Feminist inter/modernist studies

Fascism, comedy, and weak commitments in Nancy Mitford’sWigs on the Green

“…At first glance, intermodernism suggests an alignment with the interwar period through its prefix, appearing to fit within what Saint-Amour calls the "standard model" of history, which "favors linear, unidirectional narratives," and historical periods "that communicate minimally with one another." 20 But while intermodernism certainly values historicization, 21 it also refutes the neat and homogenizing impulses of both the new modernist studies and the interwar as an historical period. In its very name, intermodernism reveals its own weak and tactical commitment to modernism: it simultaneously relies on and critiques modernism's strength.…”

“…In its very name, intermodernism reveals its own weak and tactical commitment to modernism: it simultaneously relies on and critiques modernism's strength. 22 Moreover, by going "beyond conceptions of periodicity" through its interest in writing produced across the early twentieth-century (encompassing wartime, the interwar, and the postwar), 23 intermodernism, like Saint-Amour's notion of a "perpetual interwar," critically interrogates the relationship between historical periods and their works, enriching our accounts of twentieth-century literary history. 24 For literary historians, intermodernism is a tool for recovery, bringing attention to writers left out of traditional discussions of modernism.…”

“…24 For literary historians, intermodernism is a tool for recovery, bringing attention to writers left out of traditional discussions of modernism. 25 As a critical term that "grows out of and assumes continuing investment in feminist inquiry," 26 intermodernism is also a tool for feminist recovery, offering means to encounter women writers of the 1930s and 1940s who are frequently designated as middlebrow and thus omitted from the vertical expansion of new modernist studies described by Douglas Mao and Rebecca L. Walkowitz. 27 As Faye Hammill argues, the debate over whether certain authors are modernist or middlebrow is a circular one that leads to little productivity and innovation.…”

“…As Bluemel and Phyllis Lassner rightly (and boldly) assert, many women writers of the 1930s and 1940s "do not need to be rescued […] by modernism." 29 Intermodernism, then, is also a productive concept for scholars who themselves are weakly committed to modernism: those who work on minor or marginal writers but feel uncomfortable labelling them as modernist.…”

“…47 This kind of suspicion about political ideology-of any kind, not just fascism-is a common feature in intermodern women's writing of the 1930s and 40s. 48 Through the depiction of Eugenia, Wigs on the Green critiques overzealous commitments to politics, as Mitford denies the reader any chance of sympathizing with Eugenia's views by turning her into a comic figure. Eugenia's lack of maturity continually undercuts her ardent passion for Social Unionism and Captain Jack.…”