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Impotent Kings and Secular Monks in Modernist Writing: Henry James, James Joyce, William Faulkner, and Virginia Woolf

Bandara, Dhanuka
http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5928-1068
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=miami165653548762172

Abstract Details

2022, Doctor of Philosophy, Miami University, English.
This study focuses on the permutations of a “primordial” and “mythic” sovereign subjectivity in four key modernist writers: Henry James, James Joyce, William Faulkner, and Virginia Woolf. The myth of the impotent Fisher King, whose impotence is causing the sterility of his land, is central to this dissertation’s understanding of this “primordial subjectivity.” The dissertation argues that the modern figure of the dandy/aesthete/ flaneur which often appears in modernist texts is a permutation of this subjectivity. Characters such as Lambert Strether in James’ The Ambassadors (1903), Stephen Dedalus in Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916), Popeye in Faulkner’s Sanctuary (1931), and the members of the “Outsiders’ Society” in Woolf’s Three Guineas (1938) are considered as exemplifying the dissertation’s overall argument. As such these characters both conform to the prototype, to varying degrees, and often depart from it, all the while remaining nuanced yet discernible versions of the original model. This figure is necessarily non-dualistic and undoes binaries such as asceticism/excess, agency/impotence, hypermasculinity/effeminacy etc. Drawing on thinkers such as James George Frazer, Sigmund Freud, Carl Schmitt, and Giorgio Agamben, the dissertation argues that this figure is located on the “outside/inside” periphery and as such is a descendant of a primordial sovereign subjectivity. Through an analysis of modern(ist) permutations/variations of this primordial model of sovereignty the dissertation attempts to elucidate the close links between aestheticism, ethics, and power. One of the key claims of the dissertation is that this figure is necessarily an ascetic, a secular monk, as it were, and represents a utopian higher standard that it considers its duty to defend and disseminate. For this reason, the political ideology of this subjectivity is not only utopian, but also anarchistic. It is opposed to all established authority, and dreams of a utopian, cosmopolitan order to come. As such, this figure is controversial—both loved and loathed—and must be approached cautiously.
Mary Jean Corbett (Committee Chair)
139 p.
Literature
aestheticism, asceticism, ethics, anarchism

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Bandara, D. (2022). Impotent Kings and Secular Monks in Modernist Writing: Henry James, James Joyce, William Faulkner, and Virginia Woolf [Doctoral dissertation, Miami University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=miami165653548762172

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Bandara, Dhanuka. Impotent Kings and Secular Monks in Modernist Writing: Henry James, James Joyce, William Faulkner, and Virginia Woolf . 2022. Miami University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=miami165653548762172.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Bandara, Dhanuka. "Impotent Kings and Secular Monks in Modernist Writing: Henry James, James Joyce, William Faulkner, and Virginia Woolf ." Doctoral dissertation, Miami University, 2022. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=miami165653548762172

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

miami165653548762172
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This open access ETD is published by Miami University and OhioLINK.