The Lessons of Modernism

by Gabriel Josipovici

What are the relations between a man's life and his art? What is the place of modern art, with its underlying principles of fragmentation, dislocation and parody in the culture and education of today? What are the limits of human expression and of the expressivity of voice and body? These are some of the questions raised by Gabriel Josipovici in this collections of essays, now in its second edition. To the first edition, which won the South East Arts Literature Prize for 1978, the author has added a new preface, explaining the continuing relevance of the argument of the book to a new generation of students and scholars.

226 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1987

About the author

Gabriel Josipovici was born in Nice in 1940 of Russo-Italian, Romano-Levantine parents. He lived in Egypt from 1945 to 1956, when he came to Britain. He read English at St Edmund Hall, Oxford, graduating with a First in 1961. From 1963 to 1998 he taught at the University of Sussex. He is the author of seventeen novels, three volumes of short stories, eight critical works, and numerous stage and radio plays, and is a regular contributor to the Times Literary Supplement. His plays have been performed throughout Britain and on radio in Britain, France and Germany, and his work has been translated into the major European languages and Arabic. In 2001 he published A Life, a biographical memoir of his mother, the translator and poet Sacha Rabinovitch (London Magazine editions). His most recent works are Two Novels: 'After' and 'Making Mistakes' (Carcanet), What Ever Happened to Modernism? (Yale University Press), Heart's Wings (Carcanet, 2010) and Infinity (Carcanet, 2012).