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11 - Limited Modernism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 June 2019

Dominic Head
Affiliation:
University of Nottingham
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Summary

This chapter suggests that Ian McEwan’s vexed relationship with British modernism can be resolved by understanding modernism as an aesthetic and political resource that his novels adapt to new conditions of life in the twenty-first century. Looking at several of the novels with the obvious connections to modernist literature – Atonement, Saturday, Solar and The Children Act – this chapter explores the ways McEwan engages with and updates three key modernist ideals: the aesthetics of transgression and rupture; the view of human nature; and modernism’s claims for the relevance of the literary. Common to each of these ‘updates’ is a shedding of the grandiose claims of modernism in favour of more modest and minor concepts of literary value better attuned to the indirect and limited ways that literature operates today.

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2019

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  • Limited Modernism
  • Edited by Dominic Head, University of Nottingham
  • Book: The Cambridge Companion to Ian McEwan
  • Online publication: 24 June 2019
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108648516.012
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  • Limited Modernism
  • Edited by Dominic Head, University of Nottingham
  • Book: The Cambridge Companion to Ian McEwan
  • Online publication: 24 June 2019
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108648516.012
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Limited Modernism
  • Edited by Dominic Head, University of Nottingham
  • Book: The Cambridge Companion to Ian McEwan
  • Online publication: 24 June 2019
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108648516.012
Available formats
×