Katherine Mansfield and Literary Modernism (Historicizing Modernism)

Katherine Mansfield's arrival in London in 1908 marked the start of her professional career as a writer and this study marks a revival of her reputation as one of the foremost practitioners of the short story. Katherine Mansfield's arrival in London in 1908 marked the start of her professional career as a writer and this study marks a revival of her reputation as one of the foremost practitioners of the short story. The international line-up of contributors attests to Mansfield's global appeal. By discussing her fiction in relation to her life, the contributors to this critical work present reinterpretations and readings. Enhanced by new transcriptions of manuscripts and access to her diaries and letters, these readings combine biographical approaches with critical-theoretical ones and focus not only on philosophy and fiction, but class and gender, biography/autobiography. The historical and aesthetic studies of Mansfield's work all take place within a framework of modernist literature, criticism and theory, thereby expanding our understanding of what it means to be a Modernist while allocating Mansfield a firm place in any current study of Modernism Content: Mansfield, Rhythm and the émigré connection / Gerri Kimber -- Katherine Mansfield, Rhythm and Henri Bergson / Eiko Nakano -- 'The famous New Zealand mag.-story writer': Katherine Mansfield, periodical publishing and the short story / Jenny McDonnell -- Authentic existence and the characters of Katherine Mansfield / Miroslawa Kubasiewizc -- The elusiveness of reality: the limits of cognition in Katherine Mansfield's short stories / Joanna Kokot -- Un-defining the self in the stories of Katherine Mansfield / Nancy Gray -- '--Ah, what is it?--that I heard': voice and affect in Katherine Mansfield's short fictions / Anne Besnault-Levita -- Kezia in Wonderland / Delphine Soulhat -- 'The women in the stor(y)': disjunctive vision in Mansfield's 'The aloe' / Bruce Harding -- 'A city of one's own': women, social class and London in Katherine Mansfield's short stories / Ana Belén López Pérez -- 'My insides are all twisted up': when distortion and the grotesque become 'the same job' in Katherine Mansfield and Virginia Woolf / Gerardo Rodríguez Salas with Isabel María Andrés Cuevas -- 'On the subject of Maleness': the different worlds of Katherine Mansfield and D.H. Lawrence / Susan Reid -- The Mansfield legacy / Kathleen Jones -- 'My many selves': a reassessment of Katherine Mansfield's Journal / Valérie Baisnée -- 'Blue with cold': coldness in the works of Katherine Mansfield / Janka Kaščáková -- Katherine Mansfield's menagerie / Melinda Harvey. "Katherine Mansfield's arrival in London in 1908 marked the start of her professional career as a writer and this study marks a revival of her reputation as one of the foremost practitioners of the short story. The international line-up of contributors attests to Mansfield's global appeal. By discussing her fiction in relation to her life, the contributors to this critical work present reinterpretations and readings. Enhanced by new transcriptions of manuscripts and access to her diaries and letters, these readings combine biographical approaches with critical-theoretical ones and focus not only on philosophy and fiction, but class and gender, biography/autobiography. The historical and aesthetic studies of Mansfield's work all take place within a framework of modernist literature, criticism and theory, thereby expanding our understanding of what it means to be a Modernist while allocating Mansfield a firm place in any current study of Modernism."--Publisher's website "This unique work analyzes the crisis in modern society, building on the ideas of the Frankfurt School thinkers. Emphasizing social evolution and learning processes, it argues that crisis is mediated by social class conflicts and collective learning, the results of which are embodied in constitutional and public law."--Bloomsbury Publishing.