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influence of Eliot's modernism in two early novels and autobiographies of Doris Lessing

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Date Issued:
2005
Summary:
There is deep personal and artistic empathy for T. S. Eliot's modernist poetry in Doris Lessing's early novels and two later autobiographies. As Eliot did, Lessing uses the modernist doctrine of difficulty to portray the education and development of the writer-artist as a long, problematic process, involving prodigious, rigorous, energetic reading efforts, and self-conscious reflexive writing. Lessing also frequently quotes other authors, and she thoroughly uses subverted allusive schemes and extrusive structural complications to render realism in her narratives more vividly. Her mature aesthetic sets at a distance a sense of personal displacement, exile, and uncertain cultural identity and echoes Eliot's dictum that the Poet needed to be impersonal and to seek the significant emotion. Her search for moral intelligibility by narrative framing that combines both fiction and autobiography in autobiographical space or 'pact' may also arguably be modernist.
Title: The influence of Eliot's modernism in two early novels and autobiographies of Doris Lessing.
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Name(s): Burns, M. Catherine.
Florida Atlantic University, Degree grantor
Buckton, Oliver, Thesis advisor
Type of Resource: text
Genre: Electronic Thesis Or Dissertation
Issuance: monographic
Date Issued: 2005
Publisher: Florida Atlantic University
Place of Publication: Boca Raton, Fla.
Physical Form: application/pdf
Extent: 140 p.
Language(s): English
Summary: There is deep personal and artistic empathy for T. S. Eliot's modernist poetry in Doris Lessing's early novels and two later autobiographies. As Eliot did, Lessing uses the modernist doctrine of difficulty to portray the education and development of the writer-artist as a long, problematic process, involving prodigious, rigorous, energetic reading efforts, and self-conscious reflexive writing. Lessing also frequently quotes other authors, and she thoroughly uses subverted allusive schemes and extrusive structural complications to render realism in her narratives more vividly. Her mature aesthetic sets at a distance a sense of personal displacement, exile, and uncertain cultural identity and echoes Eliot's dictum that the Poet needed to be impersonal and to seek the significant emotion. Her search for moral intelligibility by narrative framing that combines both fiction and autobiography in autobiographical space or 'pact' may also arguably be modernist.
Identifier: 9780542391552 (isbn), 13294 (digitool), FADT13294 (IID), fau:10146 (fedora)
Collection: FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection
Note(s): Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters
Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2005.
Subject(s): Eliot, TS--(Thomas Stearns),--1888-1965--Criticism and interpretation
Eliot, TS--(Thomas Stearns),--1888-1965--Influence
Lessing, Doris,--1919-2013--Criticism and interpretation
Modernism (Literature)
Poetry--20th century--History and criticism
Held by: Florida Atlantic University Libraries
Persistent Link to This Record: http://purl.flvc.org/fcla/dt/13294
Sublocation: Digital Library
Use and Reproduction: Copyright © is held by the author, with permission granted to Florida Atlantic University to digitize, archive and distribute this item for non-profit research and educational purposes. Any reuse of this item in excess of fair use or other copyright exemptions requires permission of the copyright holder.
Use and Reproduction: http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
Host Institution: FAU
Is Part of Series: Florida Atlantic University Digital Library Collections.