ASense of Shock

What does modern British and Irish literature have to do with French impressionist painting? And what does Henry James have to do with the legal dispute between John Ruskin and J.M.W. Whistler? What links Walter Pater with Conrad's portrait of a genocidal maniac in Heart of Darkness? Or George Moore with Irish nationalism, Virginia Woolf with modern distraction, and Ford Madox Ford with the Great Depression? Adam Parkes argues that we must answer such questions if we are to appreciate the full impact of impressionist aesthetics on modern British and Irish writers. Complicating previous accounts of the influence of painting and philosophy on literary impressionism, A Sense of Shock highlights the role of politics, uncovering new and deeper linkages. In the hands of such practitioners as Conrad, Ford, James, Moore, Pater, and Woolf, literary impressionism was shaped by its engagement with important social issues and political events that defined the modern age. As Parkes demonstrates, the formal and stylistic practices that distinguish impressionist writing were the result of dynamic and often provocative interactions between aesthetic and historical factors. Parkes ultimately suggests that it was through this incendiary combination of aesthetics and history that impressionist writing forced significant change on the literary culture of its time. A Sense of Shock will appeal to students and scholars of nineteenth- and twentieth-century literature, as well as the growing readership for books that explore problems of literary history and interdisciplinarity.

Adam Parkes is Professor of English at the University of Georgia. He is the author of Modernism and the Theater of Censorship and Kazuo Ishiguro's The Remains of the Day: A Reader's Guide.

Preface
IntroductionLiterary Impressionism and Its CriticsMessy Impressionism
Chapter 1. Sense of Justice: Ruskin, Whistler, and JamesRuskin, Whistler, and the Experiment Upon Public Submissiveness Disorderly CharactersHaze, Riddle, and Blot
Chapter 2. A Chain of Secret Influences: Pater's DisciplesGeorge Moore's Likes and DislikesOscar Wilde's IntellectArthur Symons's RestraintConrad/Kurtz's Circles of Influence
Chapter 3. Fugitive Imaginings: Art, Nationhood, and George Moore's Racial Instincts England, Ireland, and the Nation-Family Moore's Real Country
Chapter 4. Shocks and Surprises: Conrad, Terrorism, and Languages of Sensation Impressionism, Journalism, and the Booming of Anarchism The Shock of the Information Professing Terrorism After-Effects: Wells, Ford, Woolf, and War
Chapter 5. Violent Moments of Being: Woolf, Pater, and Fry Reacting Against Impressionism Distracted and Disconnected ThoughtsGleams & Lights: Woolf, Pater, and Sculpture Pater and the Patriarchal Machine Roger Fry, Roger Fry, and the Rhetoric of Personality
Chapter 6. The Typical Man of His Period: Ford's DepressionPolitico-economicsSoft-Boiled FictionProfessing Progress
Epilogue: Bowen's Demolished Moment, 432 Notes, 439