Modernism and the Theater of CensorshipAdam Parkes investigates the literary and cultural implications of the censorship encountered by several modern novelists in the early twentieth century. He situates modernism in the context of this censorship, examining the relations between such authors as D.H. Lawrence, James Joyce, Radclyffe Hall, and Virginia Woolf and the public controversies generated by their fictional explorations of modern sexual themes. These authors located "obscenity" at the level of stylistic and formal experiment. The Rainbow, Lady Chatterley's Lover, Ulysses, and Orlando dramatized problems of sexuality and expression in ways that subverted the moral, political, and aesthetic premises on which their censors operated. In showing how modernism evolved within a culture of censorship, Modernism and the Theater of Censorship suggests that modern novelists, while shaped by their culture, attempted to reshape it. |
Contents
The Trials of Modernism | 3 |
The Rainbow and Wartime Censorship | 21 |
Ulysses and the Little Review Trial | 65 |
The Case of Lady Chatterleys Lover | 107 |
Orlando and The Well of Loneliness | 144 |
Notes | 181 |
215 | |
229 | |
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Common terms and phrases
aesthetic Anderson Anna argues artistic becomes Bloom body Brangwen Britain British Cambridge censors censorship character Circe cited hereafter Clifford confession Connie conventional court critical culture D. H. Lawrence desire discourse dramatizes E. M. Forster Earnest Ellis English episode Essays Ezra Pound female femininity fiction Forster gender Gerty Gerty's Hall's novel Harcourt Brace Jovanovich homosexuality hysteria hysterical identity imagination implies James Joyce Joyce's Judge Lady Chatterley's Lover Lawrence's lesbian letter literary literature Little Review London Loneliness male marriage masculine Mellors mind modern Molly Molly's moral narrative narrator Nausicaa obscenity Orlando Oscar Wilde Penelope performance phallic play pornography postwar published Quinn Radclyffe Hall Rainbow readers reading role Sackville-West scene seems sense Sexual Inversion Shame Skrebensky social Stephen suggests suppression theater theatrical tion trial Ulysses University Press Ursula vacillation Virginia Woolf Vita Sackville-West wartime Wilde's woman Women in Love write wrote York