Modernist Intermediality: The False Dichotomy between High Modernism and Mass Culture

ABSTRACT

Throughout this paper I will argue that the “high modernism” of the inter-war era did not seek to distinguish itself from “low” art, and that, as a literary movement, it was very much engaged with mass culture. I will explore this in relation to two of the epoch’s most critically acclaimed authors, James Joyce and T. S. Eliot, giving particular focus to Ulysses and The Waste Land. My argument extends what Andreas Huyssen suggests in the After the Great Divide, that the separation of high and low culture is a critical construct that has no real basis in the literature it problematises. My argument will be founded on the notion of intermediality. I will show that, in their engagement with differing mass media, Joyce and Eliot deconstruct this false dichotomy by merging classical works with the products and instruments of mass culture. This paper will refrain from contributing further to the delineation of Joycean and Eliotic allusions, but rather, build an argument around Joyce and Eliot’s position in relation to mass media in the context of literary and cultural criticism.

Acknowledgements

With thanks to Anne Fogarty, University College Dublin, Graham Allen and Orla Murphy, University College Cork, and Chris Long and Patricia Hswe, Pennsylvania State University.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 Eliot, Notes Towards the Definition of Culture, 58.

2 Ibid.

3 Huyssen, viii.

4 Adorno, The Culture Industry, 82.

5 Ibid.

6 Ibid., 83.

7 Ibid., 92.

8 Greenberg, 244.

9 Ibid., 10.

10 In Cook, 53.

11 Huyssen, ix.

12 Ibid.

13 Denning, 253.

14 Irwin, 42.

15 Fiske, 110.

16 Adorno, “Culture Industry Reconsidered,” 276.

17 Denning, 267.

18 Ohmann, 31.

19 Ibid.

20 Fiske, 108.

21 Ibid., 109.

22 In Young, 21.

23 Emden and Rippl, 1.

24 Guelen, 53–4.

25 Ibid., 53.

26 Emden and Rippl, 10.

27 Punzi, 10.

28 In Assmann, 21.

29 Ibid., 23.

30 Shaya, 47–50.

31 Ibid.

32 Kershner, 13.

33 Ibid.

34 Ibid., 14.

35 Ibid.

36 Ibid., 15.

37 Ibid.

38 Ibid.

39 Ibid.

40 Ibid.

41 Chinitz, ed., T. S. Eliot and the Cultural Divide, 8.

42 Ibid.

43 Ibid.

44 Ibid., 14.

45 Eliot, “To Eleanor Hinkley,” 62.

46 Ibid., 71.

47 Eliot, “To Conrad Aiken,” 59.

48 Eliot, “From the Use of Poetry,” 87.

49 Joyce, “To Harriet Shaw Weaver,” 331.

50 Nugel, 47.

51 Olk, 191.

52 Wicke, 252.

53 Ibid., 234.

54 Ibid., 235.

55 Leonard, 50.

56 Ibid., 41.

57 Ibid., 39.

58 Joyce, Dubliners, 41.

59 Joyce, “An Encounter,” 24.

60 Herr, 36.

61 Bowen, Musical Allusions in the Works of James Joyce, 46.

62 Monk, 27.

63 Bowen, “And the Music Goes Round and Round,” 108.

64 Ibid., 110.

65 Ibid.

66 Joyce, Ulysses, 223: 602–3.

67 Ibid., 236: 1151.

68 Bowen, 110.

69 Bowen, “Joyce and the Modern Coalescence,” 91.

70 Ibid., 95.

71 Bowen, Musical Allusions in the Works of James Joyce, 46.

72 Joyce, Ulysses, 6: 167.

73 Ibid., 221: 498.

74 McCourt, 1.

75 Ibid.

76 Burkdall, 3.

77 Sicker, 69.

78 Ibid., 70.

79 Ibid., 71.

80 Camerani, 104.

81 Ibid.

82 Ibid., 121.

83 Hanaway, 128–9.

84 Ibid., 129.

85 O'Sullivan, 40.

86 Joyce, Ulysses, 478: 4314.

87 Ibid., 285: 78.

88 Ibid., 286: 96–108.

89 Ibid., 313.

90 Chinitz, T. S. Eliot and the Cultural Divide, 187.

91 Ibid., 189.

92 Ibid., 187.

93 Ibid., 28.

94 Chinitz, ed., “A Vast Wasteland?” 68.

95 Ibid., 67.

96 Tratner, 166.

97 Ibid.

98 Ibid., 167.

99 Ibid.

100 Ibid., 169.

101 Ibid.

102 Ibid., 170.

103 Ibid.

104 Ibid., 179.

105 Ibid., 182.

106 Schuchard, 104.

107 Ibid., 106.

108 Ibid., 116.

109 Eliot, “The Music of Poetry,” 38.

110 Eliot, “The Social Function of Poetry,” 20.

111 Ibid., 22.

112 Chinitz, T. S. Eliot and the Cultural Divide, 41.

113 Untermeyer, 152.

114 North, 12.

115 Wilson, 141.

116 Rascoe, 170.

117 Ellison, 159–60.

118 Chinitz, T. S. Eliot and the Cultural Divide, 42.

119 Ibid., 43.

120 Eliot, “The Waste Land,” 59: 128–30.

121 North, 85.

122 Eliot, “The Waste Land,” 61: 185–7.

123 Ibid., 64: 253–6.

124 Suarez, 749.

125 Eliot, “The Waste Land,” 64: 257–62.

126 Eliot, “To Gilbert Seldes,” 442.

127 Eliot, “To John Rodker,” 358.

128 Eliot, “To Walter H. Shaw,” 755–6.

129 Eliot, “Marie Lloyd,” 418.

130 Ibid.

131 Ibid., 419.

132 Eliot, “The Waste Land,” 55: 22.

133 Adorno, In Search of Wagner, 36.

134 Eliot, “The Waste Land,” 53.

135 Chinitz, T. S. Eliot and the Cultural Divide, 154–5.