Exceptionality and the unexceptional in Jean Rhys’s interwar fiction
When it comes to modernist exceptions, Jean Rhys appears as a particularly striking case in point: her marginality as a white creole woman writer who shunned the literary circles in both Paris and London, her notably twisted editorial history, her disappearance for twenty-five years and the retrospe...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Université Toulouse - Jean Jaurès
2021-10-01
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| Series: | Miranda: Revue Pluridisciplinaire du Monde Anglophone |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://journals.openedition.org/miranda/42364 |
| _version_ | 1818843076489117696 |
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| author | Juliana Lopoukhine |
| author_facet | Juliana Lopoukhine |
| author_sort | Juliana Lopoukhine |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | When it comes to modernist exceptions, Jean Rhys appears as a particularly striking case in point: her marginality as a white creole woman writer who shunned the literary circles in both Paris and London, her notably twisted editorial history, her disappearance for twenty-five years and the retrospective rediscovery, in the 1960s, of her interwar texts, have sparked an ongoing debate about the question of her place in the modernist canon. Her experimental poetics, which was acknowledged as exceptional by Ford Madox Ford as early as 1927, is characterized by a sense of jaded experience, the juxtaposition of indifferent and even interchangeable places and people, as well as a semantic and syntactic minimalism based on repetition. The aim of this article is to show how Jean Rhys’s exceptionality as a modernist writer relies as much on her canonical unplaceability as, paradoxically, on her aesthetics of the unexceptional. |
| first_indexed | 2024-12-19T04:52:07Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-e67b9a95cbb1498f874e8bf91de6f335 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2108-6559 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-12-19T04:52:07Z |
| publishDate | 2021-10-01 |
| publisher | Université Toulouse - Jean Jaurès |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Miranda: Revue Pluridisciplinaire du Monde Anglophone |
| spelling | doaj.art-e67b9a95cbb1498f874e8bf91de6f3352022-12-21T20:35:19ZengUniversité Toulouse - Jean JaurèsMiranda: Revue Pluridisciplinaire du Monde Anglophone2108-65592021-10-012310.4000/miranda.42364Exceptionality and the unexceptional in Jean Rhys’s interwar fictionJuliana LopoukhineWhen it comes to modernist exceptions, Jean Rhys appears as a particularly striking case in point: her marginality as a white creole woman writer who shunned the literary circles in both Paris and London, her notably twisted editorial history, her disappearance for twenty-five years and the retrospective rediscovery, in the 1960s, of her interwar texts, have sparked an ongoing debate about the question of her place in the modernist canon. Her experimental poetics, which was acknowledged as exceptional by Ford Madox Ford as early as 1927, is characterized by a sense of jaded experience, the juxtaposition of indifferent and even interchangeable places and people, as well as a semantic and syntactic minimalism based on repetition. The aim of this article is to show how Jean Rhys’s exceptionality as a modernist writer relies as much on her canonical unplaceability as, paradoxically, on her aesthetics of the unexceptional.http://journals.openedition.org/miranda/42364Jean RhysModernismmodernist canonexperimentationrepetitionexception |
| spellingShingle | Juliana Lopoukhine Exceptionality and the unexceptional in Jean Rhys’s interwar fiction Miranda: Revue Pluridisciplinaire du Monde Anglophone Jean Rhys Modernism modernist canon experimentation repetition exception |
| title | Exceptionality and the unexceptional in Jean Rhys’s interwar fiction |
| title_full | Exceptionality and the unexceptional in Jean Rhys’s interwar fiction |
| title_fullStr | Exceptionality and the unexceptional in Jean Rhys’s interwar fiction |
| title_full_unstemmed | Exceptionality and the unexceptional in Jean Rhys’s interwar fiction |
| title_short | Exceptionality and the unexceptional in Jean Rhys’s interwar fiction |
| title_sort | exceptionality and the unexceptional in jean rhys s interwar fiction |
| topic | Jean Rhys Modernism modernist canon experimentation repetition exception |
| url | http://journals.openedition.org/miranda/42364 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT julianalopoukhine exceptionalityandtheunexceptionalinjeanrhyssinterwarfiction |