Rhythmic Modernism: Mimesis and the Short Story (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781501366673)

Contrary to the common view that cultural modernism is a broadly anti-mimetic movement, one which turned away from traditional artistic goals of representing the world, Rhythmic Modernism argues that rhythm and mimesis are central to modernist aesthetics. Through detailed close readings of non-fiction and short stories, Helen Rydstrand shows that textual rhythms comprised the substance of modernist mimesis. Rhythmic Modernism demonstrates how many modernist writers, such as D. H. Lawrence, Katherine Mansfield and Virginia Woolf, were profoundly invested in mimicking a substratum of existence that was conceived as rhythmic, each displaying a fascination with rhythm, both as a formal device and as a vital, protean concept that helped to make sense of the complex modern world.

Author: Helen Rydstrand
ISBN-10: 150136667X
ISBN-13: 9781501366673
Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
Language: English
Published: 07/23/2020
Pages: 264
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.77lbs
Size: 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.54d