The nets of modernism : Henry James, Virginia Woolf, James Joyce, and Sigmund Freud / Maud Ellmann.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Machine generated contents note: 1. Introduction: what hole?; 2. The modernist rat; 3. Strandentwining cables: Henry James's The Ambassadors; 4. The Woolf woman; 5. The darkened blind: Joyce, Gide, Larsen and the modernist short story; 6. The name and the scar: identity in The Odyssey and A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man; 7. Skinscapes in Ulysses; Afterword; Bibliography.

"One of the finest literary critics of her generation, Maud Ellmann synthesises her work on modernism, psychoanalysis and Irish literature in this important new book. In sinuous readings of Henry James, James Joyce and Virginia Woolf, she examines the interconnections between developing technological networks in modernity and the structures of modernist fiction, linking both to Freudian psychoanalysis. The Nets of Modernism examines the significance of images of bodily violation and exchange - scar, bite, wound, and their psychic equivalents - showing how these images correspond to 'vampirism' and related obsessions in early twentieth-century culture. Subtle, original and a pleasure to read, this book offers a new perspective on the inter-implications of Freudian psychoanalysis and Anglophone modernism that will influence the field for years to come"--Provided by publisher.