Modernism and the Materiality of Texts

196 Pages·2016·3.473 MB·English

by  Eyal Amiran

MODERNISM AND THE
MATERIALITY OF TEXTS
ModernismandtheMaterialityofTextsarguesthatelementsofmod-
ernisttextsthataremeaninglessinthemselvesaremotivatedbytheir
authors’ psychic crises. Physical features of texts that interest mod-
ernistwriters,suchassoundpatternsandanagrams,cannotbedissoci-
atedfromabstractionormadearefugefromsocialcrisis;instead,they
reflect colonial and racial anxieties of the period. Rudyard Kipling’s
fear that he is indistinguishable from empire subjects, J.M. Barrie’s
object-relations theater of infantile separation, and Virginia Woolf’s
dismemberedanagramselfareperformedbythephysicaltextandpro-
duceanewunderstandingoftextuality.Inchaptersthatalsoconsider
diverse works by Gertrude Stein and Alice Toklas, P.G. Wodehouse
andConanDoyle,GeorgeHerriman,andSigmundFreud,thisstudy
produces a new reading of modernism’s psychological text and of
literaryconstructionsofmaterialityintheperiod.
eyal amiran is Associate Professor of Comparative Literature and
Film & Media Studies at the University of California, Irvine. He is
theeditoroftheinterdisciplinaryjournalPostmodernCulture.

MODERNISM AND THE
MATERIALITY OF TEXTS
EYAL AMIRAN
UniversityofCalifornia,Irvine
32AvenueoftheAmericas,NewYorkny10013
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Contents
ListofFigures pageix
Preamble x
Acknowledgments xiii
ListofAbbreviations xiv
1=NonsenseandMotivation 1
3
BodyofThought
10
ThoughtofBody
13
NoRoomwithaView
2=VSW:AnagramBody 15
16
MissS.Wolf
19
Verdict–Winner
23
WreathedupontheSky
25
WeNeverSpeakThemWhole
29
Self-SownfromWind-DroppedSeed
3=TheErasureofAliceToklasandGertrudeStein 33
34
ForgettingAliceToklastotheLetter
41
TheConditionofLanguage
47
HarnessingonorAnother
4= Barrie’sObjectRelations 52
55
PeterDoesSomeThingstoYou
57
TheNameofPeterPan
62
Pooh-Pooh:“SlightlySoiled,that’smyname”
65
TheShadowoftheObject
5=LateEnglishEmpireNonsense 69
70
AsPlainlyasPrint(KiplingInk)
ForA(cid:3)That 76
79
AThingbeyondMyself
86
Kim’sForeignMadness
vii
viii Contents
6= GeorgeHerriman’sBlackSentence 92
92
AStateofPsychosis
95
TheBananaFemly
99
TheElixirofInvisibility
104
I’mWritinga‘Sickrit’toMyself
7= Afterword:IndifferenceinFreud 113
Notes 119
References 150
Index 168