Men and Women Writers of the 1930s: The Dangerous Flood of History

Abstract

1. Remembering the 1930s Politics and collective memory, Looking back in irony, What about the women? sexual politics of memory, Memorials of their time, Neglected classics: Storm Jameson and Claud Cockburn, 2. pram in the hall: men and women writing the self in the 1930s Case-histories versus the undeliberate dream, Case-studies from the Auden Generation, Women in and out of history, Gendering the self: Marion Milner and Rebecca West, 3. Vamps and victims: images of women in the left-wing literature of the 1930s Women as signs, Devouring mothers and revengeful spinsters: women in the plays of Auden, Isherwood and Spender, Class stereotypes: the expensive whore and the washerwoman, Poetry and the symbolic feminine: Rickword, Day Lewis and others 4. Undeservedly forgotton: women poets of the thirties A buried tradition, Taking sides: women and political poetry, The men who die: women poets remembering the Great War, Women poets and the Audenesque style: Naomi Mitchison and Stevie Smith, Irony and tradition: Ruth Pitter and Sylvia Townsend Warner, Traditional lyrics: E.J. Scovell, Valentine Ackland and other, 5. Parables of the past: a reading of some anti-Fascist historical novels Realism versus fantasy?, Lukacs, Marxist humanism and other stories, present in the past: Jack Lindsay and Sylvia Townsend Warner, Sexuality and socialism: Naomi Mitchison, Listening to Minna: Sylvia Townsend Warner and historical realsim, 6. Collective and individual memory: Black Lamb and Grey Falcon A typical Englishwoman and her hybrid book, Collective memory and the grand narratives, Black lamb and grey falcon, Micro-narrative: Rebecca West's own journey, Writer as subject: diary versus book.