde, and D. H. Lawrence deliberately employed elements of the roman à clef, only to find that it possessed an uncanny and even dangerous agency of its own. Close reading and archival excavation mix in chapters on the anonymous case study, Oscar Wilde’s trial, libel law, celebrity salons, and Parisian bohemia. This book thus both salvages the roman à clef and traces its weird itinerary through the early 20th century. In the process, it elaborates an expansive concept of modernism that interweaves coterie culture with the mass media, psychology with celebrity, and literature with the law.
Wayne K. Chapman
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- January 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780983533955
- eISBN:
- 9781781384930
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5949/liverpool/9780983533955.003.0033
- Subject:
- Literature, 20th-century Literature and Modernism
This chapter explores Virginia Woolf's relationship to poetry by focusing on her encounter with W. B. Yeats at Lady Ottoline Morrell's in November 1930. Drawing on unpublished material by Yeats ...
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This chapter explores Virginia Woolf's relationship to poetry by focusing on her encounter with W. B. Yeats at Lady Ottoline Morrell's in November 1930. Drawing on unpublished material by Yeats alongside Woolf's diary entries and letters recounting their meeting, the chapter contextualizes the conversation that led Yeats to write “Spilt Milk,” a poem that opens with a “We” which refers to Yeats, Morrell, Walter de la Mare, and Woolf. “Spilt Milk” epitomizes Yeats's own sense of his side of a performance. Not to cry over spilt milk is an idiom that may have nothing to do with ear trumpets though perhaps with shared admiration for Ottoline Morrell that other people miss, as Woolf said, when confronted by her more “obvious tortuousness and hypocrisy”.Less
This chapter explores Virginia Woolf's relationship to poetry by focusing on her encounter with W. B. Yeats at Lady Ottoline Morrell's in November 1930. Drawing on unpublished material by Yeats alongside Woolf's diary entries and letters recounting their meeting, the chapter contextualizes the conversation that led Yeats to write “Spilt Milk,” a poem that opens with a “We” which refers to Yeats, Morrell, Walter de la Mare, and Woolf. “Spilt Milk” epitomizes Yeats's own sense of his side of a performance. Not to cry over spilt milk is an idiom that may have nothing to do with ear trumpets though perhaps with shared admiration for Ottoline Morrell that other people miss, as Woolf said, when confronted by her more “obvious tortuousness and hypocrisy”.
Sydney Janet Kaplan
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780748641482
- eISBN:
- 9780748671595
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748641482.003.0006
- Subject:
- Literature, 20th-century and Contemporary Literature
This chapter discusses Mansfield's return to London in April 1918, her marriage to Murry, and their adversarial relations with Lady Ottoline Morrell and others associated with Bloomsbury that ...
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This chapter discusses Mansfield's return to London in April 1918, her marriage to Murry, and their adversarial relations with Lady Ottoline Morrell and others associated with Bloomsbury that resulted from Murry's negative review of the poetry of Siegfried Sassoon. It considers the change in these relations when Murry took over the editorship of the Athenaeum in 1919, especially the cautious friendship between Mansfield and Virginia Woolf, and the professional competition between Murry and T. S. Eliot.Less
This chapter discusses Mansfield's return to London in April 1918, her marriage to Murry, and their adversarial relations with Lady Ottoline Morrell and others associated with Bloomsbury that resulted from Murry's negative review of the poetry of Siegfried Sassoon. It considers the change in these relations when Murry took over the editorship of the Athenaeum in 1919, especially the cautious friendship between Mansfield and Virginia Woolf, and the professional competition between Murry and T. S. Eliot.
