Overview

Writers’ lives are endlessly fascinating for the reading public and literary scholars alike. By examining the self-representation of authors across the schism between Victorianism and Modernism via the First World War, this study offers a new way of evaluating biographical context and experience in the individual creative process at a crucial point in world and literary history. Writing Life explores how and why a select group of early twentieth-century writers, including Edmund Gosse, Henry James, Siegfried Sassoon and Dorothy Richardson, adapted the model of the German Romantic Künstlerroman, or artist narrative, for their autobiographical writing. Instead of (mis)reading these autobiographies as historical documentation, Pooler examines how these authors conduct a Romantic-style conversation about literature through literature as a means of reconfirming the role of the artist in the face of shifting values and the cataclysm of the Great War.

Full Product Details

Author:   Mhairi Pooler
Publisher:   Liverpool University Press
Imprint:   Liverpool University Press
Volume:   4
Dimensions:   Width: 16.30cm , Height: 1.50cm , Length: 23.90cm
Weight:   0.440kg
ISBN:  

9781781381977

ISBN 10:   1781381976
Pages:   224
Publication Date:   01 December 2015
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   In Print  
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Table of Contents

Acknowledgements Introduction: ‘The Very Complexion of the Mirror’  i. The Historical Horizon  ii. Creative Autobiography 1. The Writer Reading  i. Tradition and Inheritance: The Künstlerroman  ii. ‘Influence (Inflowing)’ 2. The Anxiety of Inheritance: Edmund Gosse’s Father and Son  i. Victorian and Modern  ii. Religion and Literature 3. The Art of Life: Henry James’s A Small Boy and Others and Notes of a Son and Brother  i. Making a Scene  ii. The Fostered Imagination  iii. ‘Convert, convert, convert!’ 4. A Twofold Experiment with Time: Siegfried Sassoon’s The Old Century, The Weald of Youth and Siegfried’s Journey  i. ‘Fictionalized Reality, Essayized Autobiography’  ii. ‘Nostalgic and Breezy Reminiscences’  iii. ‘England’s Young Soldier-Poet’ 5. An Investigation of Reality: Dorothy Richardson’s Pilgrimage  i. The Art of Fiction  ii. Pilgrimage’s Progress  iii. Of Language, of Meaning, of Mr Henry James Conclusion: Reading the Writer Bibliography Index

Reviews

Reviews '[Pooler] convincingly demonstrates that these writers consciously constructed their individual stories of artistic development in novelistic terms, incorporating key features of the Kunstlerroman into their autobiographical narratives ... Pooler's book makes a valuable contribution to the field of autobiography studies, as it foregrounds the stylistic concerns that occupied many life writers at the start of the twentieth century.' Alexander McKee, Life Writing 'In charting influence and tracing the development of genres, Pooler is lucid and engaging. This monograph should be a reference point for anyone who has wondered about the exact relationship between Pilgrimage and the Bildungsroman and where the line can be drawn in her text between autobiography and fiction.' Rebecca Bowler, Pilgrimages: A Journal of Dorothy Richardson Studies

Reviews '[Pooler] convincingly demonstrates that these writers consciously constructed their individual stories of artistic development in novelistic terms, incorporating key features of the Künstlerroman into their autobiographical narratives … Pooler’s book makes a valuable contribution to the field of autobiography studies, as it foregrounds the stylistic concerns that occupied many life writers at the start of the twentieth century.’ Alexander McKee, Life Writing 'In charting influence and tracing the development of genres, Pooler is lucid and engaging. This monograph should be a reference point for anyone who has wondered about the exact relationship between Pilgrimage and the Bildungsroman and where the line can be drawn in her text between autobiography and fiction.' Rebecca Bowler, Pilgrimages: A Journal of Dorothy Richardson Studies

'In charting influence and tracing the development of genres, Pooler is lucid and engaging. This monograph should be a reference point for anyone who has wondered about the exact relationship between Pilgrimage and the Bildungsroman and where the line can be drawn in her text between autobiography and fiction.' Rebecca Bowler, Pilgrimages: A Journal of Dorothy Richardson Studies Reviews '[Pooler] convincingly demonstrates that these writers consciously constructed their individual stories of artistic development in novelistic terms, incorporating key features of the Kunstlerroman into their autobiographical narratives ... Pooler's book makes a valuable contribution to the field of autobiography studies, as it foregrounds the stylistic concerns that occupied many life writers at the start of the twentieth century.' Alexander McKee, Life Writing

Author Information

Mhairi Pooler is a Research Fellow at the University of Aberdeen.

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