The Edinburgh Companion to Modernism, Myth and Religion - (Edinburgh Companions to Literature and the Humanities) (Paperback)

About the Book

Establishes Elizabeth von Arnim as an important figure in literary modernism.

Book Synopsis

New Readings of Elizabeth von Arnim: The Unexpected Modernist consolidates the growing field of Elizabeth von Arnim studies and points to new trajectories for further research. Bringing together recognised and emerging scholarly voices and featuring previously unseen archival materials, this volume introduces key contexts for reading von Arnim's work at an important point in her re-appraisal as a writer. Its eleven chapters highlight critical debates related to modernism, feminism and the middlebrow and explore new contexts such as fashion and material culture, medical humanities, ageing studies, music and the visual arts. By focusing on neglected novels from von Arnim's oeuvre and examining better-known work from new perspectives, the volume paves the way for the next decade of von Arnim studies and beyond.

From the Back Cover

Presents authoritative analyses of the religious terrain of the modernist period Until fairly recently, the 'Authorised Version' of cultural modernism stated that the secularising trends of liberal modernity - and the resultant emphasis on irony, parody and dissolution in modernist artforms - had pushed religion to the edges of early twentieth-century culture. This Companion complicates this understanding by furnishing students and academic researchers with more nuanced and probing assessments of the intersections and tensions between religion, myth and creativity during this half century of geopolitical ferment. It addresses the variety and specificity of modernist spiritualities as well as the intricately textured and shifting standpoints that modernist figures have occupied in relation to theological traditions, practices, creeds and institutions. What emerges is a multi-textured account of modernism's deep-rooted concern with the historical and established forms of religion, as well as new engagements with 'occulture' and indigenous traditions. In short, the Companion supplies a lively and original exploration of the aesthetic, publishing, technological and philosophical trends that shape debates about spirituality, community and self from the 1890s to the 1940s and beyond. Suzanne Hobson is Reader in 20th Century Literature at Queen Mary University of London. She is the author of Unbelief in Interwar Literary Culture: Doubting Moderns (2022), Angels of Modernism: Religion, Culture, Aesthetics 1910-60 (2011) and co-editor of The Salt Companion to Mina Loy (2010). Andrew Radford is Senior Lecturer in 20th Century Literature at the University of Glasgow. He has recently published a critical edition of Marie Corelli's occult bestseller A Romance of Two Worlds (Edinburgh University Press 2019). He is also the co-editor of several volumes, including British Experimental Women's Fiction, 1945-1975: Slipping Through the Labels (2021) and The Occult Imagination in Britain 1875-1947 (2018).

Review Quotes

This astounding collection woke me up from my dogmatic slumber and clichés about the secular nature of modernism. Essay after essay, one gets a clear sense of the richness, multiplicity and centrifugal potential of the varieties of modernist religious experience. This comprehensive Companion redefines modernism as spiritual, haunted by transcendence, hesitating between personal illumination and collective ritual, caught between esoteric mysticism and masochistic devotion, hence more dynamic and exciting than we thought. It will be an indispensable reference for all scholars of modernism.--Jean-Michel Rabaté, University of Pennsylvania, American Academy of Arts and Sciences

About the Author

Suzanne Hobson is Reader in 20th Century Literature in the English Department at Queen Mary University of London. Her research focuses on modernism and literary theory and she is especially interested in questions of religion and secularism in the first half of the 20th century. She is the author of Unbelief in Interwar Literary Culture: Doubting Moderns (Oxford University Press 2022) and Angels of Modernism: Religion, Culture, Aesthetics 1910-60 (Palgrave Macmillan 2011) and co-editor of The Salt Companion to Mina Loy (2010). She is past Chair of the British Association for Modernist Studies and co-organizer of the London Modernism Seminar.

Andrew Radford is Senior Lecturer in Critical Studies at the University of Glasgow. His books include British Experimental Women's Fiction, 1945-1975 (co-edited with Hannah Van Hove, Palgrave, 2021), The Occult Imagination in Britain, 1875-1947 (co-edited with Christine Ferguson, Routledge, 2018), Mary Butts and British Neo-Romanticism: The Enchantment of Place (Bloomsbury, 2014) and Mapping the Wessex Novel: Landscape, History and the Parochial in British Literature, 1870-1940 (Bloomsbury, 2010). He has recently published a critical edition of Marie Corelli's occult bestseller A Romance of Two Worlds (Edinburgh University Press, 2019).