Ascetic Modernism in the Work of T S Eliot and Gustave Flaubert

• Introduction; Chapter 1 Visual and Verbal Quotation in Flaubert and Eliot; Chapter 2 Figuring the Saint: Physical and Intellectual Representations of Asceticism; Chapter 3 The Empty Stage: Landscape and the Dramatic in La Tentation De Saint Antoine and The Waste Land; Chapter 4 The Ascetic Text of La Tentation De Saint Antoine and The Waste Land; Chapter 5 ‘Caught in the Circle of Desire’: The Vortex as Ascetic Metaphor; conclusion Conclusion;

'Gott argues persuasively for a kinship of sensibility between Gustave Flaubert and T S Eliot. He locates the shared presence in their writings of what he calls "ascetic modernism". The perfectionist novelist and the poet agonized by redemptive possibilities meet and blend in these pages; the result is a book that is fascinating and original.' Michael O'Neill, Durham University