The Modes of Modern Writing tackles some of the fundamental questions we all encounter when studying or reading literature, such as: what is literature? What is realism? What is relationship between form and content? And what dictates the shifts in literary fashions and tastes? In answering these questions, the book examines texts by a wide range of modern novelists and poets, including James Joyce, T.S.Eliot, Ernest Hemingway, George Orwell, Virginia Woolf, Samuel Beckett and Philip Larkin, and draws on the work of literary theorists from Roman Jakobson to Roland Barthes. Written in Lodge's typically accessible style this is essential reading for students and lovers of literature at any level. The Bloomsbury Revelations edition includes a new Foreword/Afterword by the author.

PrefacePrefatory note to the Second ImpressionAcknowledgementsPART ONE: PROBLEMS AND EXECUTIONS1. What is Literature2. George Orwell's 'A Hanging', and 'Michael Lake Describes'3. Oscar Wilde: 'The Ballad of Reading Gaol'4. What is Realism?5. Arnold Bennett: The Old Wives' Tale6. William Burroughs: The Naked Lunch7. The Realistic Tradition8. Two Kinds of Modern Fiction9. Crticism and Realism10. The Novel and the Nouvelle Crtique11. Conclusion to Part OnePART TWO: Metaphor and Metonymy1. Jackobson's Theory2. Two Types of Aphasia3. The Metaphoric and Metonymic Poles4. Drama and Film5. Poetry, Prose and the Poetic6. Types of Description7. The Executions Revisited8. The Metonymic Text as Metaphor9. Metaphor and ContextPART THREE: MODERNISTS, ANTIMODERNISTS AND POSTMODERNIST1. James Joyce2. Gertrude Stein3. Ernest Hemingway4. D.H. Lawrence5. Virginia Woolf6. In the Thirties7. Philip Larkin8. Postmodernist FictionAppendix A: 'A Hanging' by George OrwellAppendix B: 'Michael Lake Describes What the Executioner Actually Faces'Appendix C: Extract from The Naked Lunch by William BurroughsNotes and References Index