A Modernist Fantasy: Modernism, Anarchism, and the Radical Fantastic

"'A modernist fantasy' unearths a legacy of politically radical and formally experimental modernist fantasy fiction, a red thread running from the 1890s to the 1970s. But the recuperation of that lost tradition is as important as revising the critical traditions that excluded it from the start, an exclusion that challenges how we understand modernism itself. The endless definitions of genre and rhetorics in fantasy and science fiction are transformed here by modernist studies as a catalyst. In both stances, anarchist critical and artistic praxis conjures a pathway to flexible new links between fields and ideas." -- From the rear cover Is it possible for the elite criticism of the new modernist studies to engage with devotees of popular culture and fantasy fiction? Can the faeries and dragons of the bestseller lists talk shop with the coteries and little magazines of high modernism? What if their conversation was about anarchism? What surprising fellowship would that trilogy make? Such a dialogue would question root assumptions in all three areas and unearth a legacy of politically radical and formally experimental modernist fantasy fiction, a red thread running from the 1890s to the 1970s. The recuperation of that lost tradition is as important as revising the critical traditions that excluded it from the start. The exclusion of fantasy fiction written by modernists like Hope Mirrlees and John Cowper Powys challenges how we understand modernism itself. The endless definitions of genre and rhetorics in fantasy and science fiction are also transformed here by modernist studies, as a catalyst. In both stances, anarchist critical and artistic praxis conjures a pathway to flexible new links between fields and ideas. Scholars and students of literary modernism, popular culture, critical & cultural theory, and anarchism will find a provocative challenge in A Modernist Fantasy. "'A modernist fantasy' unearths a legacy of politically radical and formally experimental modernist fantasy fiction, a red thread running from the 1890s to the 1970s. But the recuperation of that lost tradition is as important as revising the critical traditions that excluded it from the start, an exclusion that challenges how we understand modernism itself. The endless definitions of genre and rhetorics in fantasy and science fiction are transformed here by modernist studies as a catalyst. In both stances, anarchist critical and artistic praxis conjures a pathway to flexible new links between fields and ideas." --Résumé de l'éditeur