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Literary Criticism General

Regression and Apocalypse

Studies in North American Literary Expressionism

by (author) Sherrill E. Grace

Publisher
University of Toronto Press, Scholarly Publishing Division
Initial publish date
Nov 1989
Category
General
  • Hardback

    ISBN
    9780802058164
    Publish Date
    Nov 1989
    List Price
    $60.00
  • eBook

    ISBN
    9781442679153
    Publish Date
    Nov 1989
    List Price
    $73.00

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Description

Expressionism continues to fascinate scholars, and in fact has recently passed through yet another revival. From its roots in German history, aesthetics, painting, theatre, and literature, it has spread to become an international phenomenon. In this analysis of Expressionist writing by Canadian and American authors, Sherrill Grace adds important new dimension to our understanding of the works of a number of playwrights and novelists.

Working from a set of topoi and structural paradigms, Grace discusses selected examples of expressionistic texts by Eugene O'Neill, Herman Voaden, Malcolm Lowry, Ralph Ellison, Djuna Barnes, and Sheila Watson. Each of these writers was demonstrably conversatn with and influenced by German Expressionism in one or more media; taken together they suggest an alternative modernism to that of Joyce, Woolf, or Stein, and a common articulation of problems in stylistics, genre and form, and thematics.

Grace concludes by relating the expressionism of these modernists to the 'neo-expressionism' of postmodernist art, pointing out a number of contemporary painters and writers who exploit the legacy of Expressionism in new ways.

About the author

Sherrill E. Grace is professor of English, University of British Columbia, and the author of Inventing Tom Thomson.

Sherrill E. Grace's profile page

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