1st Edition

Men and Women Writers of the 1930s The Dangerous Flood of History

By Janet Montefiore Copyright 1996
    278 Pages
    by Routledge

    278 Pages
    by Routledge

    Men and Women Writers of the 1930s is a searching critique of the issues of memory and gender during this dynamic decade. Montefiore asks two principle questions; what part does memory play in the political literature of and about 1930s Britain? And what were the roles of women, both as writers and as signifying objects in constructing that literature?
    Montefiore's topical analysis of 1930s mass unemployment, fascist uprise and 'appeasement' is shockingly relevant in society today. Issues of class, anti-fascist historical novels, post war memoirs of 'Auden generation' writers and neglected women poets are discussed at length. Writers include:
    * George Orwell
    * Virginia Woolf
    * W.H. Auden
    * Storm Jameson
    * Jean Rhys
    * Rebecca West

    Introduction 1 Remembering the 1930s 2 The pram in the hall: men and women writing the self in the 1930s 3 Vamps and victims: images of women in the left-wing literature of the 1930s 4 ‘Undeservedly forgotten’: women poets of the thirties 5 Parables of the past: a reading of some antifascist historical novels 6 Collective and individual memory: Black Lamb and Grey Falcon

    Biography

    Janet Montefiore lectures in English and Women’s Studies at the University of Kent. She is the author of Feminism and Poetry: Language, Experience, Identify in Women’s Writing (1987, 1994), and of numerous essays on twentieth-century literature and critical theory. She is married and has two children.