2016/11/03 by Hannah Roche · 1 citation
Arts and Humanities · #Historical Studies on Reproduction, Gender, Health, and Societal Changes #Cultural History and Identity Formation #Modernist Literature and Criticism #Modernism (music) #Politics #Political radicalism #Literature #Reputation #Order (exchange) #Lesbian #Art #Sociology #Law #Gender studies #Political science #Social science
paper · doi:10.1080/0950236x.2016.1238001
published in Textual Practice 32(1), 101-117 (Taylor & Francis)
openalex publication_date 2016/11/03 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/22
Radclyffe Hall's The Well of Loneliness has long been read as stylistically inferior to novels by Hall's ‘experimental’ peers. Led by Virginia and Leonard Woolf, the dominant opinion has, to quote Terry Castle, sentenced Hall to a reputation of ‘bad, bad, bad’ writing. This article takes issue with Hall's exclusion from modernism, raising questions about the relationship between political radicalism and stylistic familiarity. Was Hall cleverly turning to a Victorian mode in order to critique the politics of modernism, challenging the value of aesthetic experiment and obscurity? I argue not only that The Well was stylistically as impressive as the most celebrated of ‘difficult’ 1920s novels, but also that, by boldly appropriating an accepted (and heteronormative) genre, Hall makes a statement about the rightful position of lesbian writing that dares to strike its readers in ways more direct and profound than the audaciously avant-garde.