1927: Therese Desqueyroux to "Tristram."

Chronology of World, British and American Literature

Francois Mauriac. French. 1927. Novel. Therese Desqueyroux. Stifled by bourgeois marriage, attempts to poison husband. Acquitted through her family’s efforts to avoid scandal.

Leonid Leonov. Russian. 1927. Novel. The Thief. Member of the victorious revolution becomes disenchanted with the new society and becomes a thief. Picture of Moscow underworld; odd characters; probing of their personalities. Implies disillusionment with Soviet society.

Wyndham Lewis. British. 1927. Nonfiction. Time and Western Man. Attacks H Bergson and stream of consciousness; advocates fixity, not flux. Intelligence vs. intuition; external vs. internal; classicism vs. romanticism.

Virginia Woolf. British. 1927. Novel. To the Lighthouse. Little plot, but much atmosphere, emotion and poetry. Stream of consciousness. Warm, intuitive wife vs. typical male: rational, heroic, icy, like author’s father. The family’s house; postponed trip to the lighthouse; decaying house after the wife’s death. Father and now 16-year-old son finally take the trip to the lighthouse; communicate. Lighthouse is everyone’s goal, symbolizes different things to different people. Statement about time, death, permanence of art.

Julian Benda. French. 1927. Essay. “The Treason of the Intellectuals.” Denounces the tendency of intellectuals to engage in politics.

Edwin Arlington Robinson. American. 1927. Poetry. “Tristram.” Contrasts Tristram’s love for Isolt and neglect of his own wife. Longed for is unattainable, and the attainable is neglected.