Modernism and Morality

Modernism and Morality

Also by Martin Halliwell ROMANTIC SCIENCE AND THE EXPERIENCE OF SELF

Modernism and Morality Ethical Devices in European and American Fiction Martin Halliwell Lecturer in English and American Studies University of Leicester

Martin Halliwell 2001 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2001 978-0-333-91884-5 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph 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, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1T 4LP. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The author has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2001 by PALGRAVE Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N. Y. 10010 Companies and representatives throughout the world PALGRAVE is the new global academic imprint of St. Martin s Press LLC Scholarly and Reference Division and Palgrave Publishers Ltd (formerly Macmillan Press Ltd). ISBN 978-1-349-42380-4 DOI 10.1057/9780230502734 ISBN 978-0-230-50273-4 (ebook) This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Halliwell, Martin. Modernism and morality : ethical devices in European and American fiction / Martin Halliwell. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Literature, Modern 20th century History and criticism. 2. Literature and morals. I. Title. PN771.H219 2001 809.3 9353 dc21 2001024549 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01

For Laraine If a story seems moral, do not believe it. Tim O Brien, The Things They Carried (1990)

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Contents Acknowledgements viii Introduction: Modernity and the Crisis of Morals 1 Part I Naturalism and Decadence 1 Decadence, Naturalism and the Morality of Writing 29 (Huysmans, Wilde, Norris, Wharton) 2 Books and Ruins: Abject Decadence in Gide and Mann 49 Part II Symbolic Centres of Modernism 3 Extremist Modernism: The Avant-Garde and the 69 Limits of Art (Tzara, Huelsenbeck, Breton, Aragon) 4 Moral Regeneration and Moral Bankruptcy: 88 Conrad, Faulkner and Idiocy Part III Sexual and Cultural Difference 5 American Expatriate Fictions and the Ethics of 111 Sexual Difference (Stein, Hemingway, Miller, Nin) 6 The Blind Impress of Modernity: Lorca, Kafka 133 and New York Part IV Modernist Trickery 7 The Modernist Picaresque: Moralists without 157 Qualities (Musil, Hesse, Hurston, Roth) 8 Myths of the Magician: Klaus Mann, Thomas 179 Mann and Nazi Germany Conclusion: Liberating the Fear of Modernity 196 Notes 210 Bibliography 240 Index 257 vii

Acknowledgements I am indebted to colleagues and students (present and past) at the University of Leicester and De Montfort University for their support and stimulation during the formulation and writing of Modernism and Morality. I would particularly like to acknowledge the following for generously offering time, advice and banter: Clive Bloom, Nick Everett, Peter Faulkner, Paul Hegarty, Richard King, Andy Mousley, Judy Simons, Martin Stannard, Douglas Tallack, Imelda Whelehan and Nicholas Zurbrugg. Especial thanks go to my parents, family and Laraine for their love and for keeping my dark moods at bay. Thanks also to Erika Gaffney at Ashgate for granting me permission to include revised and extended versions of Chapters 2, 6 and 8, which originally appeared in the following form: Books and Ruins: Abject Decadence in Gide and Mann, Romancing Decay, ed. Michael St John (Ashgate, 1999); American Exile and Modernist Aesthetics in Kafka and Lorca, Displaced Persons, ed. Sharon Ouditt (Ashgate, 2001); Mephisto and the Magician: Klaus Mann, Myth and Nazi Germany, Metamorphosis, ed. George Ferzoco et al. (Ashgate, 2001). viii