Reading Modernism's Readers
Virginia Woolf, Psychoanalysis and the Bestseller
Format:Hardback
Publisher:Edinburgh University Press
Published:31st Jul '24
Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back
This book explores early twentieth-century reading practices in modernism and psychoanalysis, focusing on Virginia Woolf and others, while examining literature's influence on cultural and psychological dynamics in contemporary society.
"Reading Modernism's Readers: Virginia Woolf, Psychoanalysis and the Bestseller" explores the dynamics of reading within the frameworks of modernism, psychoanalysis, and popular literature from the early twentieth century. The author focuses on Virginia Woolf's work, juxtaposing her novels with those of notable figures such as Marcel Proust, Sigmund Freud, and Melanie Klein. By doing so, the book challenges conventional critical perspectives on modernist reading practices, offering fresh insights into the cultural implications of these texts.
The analysis reveals how the modernist reading experience reflects significant cultural fantasies regarding literature's impact on psychological, social, and political life. By intertwining modernist literature with psychoanalytic theory and popular bestsellers, the author illustrates the multifaceted nature of reading during this period. This approach not only enriches our understanding of Woolf and her contemporaries but also invites readers to reconsider their own assumptions about literature's role in shaping thought and society.
Furthermore, "Reading Modernism's Readers" addresses the enduring legacies of modernism in contemporary literature, particularly in light of pressing questions about reading practices today. As the book navigates the intersections of these literary forms, it encourages a deeper engagement with the texts and highlights the evolving nature of reading in an increasingly complex cultural landscape. Ultimately, the work serves as a significant contribution to ongoing discussions about modernism and its relevance in our current literary and social contexts.
Reading Modernism’s Readers [...] uses Woolf to think about the role of literature “in dark times”. [...] Helen Tyson’s point is that when Woolf wrote scenes of reading in the turbulent 1930s, illuminating the absorbed mind, she was imagining her own reader picking up the book and asking: what do we want? -- Sophie Oliver * TLS *
This book offers a substantive account of how modernist aesthetics, political anxieties, and psychoanalytic theory intersect in the figure of the reader, and will be of special interest to scholars of Virginia Woolf and reading theorists. [...] Reading Tyson’s work in 2025 in the United States, I am struck by the resonance of modernist ambivalence in my own ‘scenes of reading,’ and by the continuing relevance of the book’s central questions. How might we recognize the fantasies of mastery or submission expressed in our ways of reading or teaching others to read? What might we learn from Woolf and other modernists about the reparative or democratic possibilities of reading in our precarious time? -- Kathryn Van Wert, University of Minnesota Duluth * The Review of English Studies *
In this innovative study, Helen Tyson deftly shows how modernism and psychoanalysis respond to the crises of their times by reimagining the intimate psychic processes of reading. Attentive to the political turmoil of the era, Tyson’s focus on “scenes of reading” offers fresh and unexpected insight into the historical conjunction of psychoanalysis and modernism. -- Maud Ellmann, University of Chicago
ISBN: 9781399522090
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: unknown
240 pages