Abstract
Jeanette Winterson’s affinity for modernist works, writers, and conceptions has been well-documented by her, particularly in her book of aesthetic essays, Art Objects. I propose that the body of her work needs to be understood within the concept of post-modernism as a continuation of the modernist project. There have been a few critics and/or scholars who have recognized the modernist aspects of her works, and some have even dubbed her “post-modern” or “neo-modern.”
While a smattering of scholars have noted pieces of older texts surfacing within Winterson’s works, what is missing is a solid investigation of her relationship to the modernist writers. She has given tremendous amounts of intimations to guide readers in this direction. Art Objects is a series of essays about her love of language, and of art and literature, especially referencing the modernists. Winterson has written: “There are seven books and they make a whole cycle. Oranges, The Passion, Sexing the Cherry, Written on the Body, Art and Lies, Gut Symmetries, and The PowerBook…[I]t is in the cycle of the fiction that I can be found.” From this it may be extrapolated that she uses the “canon” as source material for her own writing. I propose that, in this “cycle” of fiction, she works both intertextually and stylistically with James Joyce in Oranges are not the only fruit; with T.S. Eliot in Sexing the Cherry; with Virginia Woolf in Written on the Body; and with H.D. in Art & Lies. She not only references these writers in her work, but consciously undertakes to perform collaboratively with them in creating her own body of work. She has resurrected their notions of humanity, their vision of literature as an art form, and the importance of uniting introspection with the Zeitgeist. This dissertation will treat three fundamental elements of H.D.’s work which figure prominently within the fifth book in Winterson’s modernist cycle, Art & Lies: the psychoanalytical quest for self-knowledge and healing; a re-visioning of the work and image of Sappho; and the assumption of the identity of poet-prophet.
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