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Modernist epic is more interesting and more diverse than we have supposed. As a radical form of national fiction it appeared in many parts of the world in the early twentieth century. Reading a selection of works from the United States, England, Ireland, Czechoslovakia, and Brazil, The Evolutions of Modernist Epic develops a comparative theory of this genre and its global development. That development was, it argues, bound up with new ideas about biological evolution. During the first decades of the twentieth century—a period known, in the history of evolutionary science, as 'the eclipse of Darwinism'—evolution's significance was questioned, rethought, and ultimately confined to the Neo-Darwinist discourse with which we are familiar today. Epic fiction participated in, and was shaped by, this shift. Drawing on queer forms of sexuality to cultivate anti-heroic and non-progressive modes of telling national stories, the genre contested reductive and reactionary forms of social Darwinism. The book describes how, in doing so, the genre asks us to revisit our assumptions about ethnolinguistics and organic nationalism. It also models how the history of evolutionary thought can provide a new basis for comparing diverse modernisms and their peculiar nativisms.
This book investigates how the development of the modernist epic genre in the early twentieth century was fundamentally shaped by contemporary shifts in evolutionary science. Václav Paris, a scholar of modernist literature, examines the intersection of national fiction and biological theory during the period known as the 'eclipse of Darwinism.' The author argues that modernist epics utilized non-progressive and anti-heroic narrative structures to challenge the reductive social Darwinist ideologies prevalent at the time. By analyzing diverse international texts, the work establishes a comparative framework for understanding how literature engaged with and contested organic nationalism.
What You Will Find
Scope Limits
Scholars and critics recognize this work as a significant contribution to the study of global modernism and the history of ideas. Readers frequently note the academic density of the prose, which requires a foundational understanding of both literary theory and the history of science to fully appreciate the author's arguments.
Page Count:
225
Publication Date:
2021-01-01
Publisher:
OUP Oxford
ISBN-10:
0192638653
ISBN-13:
9780192638656
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