The Mechanic Muse - Hardcover

Kenner, Hugh

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0195041429 ISBN 13: 9780195041422

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 1987

Synopsis

One of America's most celebrated critics here brings his customary wit and erudition to bear on a particularly provocative theme: the response of literary Modernism to a changing environment wrought by technology. In the early decades of the twentieth century, Hugh Kenner, observes, technology "tended to engulf people gradually, coercing behavior they were not aware of." The Modernist writers were sensitive to technological change, however, and throughout their works are reflections of this fact. Kenner shows, for example, how Eliot's lines "One thinks of all the hands/That are raising dingy shades/In a thousand furnished rooms" suggest the advent of the alarm clock and, beyond that, what the clocks enabled: "the new world of the commuter, in which a principal event was waking up in the morning under the obligation to get yourself somewhere else, and arrive there on time. In fascinating examinations of Pound, Joyce, and Beckett, in addition to Eliot, Kenner looks at how inventions as various as the linotype, the typewriter, the subway, and the computer altered the way the world was viewed and depicted. Whether discussing Joyce's acute awareness of the nuances of typesetting or Beckett's experiments with a "proto-computer-language," Kenner consistently illuminates in fresh new ways the works of these authors and offers, almost incidentally, a wealth of anecdotes and asides that will delight the general reader and the literary specialist alike.

About this title

About the Author

Hugh Kenner, Professor of English, Johns Hopkins University.

Reviews

In five essays and an epilogue, Kenner demonstrates the varied responses of literary High Modernism to the development of technology. The mechanical inventions of the late 19th and early 20th centuries irrevocably altered human perception and action. Kenner shows how Eliot, Pound, Joyce, and Beckett responded to those alterations, not only in their choice of subject matter but in the very nature of the language and structures they used. Whether discussing Eliot's urban commuters, Joyce's negotiations with print technology, or Beckett's invention of a "proto-computer-language," Kenner is both learned and playful, teasing ideas out of a wealth of fascinating detail. Highly recommended. Michael Hennessy, English Dept., Southwest Texas State Univ., San Marcos
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication date: 1987
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0195041429
• ISBN 13: 9780195041422
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 144