SOLID OBJECTS AND MODERN TONICS, OR, WHO’S AFRAID OF THE BIG CAMP WOOLF?

Abstract

This article brings critical pressure to bear on two different critical terms: modernism and camp. Arguing that these two historically and theoretically weighted categories have much to tell us when read in relation to each other, this article revisits the short fiction of the canonical modernist Virginia Woolf, and debates the critical significance of the work of a hitherto overlooked late modernist, Charles Henri Ford. Comparing and contrasting the very different writing styles of these important modern cultural producers, this article moves to affirm a fresh and queer object of significant scholarly interest: camp modernism.