Modernist mythopoeia
Subtitle: the twilight of the gods
By: Scott Freer
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Published: 2015
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
ISBN-13: 9781137035509
Subjects: Modernism (Literature); Transcendence (Philosophy) in literature; LITERARY CRITICISM / European / English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh
Description: "Were all Modernists either skeptical or reactionary in matters of Christian belief? How can we express ideas of the sacred distinct from religious commitment? Modernist Mythopoeia: The Twilight of the Gods argues that the experimental modernist form of mythopoeia was directed towards expressing a range of poetic perspectives that fall between material secularism and dogmatic religion. Modernist mythopoeia is a literary means of eschewing the language of certainty while giving voice to the nature and function of transcendence in a post-religious context. As a comparative study, Scott Freer offers fresh readings on a range of key trans-Atlantic modernist texts, whilst considering their various mythopoeic method or vision: Nietzsche's Thus Spake Zarauthustra, T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land, Franz Kafka's Metamorphosis, Hilda Doolittle's Trilogy, D.H. Lawrence's Birds, Beasts and Flowers!, and Wallace Stevens' Harmonium. The 'twilight' of modernist mythopoeia is the nuanced and complex way of a godless aesthetic, for it accommodates various shades of secularity and religiosity and brings an inconclusiveness to the mysteries of human existence to be embraced and poeticized. The book is a timely addition to the 'post-secular' debate as well as to the 'return of religion' in modernist studies. "--
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Machine generated contents note:; title: Introduction: Modernist Mythopoeia: The Language of the In-Between and of Beyond1.Zarathustra: Nietzsche's New Redeemer2.'Hieronymo's mad againe': The Waste Land as Tragic Mythopoeia3.Kafka's Sick Ovidian Animals4.Hilda Doolittle & D. H. Lawrence: Polytheistic & Pagan Revisionary Mythopoeia5.'Death is the mother of beauty': Wallace Stevens' HarmoniumBibliographyIndex.