Mourning, Modernism, Postmodernism
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Mourning, Modernism, Postmodernism Tammy Clewell
Tammy Clewell 2009 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2009 978-0-230-23194-8 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No portion of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, Saffron House, 6-10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The author has asserted her rights to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2009 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Palgrave Macmillan in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan in the US is a division of St Martin s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave and Macmillan are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN 978-1-349-31230-6 ISBN 978-0-230-27425-9 (ebook) DOI 10.1057/9780230274259 This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. A catalogue record for this book is available from Library of Congress 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 09
Contents Acknowledgments vii Introduction: Rethinking Loss; Remapping the Novel 1 Part I Inceptions 1 Woolf and the Great War 25 Female grief becomes feminist grievance in Jacob s Room 27 Mourning art in To the Lighthouse 39 2 Economies of Loss in Faulkner s Fiction 56 Bereavement and commodity culture in As I Lay Dying 58 Historicizing trauma, traumatizing history, and Requiem for a Nun 74 Part II Legacies 3 Waugh s Nostalgia Revisited 93 Gothic ruins and English remains in A Handful of Dust 96 Consolation and heritage in Brideshead Revisited 112 4 The Sexual Politics of Mourning 129 Grief, the closet, and Donoghue s Hood 131 Desire and the lost object in Winterson s Written on the Body 145 Notes 158 Index 181 v
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Acknowledgments I could not have written this book without the many teachers, colleagues, and friends who provided assistance and encouragement along the way. First, I wish to thank R. M. Berry for his guidance of my dissertation, which was the basis for Mourning, Modernism, Postmodernism. His classes in modernist literature were inspirational and his integrity as a person and scholar has offered me a model of academic professionalism. Brian Baer, Claire Culleton, Barry Faulk, Greg Forter, S. E. Gontarski, W. T. Lhamon, Patricia Rae, Linda Saladin-Adams, and Philip Tew offered valuable insights and criticisms at various stages of this project. I would also like to express my appreciation to Paula Kennedy, my editor, for her support and kindness, and to Steven Hall and Peter Andrews. Three anonymous readers at Palgrave Macmillan offered insightful criticism and I am grateful for their assistance. My colleagues at Kent State University have been remarkably supportive, particularly Mark Bracher, Ron Corthell, and Ray Craig. I recognize as well Vera Camden and Susanna Fein for their encouragement of my work. My deepest gratitude goes to Kevin Floyd and Florence Dore, colleagues who have enlivened my thinking and enriched my life. I thank Florence, especially, for her persistent encouragement and exceptionally perceptive criticism of the introduction. Only she knows how essential her support has been in seeing me through the ending. A section of the Introduction appeared, in much different form, as Mourning beyond Melancholia: Freud s Psychoanalysis of Loss, in Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association 52, no. 1 (2004): 43 67. An earlier version of Chapter 1 appeared in Modern Fiction Studies 50, no. 1 (2004): 197 223. I am grateful to The Division of Research and Graduate Studies at Kent State University for a 2003 Research Appointment, which enabled me to complete a portion of the book. David Farnan lived with the writing of most of this book for a good long time. I thank him, among other things, for the rooms of my own in New York, Tallahassee, Kent, and Cleveland where the reading, thinking, and writing got done. I dedicate this book to him. vii
viii Acknowledgments I am fortunate to have a family whose support has sustained me during the writing of this book. My gratitude goes to Helga Jones, my mother, for having stopped a while back asking about the book s progress and to Robert Clewell, my father, for never neglecting to inquire when the book might be finished. In addition to my parents, Doug, Ruth, Donna, and Julie have brought love, laughter, and joy to my life. Finally, I thank David Bennett for providing the sense of a beginning.