Atdtda22: [42.1i] Modern poetry, 607

[Monte Davis]

Paul sez:

> modernism/modernist discourse isn't/wasn't 'just' about
> culture: it included the notion of social change/mass 
> society, social theory (Weber and Simmel coming up soon), the 
> whole field of what is now called social science, social 
> status, the role of the nation state, capital v labour, 
> including rationalisation/time-management, bureaucracy, not 
> to mention colonialism.

Can't fault you for ambition. My experience has been that except in very
skillful hands (and that would include Jameson's), anything stretched that
far tends to oscillate between vacuity (because it has to impose coherence
on "Things That Happened Between <startdate> and <enddate>")...

And tunnel vision or outright intellectual imperialism: as in Madsen's case,
dismissing a huge preponderance of "straight" or "traditional" Western
narratives that reached many millions, and defining a comparatively narrow
Turner-Wister-John Ford lineage -- one incorporating the cultural critique
which engages Madsen's interest -- as the "true" Western.