What Was Literary Impressionism?

Michael Fried

Published by Harvard University Press 2018

What Was Literary Impressionism?

Michael Fried

https://doi.org/10.4159/9780674984974

Overview
Contents

About this book

If literary impressionism is anything, it is the project to turn prose into vision. But vision of what? Michael Fried argues that the impressionists compelled readers not only to see what was described and narrated but also to see writing itself: the upward-facing page, pen and ink, the written script, the act of inscription.

Author / Editor information

Fried Michael :

Michael Fried is J. R. Herbert Boone Professor Emeritus of Humanities and the History of Art and Academy Professor at Johns Hopkins University.

Reviews

In this book, Michael Fried has given us the best account of the relation of literary writing to its material basis in ink, paper, print, and corporeal movement. What Was Literary Impressionism? transforms our sense of a vital literary tradition and provides revelatory new readings of key texts by writers including Frank Norris, Joseph Conrad, H. G. Wells, and many others. This is a major book by one of the most powerful and influential critical minds of our time.', Michael Clune, Case Western Reserve University 'Michael Fried subtly traces in varied detail a recurring scene in Anglo-American fiction of the turn of the nineteenth century. The display and occlusion of this scene—the scene of writing itself—is the ‘project’ and the ‘problematic’ of literary impressionism: modern but not modernist. The modernists, we may believe, foregrounded language, and even print, but they did not worry about the physical act of writing as the impressionists did. Fried hopes his book may ‘somewhat transform the terms’ of our understanding of a specific literary moment. It will do more than that. It will, if we let it, revise and enrich that understanding to an almost unimaginable degree.', Michael Wood, Princeton University

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Introduction: The Upturned Page Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
ONE. Almayer’s Face Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	28
TWO. Invisible Writing Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	58
THREE. Ford’s Impressionism Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	89
FOUR. Some Impressionist (and Non-Impressionist) Faces Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	125
FIVE. “A Blankness to Run At and Dash Your Head Against” Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	161
SIX. Maps, Charts, and Mist Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	186
SEVEN. The Writing of Revolution Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	228
EIGHT. Versions of Regression Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	261
NINE. How Literary Impressionism Ended Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	290
Coda: Four Modernists Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	317
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	337
Acknowledgments Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	387
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	389

Language: English
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Pages
- Main content: 400
Illustrations
- Other: 16 halftones

eBook

Published: April 9, 2018
ISBN: 9780674984974