Modernism and Its Discontents

Literary theory of the twentieth century in the Anglo-American tradition forms a coherent whole, dividing into discrete clusters. This theory is riddled with purely logical problems inherent in its enterprise, resulting from the fact that Modernist theory develops as an offshoot of Romanticism. Such fundamental flaws, or discontents, afflict all Modernist theory, from Russian Formalism through Structuralism and Deconstruction. The problems of Modernist theory cannot be solved; at most we can resolve to take theory in a new direction.

Autorentext

The Author: Bruce Fleming is an associate professor of English at the U.S. Naval Academy, Annapolis. A graduate of Haverford College, he received his M.A. from the University of Chicago and his Ph.D. from Vanderbilt University. He is the author of An Essay in Post-Romantic Literary Theory, which won the 1991 Book Award in Comparative Studies of the Northeast Modern Language Association, and of Caging the Lion: Cross-Cultural Fictions.