Blasted Literature

Deaglán Ó Donghaile is Senior Lecturer in English Literature at Liverpool John Moores University. His first book, Blasted Literature: Victorian Political Fiction and the Shock of Modernism was published by EUP in 2011. His research focuses on the relationship between literature, political culture and violence in late nineteenth and early twentieth century writing.

• Introduction: Shock, Politics, Literature; 1. Robert Louis Stevenson, Henry James and the City of Encounters; 2. Imperialism and the Late Victorian Dynamite Novel; 3. Exploiting the Apostles of Destruction: Anarchism, Modernism and the Penny Dreadful; 4. 'The Doctrine of Dynamite': Anarchist Literature and Terrorist Violence; 5. Shock Modernism: Blast and the Radical Politics of Vorticism; Conclusion: Literature and 'the resources of civilization'; Bibliography; Index

At a time when the terrorist has once again become a crucial figure in the contemporary imaginary, this study provides a valuable historical perspective. Tracking the traffic between aesthetic shocks and real explosions from Robert Louis Stevenson to Vorticism, the book promises to send tremors through literary history. -- Nicholas Daly, University College Dublin A remarkable study of the complex circuits of influence between political terror, popular fiction and early modernism, ranging from the nineteenth-century dynamite novel to the shock tactics of Vorticist aesthetics. Theoretically sophisticated and historically nuanced, this rich and compelling book brings fresh insight to our understanding of the fin-de-siecle and its legacies. -- David Glover, University of Southampton Blasted Literature provocatively shows how modernism's "shock of the new" did not simply explode upon the literary scene in the early-twentieth century but evolved steadily in the pages of penny dreadfuls, popular fiction, and avant-garde periodicals during the three decades prior to the War. O Donghaile convincingly demonstrates the inextricability of aesthetics and imperial politics in the turn-of-the-century metropolis. -- Joseph McLaughlin, Ohio University At a time when the terrorist has once again become a crucial figure in the contemporary imaginary, this study provides a valuable historical perspective. Tracking the traffic between aesthetic shocks and real explosions from Robert Louis Stevenson to Vorticism, the book promises to send tremors through literary history. A remarkable study of the complex circuits of influence between political terror, popular fiction and early modernism, ranging from the nineteenth-century dynamite novel to the shock tactics of Vorticist aesthetics. Theoretically sophisticated and historically nuanced, this rich and compelling book brings fresh insight to our understanding of the fin-de-siecle and its legacies. Blasted Literature provocatively shows how modernism's "shock of the new" did not simply explode upon the literary scene in the early-twentieth century but evolved steadily in the pages of penny dreadfuls, popular fiction, and avant-garde periodicals during the three decades prior to the War. O Donghaile convincingly demonstrates the inextricability of aesthetics and imperial politics in the turn-of-the-century metropolis.