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In this lively personal book Robert Scholes intervenes in ongoing discussionsabout modernism in the arts during the crucial halfcentury from 1895 to 1945.While critics of and apologists for modernism have defined modern art andliterature in terms of binary oppositionshighlow oldnew hardsoftpoetryrhetoricScholes contends that these distinctions are in fact confusedand misleading. Such oppositions are instances of paradoxyan apparentclarity that covers real confusion.Closely examining specific literary texts drawings critical writings andmemoirs Scholes seeks to complicate the neat polar oppositions attributed tomodernism. He argues for the rehabilitation of works in the middle ground thathave been trivialized in previous evaluations and he fights orthodoxy withsuch paradoxes as durable fluff formulaic creativity and iridescentmediocrity. The book reconsiders major figures like James Joyce whileunderscoring the value of minor figures and addressing new attention to othersrarely studied. It includes twentytwo illustrations of the artworks discussed.Filled with the observations of a personable and witty guide this is a bookthat opens up for a readers delight the rich cultural terrain of modernism. «
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