A broad, accessible account of European modernism as a truly cosmopolitan movement.

This Companion explores the international aspects of literary modernism by mapping the history of the movement across Europe and within each country. The essays place the various literary traditions within a social and historical context and set out recent critical debates.

Original essays by twelve distinguished international scholars offer critical overviews of the major genres, literary culture, and social contexts that define the current state of scholarship. This Companion also features a chronology of key events and publication dates covering the first half of the twentieth century in the United States. The introductory reference guide concludes with a current bibliography of further reading organized by chapter topics.

This Companion offers a comprehensive analysis of U.S. modernism as part of a global literature. Recent writing on U.S. immigration, imperialism, and territorial expansion has generated fresh reasons to read modernist novelists, both prominent and forgotten. Written by a host of leading scholars, this Companion provides unique approaches to modernist texts.

A survey of 25 major European novelists from Cervantes to Kundera, highlighting their contributions to the genre.

Often regarded as the greatest German poet of the twentieth century, Rainer Maria Rilke (1875–1926) remains one of the most influential figures of European modernism. In this Companion, leading scholars offer informative and thought-provoking essays on his life and social context, his correspondence, all his major collections of poetry including most famously the Duino Elegies and Sonnets to Orpheus, and his seminal novel of Modernist anxiety, The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge. Rilke's critical contexts are explored in detail: his relationship with philosophy and the visual arts, his place within modernism and his relationship to European literature, and his reception in Europe and beyond. With its invaluable guide to further reading and a chronology of Rilke's life and work, this Companion will provide an accessible, engaging account of this extraordinary poet whose legacy looms so large today.

Publisher description

This volume takes an interdisciplinary approach to Irish modernism, offering readers an accessible overview of key writers and artists.

The Cambridge Companion to the Modern German Novel, first published in 2004, provides a broad ranging introduction to the major trends in the development of the German novel from the 1890s to the present. Written by an international team of experts, it encompasses both modernist and realist traditions, and also includes a look back to the roots of the modern novel in the Bildungsroman of the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The structure is broadly chronological, but thematically-focused chapters examine topics such as gender anxiety, images of the city, war, and women's writing; within each chapter, key works are selected for close attention. Unique in its combination of breadth of coverage and detailed analysis of individual works, and featuring a chronology and guides to further reading, this Companion will be indispensable to students and teachers.

This companion provides students and scholars alike with an interdisciplinary approach to literary modernism. Through essays written on a range of cultural contexts, this collection helps readers understand the significant changes in belief systems, visual culture, and pastimes that influenced, and were influenced by, the experimental literature published around 1890-1945.