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Art Modern (late 19th Century To 1945)

Mock Modernism

An Anthology of Parodies, Travesties, Frauds, 1910-1935

by (author) Leonard Diepeveen

Publisher
University of Toronto Press
Initial publish date
Mar 2014
Category
Modern (late 19th Century to 1945), English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh, General
  • Hardback

    ISBN
    9781442644823
    Publish Date
    Mar 2014
    List Price
    $91.00
  • eBook

    ISBN
    9781442661806
    Publish Date
    Feb 2014
    List Price
    $79.00

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Description

How was the modernist movement understood by the general public when it was first emerging? This question can be addressed by looking at how modernist literature and art were interpreted by journalists in daily newspapers, mainstream magazines like Punch and Vanity Fair, and literary magazines. In the earliest decades of the movement – before modernist artists were considered important, and before modernism’s meaning was clearly understood – many of these interpretations took the form of parodies.

Mock Modernism is an anthology of these amusing pieces, the overwhelming majority of which have not been in print since the first decades of the twentieth century. They include Max Beerbohm’s send-up of Henry James; J.C. Squire’s account of how a poet, writing deliberately incomprehensible poetry as a hoax, became the poet laureate of the British Bolshevist Revolution; and the Chicago Record-Herald’s account of some art students’ “trial” of Henri Matisse for “crimes against anatomy.” An introduction and headnotes by Leonard Diepeveen highlight the usefulness of these pieces for comprehending media and public perceptions of a form of art that would later develop an almost unassailable power.

About the author

Leonard Diepeveen is a professor in the Department of English at Dalhousie University.

Leonard Diepeveen's profile page

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