Impossible Modernism: T. S. Eliot, Walter Benjamin, and the Critique of Historical Reason

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Stanford University Press, Aug 24, 2016 - Literary Criticism - 272 pages

Impossible Modernism reads the writings of German philosopher and critic Walter Benjamin (1892–1940) and Anglo-American poet and critic T. S. Eliot (1888–1965) to examine the relationship between literary and historical form during the modernist period. It focuses particularly on how they both resisted the forms of narration established by nineteenth-century academic historians and turned instead to traditional literary devices—lyric, satire, anecdote, and allegory—to reimagine the forms that historical representation might take. Tracing the fraught relationship between poetry and history back to Aristotle's Poetics and forward to Nietzsche's Untimely Meditations, Robert S. Lehman establishes the coordinates of the intellectual-historical problem that Eliot and Benjamin inherited and offers an analysis of how they grappled with this legacy in their major works.

 

Contents

The Poetry and the Prose of the Future
1
Gathering Dust T S Eliot
25
Killing Time Walter Benjamin
119
The Lightning Flash and the Storm of Progress
191
Notes
195
Works Cited
215
Index
229
Copyright

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Robert Lehman
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Common terms and phrases

Adorno aesthetic Aldington Alfred Prufrock allegory anecdote angel appears Arcades Project Aristotle artistic baroque Baudelaire become Benjamin writes century chapter characterization claim concept contemporary critical critique describes dialectical doctrine of orders Eliot writes epic epistemology essay example experience fact flâneur fragments Fresca future Gerontion Gerousia Hegel historical perception history’s human insofar Joyce Joyce’s Kant Kant’s Kantian knowledge language letter lines literary history literary-historical long poem lyric Man’s Marx Marx’s means metaphysical modern modernist Moretti myth mythical method narrative neo-Kantian Nietzsche Nietzsche’s nineteenth nineteenth-century nonetheless notes notion object particular past Phenomenology of Spirit philology philosophy of history physiognomy poem’s poet poet’s mind poetic poetry Pope possible Pound present problem progress Prufrock question recollection relationship remark satire Scholem sense symbol T. S. Eliot table of categories temporal things tion tradition transcendental transformation Ulysses vision Walter Benjamin Waste Land Whitman

About the author (2016)

Robert S. Lehman is Assistant Professor of English at Boston College.

Bibliographic information

TitleImpossible Modernism: T. S. Eliot, Walter Benjamin, and the Critique of Historical Reason
AuthorRobert S. Lehman
Editionreprint
PublisherStanford University Press, 2016
ISBN1503600149, 9781503600140
Length272 pages
Subjects ›  › 

Literary Criticism / European / General
  
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