Discovering Modernism: T. S. Eliot and His Context [Paperback]

Louis Menand (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0195159926 | ISBN-13: 978-0195159929 | Publication Date: February 19, 2007 | Edition: 2

When Discovering Modernism was first published, it shed new and welcome light on the birth of Modernism. This reissue of Menand's classic intellectual history of T.S. Eliot and the singular role he played in the rise of literary modernism features an updated Afterword by the author, as well as a detailed critical appraisal of the progression of Eliot's career as a poet and critic. The new Afterword was adapted from Menand's critically lauded essay on Eliot in The Cambridge History of Literary Criticism, Volume Seven: Modernism and the New Criticism. Menand shows how Eliot's early views on literary value and authenticity, and his later repudiation of those views, reflect the profound changes regarding the understanding of literature and its significance that occurred in the early part of the twentieth century. It will prove an eye-opening study for readers with an interest in the writings of T.S. Eliot and other luminaries of the Modernist era.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Marked with the rhetoric of the lecture hall, this book is nevertheless a penetrating analysis of the philosophical and critical context that enabled T. S. Eliot to compose "Tradition and the Individual Talent" and The Waste Land, the two works it discusses most thoroughly. Menand is particularly successful in demonstrating the continuity of 19th-century ideas, largely because of the abiding reputations of such critics as Walter Pater and William Hazlitt, thinkers who profoundly affected the work of Eliot and Ezra Pound. Menand's thesis is that Eliot correctly analyzed the contradictions inherent in Modernist thought and that his genius lay in transforming those very contradictions into "literary opportunities." Recommended for all research collections. Daniel L. Guillory, English Dept., Millikin Univ., Decatur, Ill.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

"A penetrating analysis. Menand is particularly successful in demonstrating the continuity of 19th-century ideas. Menand's thesis is that Eliot correctly analyzed the contradictions inherent in Modernist thought and that his genius lay in transforming those very contradictions into 'literary opportunities.'"--Library Journal (on the previous edition)

"Lively, clear, and intelligent. Menand has written better than anyone about Eliot's way of taking over and converting the old into something he needs, but needs in a different way."--Frank Kermode

"[The reader]...will find many rewards, including remarkable wit, elegant prose and wide erudition."--American Literature

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA; 2 edition (February 19, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0195159926
• ISBN-13: 978-0195159929
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.3 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #761,983 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Louis Menand, professor of English at Harvard University, is the author of "The Metaphysical Club," which won the 2002 Pulitzer Prize in History. A longtime staff writer for The New Yorker, he lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.