LEADER 04523nam 2200805 a 450 001 9910818505103321 005 20200520144314.0 010 $a1-282-15884-8 010 $a9786612158841 010 $a1-4008-2574-1 024 7 $a10.1515/9781400825745 035 $a(CKB)1000000000788564 035 $a(EBL)457786 035 $a(OCoLC)436086466 035 $a(SSID)ssj0000245698 035 $a(PQKBManifestationID)11186291 035 $a(PQKBTitleCode)TC0000245698 035 $a(PQKBWorkID)10196353 035 $a(PQKB)11545729 035 $a(OCoLC)899264660 035 $a(MdBmJHUP)muse36212 035 $a(DE-B1597)446526 035 $a(OCoLC)979741610 035 $a(DE-B1597)9781400825745 035 $a(Au-PeEL)EBL457786 035 $a(CaPaEBR)ebr10312622 035 $a(CaONFJC)MIL215884 035 $a(MiAaPQ)EBC457786 035 $a(PPN)146056132 035 $a(EXLCZ)991000000000788564 100 $a20030127d2003 uy 0 101 0 $aeng 135 $aur|||||||nn|n 181 $ctxt 182 $cc 183 $acr 200 12$aA shrinking island $emodernism and national culture in England /$fJed Esty 205 $aCourse Book 210 $aPrinceton, N.J. $cPrinceton University Press$d2003 215 $a1 online resource (298 p.) 300 $aDescription based upon print version of record. 311 $a0-691-11548-6 311 $a0-691-11549-4 320 $aIncludes bibliographical references (p. [227]-275) and index. 327 $tFront matter --$tContents --$tAcknowledgments --$tIntroduction: Late Modernism and the Anthropological Turn --$t1. Modernism and Metropolitan Perception in England --$t2. Insular Rites: Virginia Woolf and the Late Modernist Pageant-Play --$t3. Insular Time: T. S. Eliot and Modernism's English End --$t4. Becoming Minor --$tNotes --$tIndex 330 $aThis book describes a major literary culture caught in the act of becoming minor. In 1939, Virginia Woolf wrote in her diary, "Civilisation has shrunk." Her words captured not only the onset of World War II, but also a longer-term reversal of national fortune. The first comprehensive account of modernism and imperialism in England, A Shrinking Island tracks the joint eclipse of modernist aesthetics and British power from the literary experiments of the 1930's through the rise of cultural studies in the 1950's. Jed Esty explores the effects of declining empire on modernist form--and on the very meaning of Englishness. He ranges from canonical figures (T. S. Eliot and Virginia Woolf) to influential midcentury intellectuals (J. M. Keynes and J.R.R. Tolkien), from cultural studies pioneers (Raymond Williams and E. P. Thompson) to postwar migrant writers (George Lamming and Doris Lessing). Focusing on writing that converts the potential energy of the contracting British state into the language of insular integrity, he argues that an anthropological ethos of cultural holism came home to roost in late-imperial England. Esty's interpretation challenges popular myths about the death of English literature. It portrays the survivors of the modernist generation not as aesthetic dinosaurs, but as participants in the transition from empire to welfare state, from metropolitan art to national culture. Mixing literary criticism with postcolonial theory, his account of London modernism's end-stages and after-lives provides a fresh take on major works while redrawing the lines between modernism and postmodernism. 606 $aEnglish literature$y20th century$xHistory and criticism 606 $aModernism (Literature)$zEngland 606 $aLiterature and anthropology$zEngland$xHistory$y20th century 606 $aLiterature and society$zEngland$xHistory$y20th century 606 $aPostcolonialism in literature 606 $aImperialism in literature 606 $aNationalism in literature 607 $aEngland$xIntellectual life$y20th century 615 0$aEnglish literature$xHistory and criticism. 615 0$aModernism (Literature) 615 0$aLiterature and anthropology$xHistory 615 0$aLiterature and society$xHistory 615 0$aPostcolonialism in literature. 615 0$aImperialism in literature. 615 0$aNationalism in literature. 676 $a820.9/112 700 $aEsty$b Joshua$f1967-$01100184 801 0$bMiAaPQ 801 1$bMiAaPQ 801 2$bMiAaPQ 906 $aBOOK 912 $a9910818505103321 996 $aA shrinking island$94004368 997 $aUNINA