No aspect of modernist literature has attracted more passionate
defenses, or more furious denunciations, than its affinity for the
idea of autonomy. A belief in art as a law unto itself is central
to the work of many writers from the late nineteenth century to the
present. But is this belief just a way of denying art's social
contexts, its roots in the lives of its creators, its political and
ethical obligations?
Fictions of Autonomy argues that the concept of autonomy is, on
the contrary, essential for understanding modernism historically.
Disputing the prevailing skepticism about autonomy, Andrew
Goldstone shows that the pursuit of relative independence within
society is modernism's distinctive way of relating to its contexts.
Goldstone examines an expansive modernist field in fiction, poetry,
and theory--Oscar Wilde, J.-K. Huysmans, Henry James, Marcel
Proust, T.S. Eliot, James Joyce, Wallace Stevens, Djuna Barnes,
Theodor Adorno, Paul de Man--in order to reveal an ever-shifting
preoccupation with autonomy. Drawing on Bourdieu's sociology,
formalist reading, and historical contextualization, this book
demonstrates the importance of autonomy to modernist themes as
varied as domestic service, artistic aging, expat life, and
non-referentiality.
Nothing less than an argument for a wholesale revision of the
assumptions of modernist studies, Fictions of Autonomy is also an
intervention in literary theory. This book shows why anyone
interested in literary history, the sociology of culture, and
aesthetics needs to take account of the social, stylistic, and
political significance of the problem, and the potential, of
autonomy.
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