Fascism and Anti-Fascism in Twentieth-Century British Fiction

by J. Suh

Overview

This book investigates the impact of fascism on twentieth-century British fiction. With a solid archival underpinning, Suh locates anti-fascist counter-strategies in middlebrow genres associated with women writers (domestic fiction, melodrama, country house novels, and family sagas) and makes the powerful argument that these rhetorical and narrative strategies emerge as the most durable. Presenting works by Phyllis Bottome, Nancy Mitford, Elizabeth Bowen, Virginia Woolf, and Muriel Spark, the book shifts the focus from high modernism and its heirs, widely considered the most important sites of literary conceptions of the political, to the under explored feminist anti-fascist strategies inherent to middlebrow fiction.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780230613683
Publisher:	Palgrave Macmillan US
Publication date:	06/16/2009
Edition description:	2009
Pages:	211
Product dimensions:	5.70(w) x 8.30(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

JUSY SUH is Assistant Professor of English at Duquesne University, USA.

Table of Contents

Beyond Appeasement in Wyndham Lewis' The Revenge for Love Biopolitical Satire in Olive Hawks' What Hope for Green Street? Phyllis Bottome's Renovations of the Liberal Home The Comedy of Outsiders in Virginia Woolf's The Years Reinvigorations of the Country House Ethos: Nancy Mitford and Elizabeth Bowen The Familiar Attractions of Fascism in Muriel Spark's The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie

Editorial Reviews

"Suh's innovative study addresses compelling questions about the relationships between literature and politics, fascism and anti-fascism, gender and class. It gives much-needed attention to the stealthy political strategies of middlebrow novels, and their capacity to engage with fascist ideologies through representations of domesticity and consumerism. Canonical authors such as Virginia Woolf and Wyndham Lewis appear in a new light when read alongside Olive Hawks and Muriel Spark, Nancy Mitford and Elizabeth Bowen, and Suh's selection of middlebrow texts reveals an unexpectedly broad range of responses to fascist rhetoric. This book is always subtle and insightful, but it is also extremely lucid and highly readable." - Faye Hammill, Senior Lecturer in English, University of Strathclyde

"Suh's Fascism and Anti-Fascism in Twentieth-Century British Fictioncontributes valuably to recent work on the middlebrow novel by illuminating the genre's under recognized political import. Exploring how such novels served as a site for both British fascism's attempts to naturalize itself as homegrown and parodic resistance to such efforts, Suh fascinatingly illuminates the syncretic, genderednature of fascist appeals and the scope of anti-fascist women's narratives." - Debra Rae Cohen, Department of English, University of South Carolina

From the Publisher