Dynamic Psychology in Modernist British Fiction argues that literary critics have tended to distort the impact of pre-Freudian psychological discourses, including psychical research, on Modern British Fiction. Psychoanalysis has received undue attention over a more typical British eclecticism, embraced by now-forgotten figures including Frederic Myers and William McDougall. This project focuses on the Edwardian novelists most fully engaged by dynamic psychology, May Sinclair, and J.D. Beresford, but also reconsiders Arnold Bennett and D.H. Lawrence. The book concludes by demonstrating Woolf's subtle assimilation of pre-Freudian discourse.

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Reviews

'For scholars of British literary modernism, who focus on theories of the unconsious, selfhood and narrative, Dynamic Psychology is essential reading.' - Michael Lackey, Studies in the Novel

'...this study should receive serious consideration for two reasons: as a reassessment of the role psychical research played in the development of both modern psychology and modern literature and as a call for the renewed appreciation of neglected authors like Bennett, Beresford, and especially Sinclair.' - Andrew Kunka, Modern Fiction Studies

About the author

GEORGE M. JOHNSON is Associate Professor of English at the Cariboo University College in British Columbia, Canada. He has edited three volumes of the Dictionary of Literary Biography on Modern British Novelists, and in 1998 published the first full-length study of J.D. Beresford. He has recently completed a mystery novel, The Absence of Freud, about a clash between late-Victorian working-class hypnotists and psychical researchers.

Bibliographic Information

Book Title: Dynamic Psychology in Modernist British Fiction
Authors: George M. Johnson
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230288072
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan London
eBook Packages: Palgrave Literature & Performing Arts Collection, Literature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)
Copyright Information: Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited 2006
Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-4039-4228-9Published: 06 October 2005
eBook ISBN: 978-0-230-28807-2Published: 06 October 2005
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XXIX, 240
Topics: Personality and Social Psychology, British and Irish Literature, Twentieth-Century Literature, Literary History, Psychoanalysis, Fiction

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Table of contents (8 chapters)

Front Matter

Back Matter

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