Modern literature

Modern literature

1) How did early twentieth-century writers convey the visual spectacle of New York City in prose form?

2) Explore the relationship between the fragment and the panorama as ways of representing New York City life.

3) “New York is the cubist city, the futurist city. It expresses modern thought in its architecture, its life, its spirit” (Francis Picabia, 1913). Discuss.
4) Examine the significance of Empire and/or commerce in writings about London.

5) ‘London, in fact, is so essentially a background, a matter so much more of masses than of individuals […] that its essential harmony is not to be caught by any human ear’ (Ford Madox Ford). In what ways do modernist writers contrast the ‘individual’ with the unknowable ‘masses’ of London?

6) Discuss the importance of travel and/or walking in writings about London. To what extent do modernist writers attempt to ‘map’ the city in their work?
7) Examine the city as a gendered space in the work of one or more women writers of your choice.

8) To what extent is Paris a site of memory in Anglo-American modernism?

9) Is decadence a political act? Discuss in relation to Baudelaire, Huysmans and Benjamin.

10) How does the physical space of Paris shape writing on the city?