John Buchan’s amicable anti-modernism
This article considers the novelist John Buchan’s changing responses to literary modernism in the inter-war period. It argues that although Buchan has generally been taken as a straightforward opponent of modernist writing, careful study of his oeuvre discloses a more complex scenario in which an an...
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| Format: | Article |
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Indiana University Press
2012
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| Online Access: | https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/28810/ |
| _version_ | 1848793648066461696 |
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| author | Waddell, Nathan |
| author_facet | Waddell, Nathan |
| author_sort | Waddell, Nathan |
| building | Nottingham Research Data Repository |
| collection | Online Access |
| description | This article considers the novelist John Buchan’s changing responses to literary modernism in the inter-war period. It argues that although Buchan has generally been taken as a straightforward opponent of modernist writing, careful study of his oeuvre discloses a more complex scenario in which an antagonism to certain modernist 'excesses' is mixed with a qualified attraction to particular modernist innovations. The article’s central assumption is that a key part of Buchan’s worth to the New Modernist Studies lies in his querying — in novelistic as well as in essayistic forms — of the vocabularies now used to elaborate such literary-historical oppositions as high vs. low, for instance, or old vs. new. The article breaks new ground by moving beyond familiar Buchan texts — e.g. 'The Thirty-Nine Steps' (1915) — into the less appreciated territory of his novel 'Huntingtower' (1922), his literary criticism and his cultural commentaries. |
| first_indexed | 2025-11-14T19:03:38Z |
| format | Article |
| id | nottingham-28810 |
| institution | University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus |
| institution_category | Local University |
| last_indexed | 2025-11-14T19:03:38Z |
| publishDate | 2012 |
| publisher | Indiana University Press |
| recordtype | eprints |
| repository_type | Digital Repository |
| spelling | nottingham-288102020-05-04T20:22:57Z https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/28810/ John Buchan’s amicable anti-modernism Waddell, Nathan This article considers the novelist John Buchan’s changing responses to literary modernism in the inter-war period. It argues that although Buchan has generally been taken as a straightforward opponent of modernist writing, careful study of his oeuvre discloses a more complex scenario in which an antagonism to certain modernist 'excesses' is mixed with a qualified attraction to particular modernist innovations. The article’s central assumption is that a key part of Buchan’s worth to the New Modernist Studies lies in his querying — in novelistic as well as in essayistic forms — of the vocabularies now used to elaborate such literary-historical oppositions as high vs. low, for instance, or old vs. new. The article breaks new ground by moving beyond familiar Buchan texts — e.g. 'The Thirty-Nine Steps' (1915) — into the less appreciated territory of his novel 'Huntingtower' (1922), his literary criticism and his cultural commentaries. Indiana University Press 2012 Article PeerReviewed Waddell, Nathan (2012) John Buchan’s amicable anti-modernism. Journal of Modern Literature, 35 (2). pp. 64-82. ISSN 0022-281X John Buchan; modernism; middlebrow; inter-war; Huntingtower http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2979/jmodelite.35.2.64?uid=31236&uid=3738032&uid=2132&uid=31234&uid=2&uid=70&uid=3&uid=5910784&uid=67&uid=62&sid=21106374010881 doi:10.2979/jmodelite.35.2.64 doi:10.2979/jmodelite.35.2.64 |
| spellingShingle | John Buchan; modernism; middlebrow; inter-war; Huntingtower Waddell, Nathan John Buchan’s amicable anti-modernism |
| title | John Buchan’s amicable anti-modernism |
| title_full | John Buchan’s amicable anti-modernism |
| title_fullStr | John Buchan’s amicable anti-modernism |
| title_full_unstemmed | John Buchan’s amicable anti-modernism |
| title_short | John Buchan’s amicable anti-modernism |
| title_sort | john buchan’s amicable anti-modernism |
| topic | John Buchan; modernism; middlebrow; inter-war; Huntingtower |
| url | https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/28810/ https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/28810/ https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/28810/ |