A Concise Companion to Modernism

This concise Companion offers an innovative approach to understanding the Modernist literary mind in Britain, focusing on the intellectual and cultural contexts, which shaped it. Offers an innovative approach to understanding the Modernist literary mind in Britain. Helps readers to grasp the intellectual and cultural contexts of literary Modernism. Organised around contemporary ideas such as Freudianism and eugenics rather than literary genres. Relates literary Modernism to the overarching issues of the period, such as feminism, imperialism and war.

Acknowledgments vii Notes on Contributors viii Chronology xi Introduction 1 David Bradshaw 1 The Life Sciences: “Everybody nowadays talks about evolution” 6 Angelique Richardson 2 Eugenics: “They should certainly be killed” 34 David Bradshaw 3 Nietzscheanism: “The Superman and the all-too-human” 56 Michael Bell 4 Anthropology: “The latest form of evening entertainment” 75 Jeremy MacClancy 5 Bergsonism: “Time out of mind” 95 Mary Ann Gillies 6 Psychoanalysis in Britain: “The rituals of destruction” 116 Stephen Frosh 7 Language: “History is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake” 138 April McMahon 8 Technology: “Multiplied man” 158 Tim Armstrong 9 The Concept of the State 1880–1939: “The discredit of the State is a sign that it has done its work well” 179 Sarah Wilkinson 10 Physics: “A strange footprint” 200 Michael H. Whitworth 11 Modernist Publishing: “Nomads and mapmakers” 221 Peter D. McDonald 12 Reading: “‘Mind hungers’ common and uncommon” 243 Todd Avery and Patrick Brantlinger Select Bibliography 262 Index 266