Modernism in Wonderland by Morgenstern, John D.; Witen, Michelle;

Long description:

Retracing the steps of a surprising array of 20th-century writers who ventured into the fantastical, topsy-turvy world of Lewis Carroll's fictions, this book demonstrates the full extent of Carroll's legacy in literary modernism. Testing the authority of language and mediation through extensive word-play and genre-bending, the Alice books undoubtedly prefigure literary modernism at its upmost experimental.

The collection's chapters look beyond literary style to show how Carroll's writings had a far-reaching impact on modern life, from commercial culture to politics and philosophy. This book shows us the Alice we recognize from Carroll's novels but also the Alice modernist writers encountered through the looking-glass of these extraliterary discourses. Recovering a common touchstone between the likes of T. S. Eliot, James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, W. H. Auden, and writers conventionally regarded on the periphery of modernist studies, such as Dorothy L. Sayers, Sylvia Plath, Jorge Luis Borges, Flann O'Brien, and Vladimir Nabokov, this volume ultimately provides a new entry-point into a more broadly conceptualised global modernism.

Table of Contents:

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1. Introduction: Twentieth-Century Wonderlands: Michelle Witen, Europa-Universitï¿1⁄2t Flensburg, Germany
2. 'Speak in French when you can't think of the English': Carroll's French and Mallarmï¿1⁄2's English: Alexandra Lukes, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland
3. T. S. Eliot's Adventures in Wonderland: John D. Morgenstern, Emory University, USA
4. Fantastic Surrealism: The Influence of Lewis Carroll's Wonderland on transition Magazine's American Surrealist Literary Experiments (1927-38): Cï¿1⁄2line Mansanti, University of Picardie Jules Verne, France
5. Alice and the Expansion of the American West: Modernism, the Northern Pacific Railroad's Wonderland Route, and Kate Chopin's The Awakening: Michelle E. Moore, College of Dupage, USA
6. 'Open Alice's Door': Lewis Carroll's Influence on Elizabeth Bishop and Sylvia Plath: Jessica R. McCort, Point Park University, USA
7. Becoming a Child: Lewis Carroll and Virginia Woolf's Poetics of Fluidity and Permanence: Teresa Prudente, University of Turin, Italy
8. Reeling and Writhing in Benjamin's Arcades: The Curious Case of the Girl who Wasn't There: Lisa Mullen, University of Cambridge, UK
9. 'These tautomeric changes': The Figures of Alice and Humpty Dumpty in the Work of W. H. Auden: Allan Pero, University of Western Ontario, Canada
10. Nightmares of History: Modernism and Colonialism in Lewis Carroll and Jorge Luis Borges: David Conlon, Maynooth University, Ireland
11. 'Sentence First Verdict Afterwards': Carroll, Nabokov and the Fragmented Body: Yaeli Greenblatt, Bar-Ilan University, Israel
12. 'You're nothing but a pack of cards!': Carrollian Intertextuality and the Detective Fiction of Dorothy L. Sayers: Ann Martin, University of Saskatchewan, Canada
13. 'The Mime of Mick, Nick and the Maggies'; or '""Alice"" on the Stage': James Williams, University of York, UK
14. Wasting Timelessness: Lewis Carroll, Flann O'Brien and Modernist Temporality: Paul Fagan, Maynooth University, Ireland