Cultural Politics at the Fin de Sicle [Paperback]

This book considers the ways in which current conflicts of 'race', class, and gender have their roots in the 1890s.This wide-ranging collaborative venture examines ways in which current conflicts of race, class and gender originated in the cultural politics of the last fin de siècle, which included feminism and empire, Yeats and Ireland, the operas of Gilbert and Sullivan, socialism and psychoanalysis.This wide-ranging collaborative venture examines ways in which current conflicts of race, class and gender originated in the cultural politics of the last fin de siècle, which included feminism and empire, Yeats and Ireland, the operas of Gilbert and Sullivan, socialism and psychoanalysis.The end-of-century experience is generating intense interest among contemporary critics. This collection of essays scrutinizes ways in which current conflicts of race, class and gender have their origins in the cultural politics of the last fin de siècle. The construction of masculinities, feminism and empire, Yeats and Ireland, the operas of Gilbert and Sullivan, socialism, psychoanalysis, and the relationship between nascent modernism and postmodernism are all addressed in this radical collaborative venture.Introduction Sally Ledger and Scott McCracken; 1. The flight to the real Terry Eagleton; 2. The New Woman and the crisis of Victorianism Sally Ledger; 3. Empire, 'race' and feminism in the fin de si?cle: the work of George Egerton and Olive Schreiner Laura Chrisman; 4. W. B. Yeats and Irish cultural politics in the 1890s Stephen Regan; 5. The double lives of man: narration and identification in late nineteenth-century representations of eccentric masculinities Ed Cohen; 6. Henry James and the spectacle of loss: psychoanalytical metaphysics Marcia Ian; 7. 'A very curious construction': masculinity and the poetry of A. E. Housman and Oscar Wilde Ruth Robbins; 8. The Pilgrims of Hope: William Morris and the dialectic of romanticism Anne Janowitz; 9. Urbanl3´