Major Modernists: Virginia Woolf, James Joyce, Katherine Mansfield,
T.S. Eliot [Draft Syllabus; Paper Due dates TBA]
Fall 2015
460-334
Prof. Alice Staveley
staveley@stanford.edu
‘Modernism’ is not so much a thing as a set of responses to problems posed by the conditions
of modernity. The recognition that modernism and modernity are related but not identical is
crucial to most recent work in the area. At one time it was possible to write of there being
‘two modernities’, one being the modernity of technology and social life, and the other being
aesthetic modernity; more recently, critics have used ‘modernism’ for the second of these,
reserving ‘modernity’ for the social and ideological context. [... But] [e]xactly which factors are
included within modernity, and the relative importance of each, is something over which there
is little critical agreement, and is one reason for the diversity in [...] accounts of modernism.
--Michael Whitworth, ed. Modernism,
Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2007, p.3
Week One:
 Introduction to Modernism and this course. What is modernism? What
was modernism? What does book history have to do with modernist
aesthetics? Why do we still care about the modernists as a self-identified
group? How do we ‘read’ modernist works? Why will we be looking at
some compositional experiments during this course; that is, at drafts of
‘final’ texts?
 Close read Virginia Woolf’s “Kew Gardens” (1919) and “The Mark on
the Wall” (1917)
Week Two (Read Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse in full before the first
class):
 Making it New, with a difference: Read Woolf’s 1919 essay “Modern
Novels” in its native habitat, the Times Literary Supplement in Searchworks
under databases, “The TLS Historical Archive 1907-2002”:
http://searchworks.stanford.edu/view/8529166
and T.S. Eliot’s 1919 essay “Tradition and the Individual Talent” in The
Egoist in the Modernist Journals Project database http://modjourn.org
 To the Lighthouse (1927)
 To the Lighthouse: Readers’ Response due on Coursework; approx. a page
of close reading on a passage of your choosing
Week Three (Woolf):
To the Lighthouse + Woolf’s compositional practice. Begin browsing
http://www.woolfonline.com
Week Four (Woolf & Joyce)
Reading the drafts of “Time Passes” from http://www.woolfonline.com
James Joyce, The Dead and Other Stories, read “Araby”, “Eveline”, “The Dead”:
Reader’s Response on Coursework: choose one story to discuss point of view.
Week Five (Joyce)
Joyce, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Week Six (Joyce)
Portrait
Portrait, and serialization in The Egoist
Week Seven: (Pause + Writing)
Writing on writing. Begin thinking of what topics or concerns you will likely
focus on in your final paper, even if you will choose later writers on the
syllabus (Mansfield or Eliot). Come to class with a draft of these topics and
rationales thus far for why they interest you. Come with the aim of workshopping some sources for these ideas. Write an abstract of an argument in the
making, using one of the guides to modernism below to inform your
developing ideas.
Week Eight: (Katherine Mansfield)
Mansfield, The Garden Party and Other Stories (select)
Week Nine:
Mansfield in periodicals, Rhythm & The Blue Review + at The Hogarth Press
(“Prelude”)
Week Nine: (T.S. Eliot)
2 March: The Waste Land
4 March: The Waste Land
Week Ten: (Writing Workshops)
Outline and Thesis argument for research paper presented in class: class
brainstorming
Bring in 4 pages of essay writing related to your longer paper/Peer Review
Draft paper due to me; meetings with me and/or Dr. Susan Schulyer, English
department writing specialist, scheduled early the following week.
Evaluation
 Class Participation: 25% (more than 2 class absences results in lower
participation grade)
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Readers’ Responses: 25%
First short paper (close reading) 10%
Draft Final paper: 10%
Final Paper: 30%
Administrative Details
Students with Documented Disabilities
Students who may need an academic accommodation based on the impact of a
disability must initiate the request with the Office of Accessible Education
(OAE). Professional staff will evaluate the request with required
documentation, recommend reasonable accommodations, and prepare an
Accommodation Letter for faculty dated in the current quarter in which the
request is being made. Students should contact the OAE as soon as possible
since timely notice is needed to coordinate accommodations. The OAE is
located at 563 Salvatierra Walk (phone: 7231066, URL: http://studentaffairs.stanford.edu/oae).
Honor Code
The Honor Code is the University's statement on academic integrity written by
students in 1921. It articulates University expectations of students and faculty
in establishing and maintaining the highest standards in academic work:
The Honor Code is an undertaking of the students, individually and
collectively:
1. that they will not give or receive aid in examinations; that they will not
give or receive unpermitted aid in class work, in the preparation of reports, or
in any other work that is to be used by the instructor as the basis of grading;
2. that they will do their share and take an active part in seeing to it that
others as well as themselves uphold the spirit and letter of the Honor Code.
3. The faculty on its part manifests its confidence in the honor of its
students by refraining from proctoring examinations and from taking unusual
and unreasonable precautions to prevent the forms of dishonesty mentioned
above. The faculty will also avoid, as far as practicable, academic procedures
that create temptations to violate the Honor Code.
4. While the faculty alone has the right and obligation to set academic
requirements, the students and faculty will work together to establish optimal
conditions for honorable academic work.
Books
Required:
1) James Joyce, The Dead and Other Stories
Broadview Edition
ISBN: 9781554811656
2) T. S. Eliot, The Waste Land and Other Poems
A Broadview Anthology of British Literature Edition
Written by: T.S. Eliot
Edited by: Joseph Black et al.
Publication Date: December 23, 2010
148pp • Paperback / PDF / ePub
ISBN: 9781551119687 / 1551119684
3) Katherine Mansfield, The Garden Party and Other Stories
Penguin 2007 (introduction Lorna Sage)
ISBN: 978-0-141-44180-1
4) Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse, Ed. Mark Hussey, Harcourt Brace
ISBN978-0156-03047-2
5) James Joyce, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Norton Critical Edition
Paperback
April 2007
ISBN 978-0-393-92679-8
5.1 × 8.4 in / 528 pages
Please buy all the editions I’ve ordered at the bookstore or as above – we really need to be on
the same page (literally) when we talk about which sections of the novels we’ll study.
Modernist novels are notorious – and celebrated – for their unusual chapterization, so it’s
impossible to go quickly and have students reading various different editions.
Some readable, optional secondary sources on Modernism (available in the
library, through me, or on Amazon – feel free to borrow and copy for your use
any books of mine just so long as you return them!)
1. Whitworth, Michael, ed. Modernism (Blackwell’s Critical Guides).
Oxford: Blackwell’s Publishing, 2007. [Good introduction, and smart
synopses in chapter headings of key theoretical categories: Modernism
and Romanticism; Realism and Formalisn; Modernist and the AvantGarde; Modernism and the Masses; Modernity and the City;
Regendering Modernism; Publishing Modernism; Late Modernism.] In
Searchworks, currently out (can be recalled); I have a copy.
2. Levenson, Michael. Ed. The Cambridge Companion to Modernism.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999. [Good discrete articles
on various topics and genres within modernism] In Searchworks, and
also readable online.
3. Bradbury, Malcolm. The Modern British Novel. London: Penguin, 1993.
[Beautifully written; covers whole century, most germane for
modernism, chapters 3&4] In Searchworks.
4. Lewis, Pericles. The Cambridge Introduction to Modernism. Cambridge:
Cambridge UP, 2007 [Strong critical and historical overview.]
Searchworks, currently in the library.
5. Baldick, Chris. The Modern Movement. Oxford English Literary History
Series, Volume 10 (1910-1940). Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004.
[Mainly literary-historical, with dense literary ecology of modernism and good
thematic trends.) Not apparently available on Searchworks; I have a copy.
6. Butler, Christopher. Modernism: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford:
Oxford University Press. 2010. Short, pithy, fun, lucid on stylistic
innovations of modernism, good pictures. Art & Architecture Library,
noncirculating; also Amazon for a good price, and I have a copy.
7. Bradshaw, David, and Kevin Dettmar. eds. A Companion to Modernist
Literature and Culture. Oxford: Blackwell’s Publishing, 2006 [Excellent!!
Thorough and superb organization, individual essayists contribute
analysis on movements within modernism as well as literary criticism on
modernist works. A very complete companion.] Available online in
Searchworks; I have a copy.
8. Bradshaw, David, ed. A Concise Companion to Modernism. Oxford:
Blackwells, 2003. Good series of thematic, theoretical, and contextual
essays. Available online in Searchworks.
9. Bonnie Kime Scott, ed. Gender in Modernism. Urbana: University of
Illinois Press, 2005. Excellent updated follow-up volume to the now
classic edition of Scott’s, The Gender of Modernism: A Critical Anthology
(1990) which had staged a necessary intervention in the field of
modernist studies to question what women writers had been overlooked
in the canonical modernist traditions, and also whether a movement can
‘have’ or reflect gender differences. In Searchworks, but currently
(and often) out – can be recalled. I have copies.
10. Armstrong, Tim. Modernism: A Cultural History. Malden, MA: Polity,
2005. Good overview, with useful section on race and imperialism in
modernism.