Americanizing Britain: The Rise Of Modernism In The Age Of The Entertainment Empire (modernist Literature And Culture)
by Genevieve Abravanel /
2012 / English / PDF
1.9 MB Download
How did Great Britain, which entered the twentieth century as a
dominant empire, reinvent itself in reaction to its fears and
fantasies about the United States? Investigating the anxieties
caused by the invasion of American culture-from jazz to Ford
motorcars to Hollywood films-during the first half of the twentieth
century, Genevieve Abravanel theorizes the rise of the American
Entertainment Empire as a new style of imperialism that threatened
Britain's own.
How did Great Britain, which entered the twentieth century as a
dominant empire, reinvent itself in reaction to its fears and
fantasies about the United States? Investigating the anxieties
caused by the invasion of American culture-from jazz to Ford
motorcars to Hollywood films-during the first half of the twentieth
century, Genevieve Abravanel theorizes the rise of the American
Entertainment Empire as a new style of imperialism that threatened
Britain's own.
In the early twentieth century, the United States excited a range
of utopian and dystopian energies in Britain. Authors who might
ordinarily seem to have little in common-H.G. Wells, Aldous Huxley,
and Virginia Woolf-began to imagine Britain's future
In the early twentieth century, the United States excited a range
of utopian and dystopian energies in Britain. Authors who might
ordinarily seem to have little in common-H.G. Wells, Aldous Huxley,
and Virginia Woolf-began to imagine Britain's futurethrough
through America. Abravanel explores how these novelists
fashioned transatlantic fictions as a response to the encroaching
presence of Uncle Sam. She then turns her attention to the arrival
of jazz after World War I, showing how a range of writers, from
Elizabeth Bowen to W.H. Auden, deployed the new music as a metaphor
for the modernization of England. The global phenomenon of
Hollywood film proved even more menacing than the jazz craze,
prompting nostalgia for English folk culture and a lament for
Britain's literary heritage. Abravanel then refracts British
debates about America through the writing of two key cultural
critics: F.R. Leavis and T.S. Eliot. In so doing, she demonstrates
the interdependencies of some of the most cherished categories of
literary study-language, nation, and artistic value-by situating
the high-low debates within a transatlantic framework.
America. Abravanel explores how these novelists
fashioned transatlantic fictions as a response to the encroaching
presence of Uncle Sam. She then turns her attention to the arrival
of jazz after World War I, showing how a range of writers, from
Elizabeth Bowen to W.H. Auden, deployed the new music as a metaphor
for the modernization of England. The global phenomenon of
Hollywood film proved even more menacing than the jazz craze,
prompting nostalgia for English folk culture and a lament for
Britain's literary heritage. Abravanel then refracts British
debates about America through the writing of two key cultural
critics: F.R. Leavis and T.S. Eliot. In so doing, she demonstrates
the interdependencies of some of the most cherished categories of
literary study-language, nation, and artistic value-by situating
the high-low debates within a transatlantic framework.