Abstract
The terms “genius” and “success” are heavily synonymous with the decade of the twenties in American life. “Success” is the name of a popular business magazine in wide circulation at the time, a time characterized by rapid industrialization and “Taylorism.” And “genius” likewise surfaced in modernist and mainstream discourse to distinguish the masses from the elite. This paper analyzes the two terms as intertwining themes in the literature of popular authors of the day, including Edith Wharton and George Gissing, to ask two specific questions: how does success complicate the concept of masculinity/femininity in these novels, and what is the implicit ideology concerning genius as it is dramatized in these novels? At the heart of this analysis is the trope of the “novelist” as a character that best represents the various stages of genius and success for this time period.
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
KEYWORDS
"Gender", " Realism/Modernism", " Literature"
Digital Media
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