The Modernist Masters: Studies in the Novel

Levitt (English, Temple U.) presents ten essays discussing the Modernist novel, beginning with an essay on the origins of Modernist narrative that focuses on Henry James's work as the ultimate development of 19th century narrative forms, Conrad as originator of Modernist narrative, and narrative in Joyce's Dubliners. The following nine essays address topics including a reading of Proust's A la Recherche du Temps Perdu; Woolf's A Room of One's Own, Orlando, and The Waves; Lawrence as an example of a non- Modernist author, particularly in The Plumed Serpent; analysis of several of Stein's works; Hemingway's value as a short story writer versus as a novelist; Kafka as a comic Jewish artist; and a final chapter on the presumed shift from a Modernist to post-Modernist fictional sensibility as exemplified by Beckett and Borges. Double- spaced text. Lacks a subject index. Annotation c. Book News, Inc.,Portland, OR