Rhythmic Modernism

Contrary to the common view that cultural modernism is a broadly anti-mimetic movement one which turned away from traditional artistic goals of representing the world <i>Rhythmic Modernism</i> argues that rhythm and mimesis are central to modernist aesthetics. Through detailed close readings of non-fiction and short stories Helen Rydstrand shows that textual rhythms comprised the substance of modernist mimesis. <i>Rhythmic Modernism</i> demonstrates how many modernist writers such as D. H. Lawrence Katherine Mansfield and Virginia Woolf were profoundly invested in mimicking a substratum of existence that was conceived as rhythmic each displaying a fascination with rhythm both as a formal device and as a vital protean concept that helped to make sense of the complex modern world.