Djuna Barnes: melancholic modernism by: Deborah Parsons

By:

Amalia Qistina Abdullah

GS25731

BBL 5106: MODERNISM AND BEYOND

Deborah Parsons

Senior lecturer at Birmingham University

BA in English Lit. and Philosophy

MA in Lit. and Visual Arts

Phd. in Birkbeck College University

Thesis: Women writers and the city in late 19th and early 20th century

Author of Streetwalking in the Metropolis: Women, the City and Modernity

Djuna Barnes

Thelma Wood

Djuna Barnes

Born in Cornwall-on-Hudson

Henry Budington “Wald” Barnes – free spirited father

- unsuccessful painter

Elizabeth Chappel Barnes – violinist mother

Zadel – suffragist grandmother

Fanny Faulkner – Wald’s mistress

Suffered psychosexual abuse – victim of incest

Married at age 18 to Perce Faulkner (52)

Worked as a journalist

Married Courtenay Lemon (editor Brooklyn Daily Eagle)

Alcoholic

Affair with Thelma Wood

Married to Charles Henri Ford

Had an abortion

Lived in seclusion till her death on June 18(?) 1982

Self-professed melancholic

The unknown legend of American literature

WORKS:

The Book of Repulsive Women (1915)

A Book (1923)

Ladies Almanac (1928)- erotic pastiche of lesbian life

Ryder (1928)- autobiographical; denounces patriarchal authority

Nightwood (1931) – doomed homosexual & heterosexual love

Antiphone (1958) – incestuous family where Miranda was killed by her own mother

WHAT IS MELANCHOLIC MODERNISM?

Depressive modern/contemporary work of art

Decadence that scorns contemporary society

Talks about the artificial, morbid, grotesque and inevitably followed by dissatisfaction and ennui.

NIGHTWOOD by: Djuna Barnes

It is a modernist text

Very much adored by T.S. Eliot“To say that Nightwood will appeal primarily to readers of poetry does not mean that it is not a novel, but that it is so good a novel that only sensibilities trained on poetry can wholly appreciate it.” T.S. Eliot

Milestone on gay literature

Parallelism between Djuna’s life and Nightwood

Courtenay Thelma

Djuna Perce

FannyWaldElizabeth

Charles

++

Guido

Dr. Mathew O’ConnorsJennyNora

FelixRobin+

Both being unorthodox

Deals with human suffering, both gay or straight break themselves into pieces

Choose the wrong lover and crucify themselves on their own longings

Are crucified by the world that fears the stranger whether in life or in love

Quotations:

“Life is painful, nasty and short…in my case, it has only been painful and nasty.”

(interviewed by Thomas Hobbes)

“having life is the greatest horror, I cannot think of it as a merry, gay and joyous thing, just to be alive.”

(letter to her mother)

“ I am not lesbian, I only love Thelma”

(ask about her relationship with Thelma Wood)

Work Cited:

• Parsons, Deborah. “Djuna Barnes: melancholic modernism.” Ed. Morag Shiach. The Modernist Novel. Cambridge: Cambridge University P, 2007. 165-177. Print.

• T.S. Eliot, Letter to Geoffrey Faber, quoted in Phillip Herring, Djuna: The Life and Works of Djuna Barnes. New York: Viking, 1995. p. 231.

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nightwood#Plot_summary.

THE END

Thank you for your time