The Merchant of Modernism: The Economic Jew in Anglo-American Literature, 1864-1939

by Gary Levine

Overview

The Merchant of Modernism examines how the figure of the economic Jew symbolizes the struggle of authors from Dickens to Pound to reconcile their critique of capitalism with their own literary practices and how the shifting of the representations of this figure parallels the development of literary Modernism. From the sudden rise of the Victorian stock market to the Great Depression, the prominence of economic Jews in the writings of Charles Dickens, George Eliot, Edith Wharton, Frank Norris, Mark Twain, Henry James, Abraham Cahan, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Willa Cather, T.S. Eliot, D.H. Lawrence, Wyndham Lewis, Ezra Pound, and James Joyce documents major shifts and events in capitalism, their impact on literature, and advances in economic thought. The Merchant of Modernism provides a sophisticated analysis of the role of economic history and economic thought in shaping both literary Modernism and modern anti-Semitism.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780415941099
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	12/06/2002
Series:	Literary Criticism and Cultural Theory
Pages:	220
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

Table of Contents

Introduction; Chapter 1 Our Mutual Creditor; Chapter 2 “Made Viciously Cosmopolitan”; Chapter 3 Transactions without Risk; Chapter 4 Populist Naturalism; Chapter 5 The Merchant of Modernism; Chapter 6 “In Two Worlds at Once”; Chapter 7 “A Single Window”; Chapter 8 Modernism Squats on My Windowsill; Chapter 9 Modernism Squats on My Windowsill, Part II; Chapter 10 “Both Sides of the Question”;