Spaces of Feeling: Affect and Awareness in Modernist Literature

187 Pages·2017·1.839 MB·English

by  Marta Figlerowicz

Spaces of Feeling

Spaces of Feeling
Affect and Awareness in
Modernist Lit er a ture
Marta Figlerowicz
Cornell University Press
Ithaca and London
Copyright © 2017 by Cornell University
All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or
parts thereof, must not be reproduced in any form without permission in
writing from the publisher. For information, address Cornell University
Press, Sage House, 512 East State Street, Ithaca, New York 14850.
First published 2017 by Cornell University Press
Printed in the United States of Amer i ca
Library of Congress Cataloging-i n- Publication Data
Names: Figlerowicz, Marta, author.
Title: Spaces of feeling : affect and awareness in modernist lit er a ture /
Marta Figlerowicz.
Description: Ithaca : Cornell University Press, 2017. | Includes
bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017023144 (print) | LCCN 2017024267 (ebook) |
ISBN 9781501714238 (pdf) | ISBN 9781501714245 (ret) | ISBN
9781501714221 (cloth : alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Modernism (Lit er a ture) | Lit er a ture, Modern—20th
Century— History and criticism. | Affect (Psy chol ogy) in lit er a ture. |
Domestic space in lit er a ture. | Subjectivity in lit er a ture.
Classification: LCC PN56.M54 (ebook) | LCC PN56.M54 .F54 2017
(print) | DDC 809/.9112— dc23
LC rec ord available at https://l ccn. l oc. g ov/ 2 017023144
Cornell University Press strives to use environmentally responsible
suppliers and materials to the fullest extent pos si ble in the publishing of
its books. Such materials include vegetable-b ased, low- VOC inks and
acid- free papers that are recycled, totally chlorine- free, or partly composed
of nonwood fibers. For further information, visit our website at
cornellpress. c ornell. e du.
Untitled, Harlem, New York, 1952. Photograph by Gordon Parks. © Cour-
tesy of and copyright The Gordon Parks Foundation.
For Michael

Contents
Acknowl edgments ix
Introduction 1
1. Threshold: Wallace Stevens and Sylvia Plath 20
2. Living Room: V irginia Woolf and F. Scott Fitzgerald 44
3. Bedroom: Marcel Proust and James Baldwin 70
4. Basement: Ralph Ellison 96
5. Mirror: John Ashbery 114
Conclusion 134
Notes 137
Bibliography 153
Index 167

Acknowle dgments
I first began to formulate the ideas that became this book at the Univer-
sity of California, Berkeley. Spaces of Feeling would never have come into
being without the advice and support of my many mentors and colleagues
there. Since we first met in 2010, Dorothy Hale has been an adviser and a
friend to me of a kind that I could not have dreamt of. Charles Altieri, Da-
vid Bates, and John R. Searle engaged with early versions of this manuscript
in a way that continually forced me to revise and reexamine my views; I
often think back to our many conversations with won der and gratitude.
Other Berkeley faculty members and gradu ate students who generously
commented on parts of this proj ect include Elizabeth Abel, Oliver Arnold,
Juliana Chow, C. F. S. Creasy, Anne- Lise François, Jordan Greenwald, Su-
zanne Guerlac, Jennifer Hudin and the Berkeley Social Ontology Group,
Martin Jay, Matt Langione, Manya Lempert, David Marno, D. A. Miller,
Kent Puckett, Jennifer Pranolo, C. Namwali Serpell, Peter Skafish, Janet
Sorensen, and Adeline Tran. For their friendship during my gradu ate