Modernism Short Introduction: A Short Introduction (Blackwell Introductions to Literature) by Ayers, David

by David Ayers

This short introduction to Modernism analyses the movement from the perspective of English and American literature.

Genres: Nonfiction

Paperback

First published January 1, 2004

Reviews

[Michael A. · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5/5. A good introduction to Anglophonic modernist literature (prose and poetry). First off, extremely misleading title. A better title would be "A Critical Introduction to Modernist Literature". But despite that, it is worth reading - personally, I'm more interested in Modernist poetry (Pound, Eliot, and Stevens are, perhaps naturally, the main focus in the first four chapters) and the analyses were interesting, the writing is quick-paced and the depth of analysis is probably at a Freshman or so undergrad level (minus the last two chapters which are more advanced).

The Modernist authors he analyses are Wyndham Lewis (who seems to be a research interest of Ayers), James Joyce, D.H. Lawrence, and Virginia Woolf. Learning about Wyndham Lewis was pretty interest as I had never heard of him before. The Joyce chapter was alright and connected to love. I hate D.H. Lawrence, but luckily the chapter is the shortest and connects to Jazz, Langston Hughes, and the Harlem Renaissance and doesn't talk too much about Lawrence. The chapter on Woolf deals with her connection to her social class and makes a basic but concise observation that class interests divide women up, and Woolf was more concerned with the powerlessness of her class (bourgeois) and was a literary or artistic feminist moreso than a political one.

The last two chapters are weird but the best ones. Ayers analyzes the previous writers through the differing lenses of Adorno & Horkheimer, Benjamin, Lukacs, Barthes, and Derrida. This was tougher reading, but even if you don't have any familiarity with these figures, Ayers is very good at explication.

Overall, a surprisingly nuanced book for being an introductory text. My only substantive complaint is that I wish it were a bit longer (it is a slim 134 pages, and the last two chapters comprised of complex thinkers take up only 26 pages - the last chapter on Derrida & Barthes a mere 10 pages). But then again I guess it wouldn't be a "short introduction"... by the way the title is bad.

[نیلوفر رحمانیان · Rating 5 out of 5]

I must admit that this book gave me more pleasure than I expected. It was a surprisingly nuanced book for being an introductory text. The only dissatisfaction I had was about the title of the book, that I found both underrating the material of the book and at the same time misguiding, so that it wouldn't be easy for the proper audience of the book to find it. As Ayers himself claims in the Introduction of the book, the book is not a historical text about Modernism, rather a critical literary approach to it. Anyway, if ever I want to recommend a book not only as an introduction to Modernism, but also as an introduction to a critical literary approach towards modernist literature and philosophy, this book will be on my list.