Alternative Paradigms of Literary Realism [Hardcover]

Using the traditional genres of allegory, pastoral, and parable, this book develops alternative paradigms of literary realism with which to reexamine a group of crucial but marginalized 20th century writers who have been misread as conventional mimetic realists.Truth as a Matter of Style: Alternative Paradigms of Literary Realism One is Never Quite Totally in the World: Jane Bowles' Allegorical Realism Whatever Is, Is Wrong:?James Purdy's Allegorical Realism Some Imaginary Vienna:?Ronald Firbank's Pastoral Realism To Create a Life Which Is Not:?Henry Green's Pastoral-Organic Realism There's a Providence Not so Far Away from Us: Penelope Fitzgerald's Parablistic Realism

In his judicious study of five under-appreciated modern and contemporary American and British writers, Adams powerfully illuminates not only the individual writers he examines but also the nature of literary reality itself. Demonstrating how allegory, pastoral, and parable are used by modernist writers as an alternative to mimesis, Adams reveals as well the social and political contexts and consequences of such generic choices. Jane Bowles, James Purdy, Ronald Firbank, Henry Green, and Penelope Fitzgerald emerge from this refreshing and probing study as innovative, even revolutionary, writers. - Claude J. Summers, William E. Stirton Professor Emeritus in the Humanities, University of Michigan-Dearborn and General Editor, glbtq.com

Adams shows how gender and genre are intertwined by establishing patterns of expectations for both human and literary behavior. In this exciting and persuasive study, he demonstrates how misunderstandings of genre blind readers to the complexities and delights before them. His work will lead us to widen our reading and our tastes and to appreciate works for the richness of their queerness and the depth of their frivolity. This is a triumph of scholarship and sensibility that finds in works often ignored and ridiculed both purpose and pleasure. -lã&