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Proposes that a distinct strain of literary modernism emerged in Europe in response to historical catastrophe.
List of contents
Introduction; 1. The language crisis: from Mallarmé to Mauthner; 2. Great destructive work: The interwar years; 3. Performing the negative: Franz Kafka; 4. Humanity in ruins: Samuel Beckett; 5. Writing the disaster: Maurice Blanchot; 6. Through the thousand darknesses: Paul Celan; 7. Unconditional negativity: W. G. Sebald; 8. Unwording, terminal and interminable; Conclusion; Bibliography; Index.
About the author
Shane Weller is Professor of Comparative Literature and Co-Director of the Centre for Modern European Literature at the University of Kent, Canterbury. His publications include A Taste for the Negative: Beckett and Nihilism (2004), Beckett, Literature and the Ethics of Alterity (2006), Literature, Philosophy, Nihilism: The Uncanniest of Guests (2008), and Modernism and Nihilism (2011). He is also the co-author (with Dirk Van Hulle) of two volumes in the Beckett Digital Manuscript Project series: The Making of Samuel Beckett's 'L'Innommable'/'The Unnamable' (2014) and The Making of Samuel Beckett's 'Fin de partie'/'Endgame' (2018).
Summary
This book argues that within European literary modernism there is a distinct literary strain characterised by a radical re-engagement with late nineteenth and early twentieth-century language scepticism, and an enactment of various forms of linguistic negativism. This book is a great resource for graduates and scholars interested in modernist studies.
