Katherine Mansfield

by Professor Andrew Bennett

This book offers a new introduction to Katherine Mansfield's short stories focusing on the question of the connection between life and writing in her work. This book offers a new introduction to Katherine Mansfield's short stories informed by recent biographical, critical and editorial work on
her life and on her stories, letters and notebooks. The study focuses on the question of the connection between life and writing in Mansfield's it explores her engagements with issues of personal identity and elaborates her theory and practice of a poetics of impersonation whereby the identity
of the author is merged with those of her characters. Bennett argues that Mansfield's multiple and unstable identities and identifications are bound up with issues of colonialism, nationality, gender, and sexuality, and that they may be said to be embedded within the very texture of her prose.
Mansfield's impersonations, in their engagement with a 'queer' aesthetics, with strangeness and surprise, with hatred, with

128 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2002

Reviews

[Cat · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this book in a day. And I read it straight after reading Mansfield’s stories. That was a good thing to do, as everything was fresh in mind. This was an informative write-up about Mansfield’s style, meaning & writing. It wasn’t the best thing I’ve ever read, but I’m jolly glad I did. Katherine Mansfield was an amazing storyteller. Anything honouring her work is worthy.

[Jacob biscuits · Rating 3 out of 5]

An extremely surface level survey of some themes in Mansfield but a decent enough introduction I guess for someone who knows nothing about her