Words at Work in Vanity Fair: Language Shifts in Crucial Times, 19141930 [Paperback]

Banta draws upon essays in Vanity Fair by noted journalists, literary figures, and cultural critics in order to examine the manner by which major cultural and historical events in the Untied States and Britain led to the invention of previously non-existent words to express the rampant changes within society.Words in Conversation with the Times?? Two Editors, Two Projects, One War: 1914-1918? The Corner Turned: 1919-1920? Finding Their Focus: 1921 Power-Brokers, Word-Masters: 1922-1924? The Huxley Years: 1926-1928? Between Wars: 1929-1930

This excellent exposition of words illuminates history and points toward how to read in the present. Banta (emer.,English, UCLA) brings into focus shifts in meanings worked into intelligent talk by influential essayists writing in the magazine Vanity Fair, which was published by Cond? Nast and edited by Frank Crowninshield. With the stated aim to tell the truth entertainingly, the magazine published such writers as H. L. Mencken, Walter Lippmann, Edmund Wilson, Aldous Huxley, Dorothy Parker, Dorothy Richardson, T. S. Eliot, Sherwood Anderson, and Robert Benchley. Banta examines how the words and phrases these writers worked with repeatedly - the New Woman, correct, patriotism, democracy, manners, morals, pleasure, war, and so on - involved the shaping of politico-speak during the Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover administrations, the Great War, and the crash. This volume differs from, but moves alongside the work of linguistic theorists; in Banta's analyses, defining words takes a fuller accounting of when, in what context. Unlike books about words in the abstract or in particular venues, this is an innovative study of words at work in the public consciousness. A valuable resource in linguistics, journalism, English, American studies, and communication. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty and professionals. - CHOICE, T. B. Dykeman, formerly, Fairfield University