Biography by Elyse Graham 1: What Is this Ecstasy? Born in a Paris suburb in 1871, Proust grew up in cloistered privilege. His father was a celebrated physician, a self-made man who never understood his son’s dreamy indolence and suspected that his illnesses were psychosomatic. His mother, who fussed over his health and presided over his cultural… Continue Reading Marcel Proust
Tag: Biography
Ezra Pound
Biography by Anthony Domestico and Pericles Lewis Critic, poet, impresario, and propagandist, Ezra Pound (1885-1972) was one of the shaping forces of modernism, with connections to the era’s most influential writers of prose and poetry. In championing the liberatory effects of free verse and in skillfully practicing the techniques of collage and allusion, Pound placed a… Continue Reading Ezra Pound
Sean O’Casey
Biography by Anthony Domestico Sean O’Casey (1880-1964) was one of Ireland’s most celebrated modern dramatists. The internationally acclaimed productions of his plays, including Juno and the Peacock and The Plough and the Stars, helped launch the Abbey Theatre as a preeminent stage for world drama, and his realistic depiction of the struggles of Ireland for independence were… Continue Reading Sean O’Casey
Katherine Mansfield
Katherine Mansfield’s Modernist Aesthetic by Annie Pfeifer A Colonial Childhood Katherine Mansfield’s experiences growing up in colonial New Zealand heightened her awareness of the discontinuities, lacunae, and tensions of modern life. She was born in 1888 in Wellington, a town labeled “the empire city” by its white inhabitants, who modeled themselves on British life and… Continue Reading Katherine Mansfield
Wyndham Lewis
D.H. Lawrence
Biography by Pericles Lewis A prolific poet, painter, and essayist, D.H. Lawrence (1885-1930) is today best known for his novels, which remain popular with a general reading public in part because he maintained conventional syntax and grammar and fairly straightforward plots, such as the chronicle of several generations in the life of a family. Thematically, however,… Continue Reading D.H. Lawrence
Franz Kafka
Biography by Pericles Lewis The works of Franz Kafka (1883-1924) seek to pare language and experience down to the elemental. Kafka, a Czech Jew who wrote in German, worked for an insurance company (as did Wallace Stevens on the other side of the Atlantic, but it seems to have done Stevens less harm). He died… Continue Reading Franz Kafka
James Joyce
Biography by Anthony Domestico and Pericles Lewis James Joyce (1882-1941) is a colossus of modernist fiction. He has been derided as obscene and immature and lauded as an erudite humanist; some have deemed his prose impenetrable, too concerned with artifice and verbal gamesmanship, while others have described his writing as life-affirming and always attuned to… Continue Reading James Joyce
Henry James
Biography by Anthony Domestico Henry James was a fierce defender of the novelistic tradition and of formal complexity. A master of focalization, he showed in works like What Maisie Knew (1897) and The Golden Bowl (1904) the centrality of perspective to a novel’s construction. His works explored the encounter between Americans and Europeans, between the… Continue Reading Henry James
Aldous Huxley
Biography by Ally Findley Aldous Huxley was born in Godalming, Surrey, England on July 26, 1894. His father was Leonard Huxley, a teacher and editor of Cornhill Magazine, and his mother was Julia Arnold, who founded Prior’s Field School (and was the niece of famous poet and essayist Matthew Arnold). His grandfather was the famous… Continue Reading Aldous Huxley