Literary Impressionism and Modernist Aesthetics

by Jesse Matz

Matz examines the writing of such modernists as James, Conrad and Woolf, who used the word "impression" to describe what they wanted their fiction to present. Matz argues that these writers did not favor immediate subjective sense, but rather a mode that would mediate perceptual distinctions. Just as impressions fall somewhere between thought and sense, impressionist fiction occupies the middle ground between opposite ways of engaging with the world. This study addresses the problems of perception and representation that occupied writers in the early decades of the twentieth century.

292 pages, Paperback

First published August 2, 2001

About the author

Jesse Matz is the William P. Rice Professor of English at Kenyon College. He is the author of Literary Impressionism and Modernist Aesthetics and Lasting Impressions: The Legacies of Impressionism in Contemporary Culture.

Reviews

[james · Rating 4 out of 5]

this was dense, and essentially transformed the way I think about Impressionism as an aesthetic phenomenon

[Humphrey · Rating 4 out of 5]

There are some excellent theoretical arguments made on Impressionism as a style and structure; the introductory chapter is full of insights and should be read by anyone thinking about literary impressionism. I found several of the readings to be lacking breadth, however - particularly those of Hardy, Conrad, and Ford. When talking about a style that defined careers, it seems a shame to limit an account of Hardy to Tess, or Conrad to what he wrote in 1900 or earlier, or exclude the four novels of Parade's End from that of Ford. In other words, I wanted treatments more like Matz' reading of James, which encompasses three major works over three decades.