Clickbait Modernism

Sheils, Barry

Abstract

Over recent years, terms such as autofiction, postcritique and postfiction have been repurposed to designate a moment in the history of the novel, and in culture more broadly, to do with the distribution of narrative authority. These terms have also helped articulate a contemporary double bind whereby impatience with the knowingness of third-person narration meets an equal and opposite impatience with ideology critique, whose unmasking of textual or authorial ideology is itself viewed as excessively knowing. This article reconnects such a discursive predicament to the enduring problem of modernism's relation to realism. Through readings of James Joyce's 'A Painful Case', Anna Burns's Milkman and Patricia Lockwood's No One is Talking About This, it considers the place of realism in relation to both the current impact of the internet and the historical memory of literary modernism, arguing that if we want to think about modernism's continued relevance we must also consider how the realism it supposedly imperilled at the end of the nineteenth century remains differently imperilled in today's online world.

Citation

Sheils, B. (2024). Clickbait Modernism. Textual Practice, 38(1), 84-111. https://doi.org/10.1080/0950236X.2023.2287357

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Nov 21, 2023
• Online Publication Date: Jan 9, 2024
• Publication Date: Jan 9, 2024
• Deposit Date: Nov 22, 2023
• Publicly Available Date: Jan 4, 2024
• Journal: Textual Practice
• Print ISSN: 0950-236X
• Electronic ISSN: 1470-1308
• Publisher: Taylor and Francis Group
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 38
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 84-111
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/0950236X.2023.2287357
• Keywords: Realism; Psychoanalysis; fiction; internet culture; James Joyce's 'A Painful Case'; Anna Burns's Milkman; Patricia Lockwood's No One is Talking About This
• Public URL: https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1947017