Edith Wharton and the Conversations of Literary Modernism

214 Pages·2008·4.677 MB·English

by  Jennifer Haytock (auth.)

Edith Wharton and the
Conversations of
Literary Modernism
American Literature Readings
in the 21st Century
Series Editor: Linda Wagner-Martin
American Literature Readings in the 21st Century publishes works by
contemporary critics that help shape critical opinion regarding literature of
the nineteenth and twentieth century in the United States.
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F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Racial Angles and the Business of Literary Greatness
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Sex, Race, and Family in Contemporary American Short Stories
By Melissa Bostrom
Democracy in Contemporary U.S. Women’s Poetry
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James Merrill and W.H. Auden: Homosexuality and Poetic Influence
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Edited by Lyn Di Iorio Sandín and Richard Perez
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Edith Wharton and the Conversations of Literary Modernism
By Jennifer Haytock
Edith Wharton and the
Conversations of Literary
Modernism
Jennifer Haytock
EDITH WHARTON AND THE CONVERSATIONS OF LITERARY MODERNISM
Copyright © Jennifer Haytock, 2008.
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2008 978-0-230-60469-8
Permissions:
Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center
The University of Texas at Austin
University of Nebraska Press, for reprinting a revised version of “Marriage
and Modernism in Edith Wharton’s Twilight Sleep”
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any
manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief
quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
First published in 2008 by
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Union and other countries.
ISBN 978-1-349-37251-5 ISBN 978-0-230-61201-3 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/9780230612013
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Haytock, Jennifer Anne.
Edith Wharton and the conversations of literary modernism /
by Jennifer Haytock.
p. cm.—(American literature readings in the 21st century)
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 978-0–230–60469–2
1. Wharton, Edith, 1862–1937—Criticism and interpretation.
2. Wharton, Edith, 1862–1937—Political and social views. 3. Wharton,
Edith, 1862–1937—Knowledge—Modernism (Literature)
4. Modernism (Literature)—United States. I. Title.
PS3545.H16Z6625 2008
813(cid:2).52—dc22 2007035675
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Design by Newgen Imaging Systems (P) Ltd., Chennai, India.
First edition: May 2008
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Transferred to Digital Printing in 2008
To
Benjamin Michael
and
Elizabeth Grace
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Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction 1
1 Troubling the Subjective: The Problem of
Impressionism in The Reef 21
2 “Any Change May Mean Something”:
Summer, Sexuality, and Single Women 45
3 “Unmediated Bonding Between Men”:
The Accumulation of Men in the Short Stories 75
4 “A Sign of Pain’s Triumph”: War, Art, and Civilization 101
5 “The Readjustment of Personal Relations”: Marriage,
Modernism, and the Alienated Self 131
6 Antimodernism and Looking Pretty: Wharton’s
Artistic Practice 159
Afterword 181
Notes 185
Bibliography 193
Index 201
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Acknowledgments
I wish to thank Kelly Reames, Elizabeth Jane Wall Hinds, Lara Kees,
Amy Guptill, and RUSH (Rochester area United States History
writing group) for their time in reading and commenting on this
manuscript. I am grateful to The College at Brockport, The State
University of New York, Colleen Donaldson, and United University
Professions for facilitating and awarding me the Dr. Nuala McGann
Drescher Leave. Special thanks to Dakin Dalpoas. As always, I owe
much gratitude to Linda Wagner-Martin.
I am indebted to the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library
at Yale University for assisting me with the Edith Wharton Collection.
I also thank the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center at the
University of Texas at Austin for help with the Edith Wharton
Collection and for permission to publish from her letters. Thanks to
Legacy: A Journal for American Women Writers, in which an earlier
version of chapter 5 first appeared, and to the Edith Wharton Society,
at whose conference I presented a portion of this manuscript.