Masculine Identity in Modernist Literature : Castration, Narration, and a Sense of the Beginning, 1919-1945

This book is about the modernist narrative voice and its correlation to medical, mythological, and psychoanalytic images of emasculation between 1919 and 1945. It shows how special-effects of rhetoric and form inspired by outré modernist developments in psychoanalysis, occultism, and negative philosophy reshaped both narrative structure and the literary depiction of modern masculine identity. In acknowledging early twentieth-century Anglo-American literature’s self-conscious and self-reflexive understanding of the effect of textual production, this engaging new study depicts a history of writers and readers understanding the role of textual absence in the development and chronicling of masculine anxiety and optimism. Front Matter ....Pages i-vii Introduction (Allan Johnson)....Pages 1-17 The Fisher King’s Wound (Allan Johnson)....Pages 19-50 The Cloud of Unknowing (Allan Johnson)....Pages 51-78 Rituals of Mourning (Allan Johnson)....Pages 79-106 Cupio Dissolvi (Allan Johnson)....Pages 107-136 The Sense of a Beginning (Allan Johnson)....Pages 137-164 Conclusion (Allan Johnson)....Pages 165-168 Back Matter ....Pages 169-173 Introduction -- The Fisher King's Wound -- The Cloud Of Unknowing -- Rituals Of Mourning -- Cupio Dissolvi -- The Sense Of A Beginning -- Conclusion. Allan Johnson. Includes Bibliographical References And Index.