OBSCENE MODERNISM C

Erscheinungsjahr 2013
ISBN: 978-0-19-968098-6
Verlag: ACADEMIC

Buch, Englisch, 242 Seiten, Format (B × H): 145 mm x 222 mm, Gewicht: 441 g

During the period 1900-1940 novels and poems in the UK and US were subject to strict forms of censorship and control because of their representation of sex and sexuality. At the same time, however, writers were more interested than ever before in writing about sex and excrement, incorporating obscene slang words into literary texts, and exploring previously uncharted elements of the modern psyche. This book explores the far-reaching literary, legal and philosophical
consequences of this historical conflict between law and literature. Alongside the famous prosecutions of D. H. Lawrence's The Rainbow and James Joyce's Ulysses huge numbers of novels and poems were altered by publishers and printers because of concerns about prosecution. Far from curtailing the
writing of obscenity, however, censorship seemed to stimulate writers to explore it further. During the period covered by this book novels and poems became more experimentally obscene, and writers were intensely interested in discussing the author's rights to free speech, the nature of obscenity and the proper parameters of literature. Literature, seen as a dangerous form of corruption by some, was identified with sexual liberation by others. While legislators tried to protect UK and US borders
from obscene literature, modernist publishers and writers gravitated abroad, a development that prompted writers to defend the international rights of banned authors and books. While the period 1900-1940 was one of the most heavily policed in the history of literature, it was also the time when the
parameters of literature opened up and writers seriously questioned the rights of nation states to control the production and dissemination of literature.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Potter

Potter, Rachel

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Medien- und Kommunikationswissenschaften Medienwissenschaften Medienphilosophie, Medienethik, Medienrecht
• Geisteswissenschaften Philosophie Angewandte Ethik & Soziale Verantwortung Medienethik

Über Autor(innen)

Rachel Potter lectures in the English Department at the University of East Anglia and specialises in modernist literature. She is the author of many books and essays on modernist writing, including Modernism and Democracy: Literary Culture 1900-1930 (OUP, 2006) and The Edinburgh Guide to Modernist Literature (EUP, 2012). She has also co-edited The Salt Companion to Mina Loy (Salt, 2010) and the forthcoming Prudes on the Prowl: Fiction
and Obscenity in England 1850-Present Day (OUP, 2013).