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Tony Grist

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Defining Modernism [Apr. 3rd, 2013|11:01 am]
Tony Grist
I've been flicking through Cyril Connolly's The Modern Movement (1968) in search of a working definition of Modernism. It's a delightful- and very quotable- little book in which Connolly- the great flaneur- ambles through the decades, scattering apercus, separating the cool from the uncool and constructing a sort of a canon (or list of greatest hits) beginning with Baudelaire and ending with Orwell- than whom I can think of no two writers with less in common.  If both are Modernists then Modernism means whatever you want it mean.

[User Picture]From: veronica_milvus
2013-04-03 01:03 pm (UTC)
You could write a lovely essay on this for some publication like "PN Review" q.v. Maybe even get paid for it!
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[User Picture]From: poliphilo
2013-04-03 01:09 pm (UTC)
Yes, but why write a whole essay when you've said it all in 6 1/2 lines (as I just have)? :)
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[User Picture]From: veronica_milvus
2013-04-03 01:15 pm (UTC)
Add it to the stuff you posted on Eliot, Yeats, Pound etc. and because you could get paid...
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