Anatomy As A Cure: A Study Of Djuna Barnes’s Melancholic Modernism

Djuna Barnes (1892-1982) is an important figure in the twentieth century modernistliterature. She was an active artist in the1910s in the Greenwich Village on the west sideof New York City. Later, she came to Paris and worked as an important modernistavant-garde writer among the many expatriate modernists. Barnes’s writing has beenhighly recommended by a group of renowned writers. T. S. Eliot acclaimed Barnes’sartistic achievement in his preface to her masterpiece Nightwood. Dylan Thomas citedBarnes as the writer who had influenced him most, saying that Nightwood was “one of thethree greatest prose books ever written by a woman.” The critic Edwin Muir believed thatBarnes’s language was the only rival to that of Joyce. However, such a highly acclaimedwriter has not received adequate critical attention, especially in the Chinese academia ofmodernist studies. This dissertation attempts to make some investigation into Barnes’smodernist writing.“Melancholy” maintains outstanding presence in Barnes’s modernist literary creation.It is not only reflected in the themes and content, but is also ingrained in Barnes’s literarystyles. She ascertained Robert Burton’s massive book The Anatomy of Melancholy as herfavourite, and repeatedly read it for creative inspiration. If the readers make a close studyof Barnes’s works, they will certainly find the spirit of anatomy that she has attained fromBurton. In her writing, she makes repeated anatomy and analysis of the painful experienceof life with the almost morbid persistence. Her life experience and the literary ambience ofthe time catalyze the melancholic literary creation. And the method of writing she haschosen accomplishes a distinguished style of anatomy with her very persistence. Almost allher works pertain to the family experience and the lesbian relationships she has gonethrough. She maintains an extremely complicated attitude towards the family, the outsideworld and the emotion. She presents all these with metamorphosed modes, anatomizing thepain and melancholy from different angles and in different manners. The currentdissertation argues that “melancholy,”“anatomy” and “modernism” are the several keywords of Barnes’s art of literature, and they interact in her works with robust bond. Thisdissertation focuses on Barnes’s major works: Ryder, Ladies Almanack, Nightwood and The Antiphon. It explores from the aspects of the loss of the symbolic order, the lesbiansexuality, love and reconciliation, which are all tightly connected with melancholy. Thedissertation studies the major concerns and modes of representation in Barnes’smelancholic modernism. It probes into the possibility of generating cures for melancholyon the textual level with Barnes’s anatomical writing.Chapter1discusses the anatomy of melancholic loss in Ryder. This novel alludes toBarnes’s own household, presents the loss of symbolic order in the polygamous Ryderfamily, and delves into the cause of melancholy from polygamy. In this work, Barnesborrows from the genre of family chronicle, and infuses into it the elements of anatomy.Ryder traces back to the chaos of the family which has been caused by polygamousbehaviour, and further explores the trauma and melancholy that derive from this chaos.Chapter2investigates the anatomy of melancholic sexuality in Ladies Almanack. Thiswork parodies the convention of almanac. Through humorous exaggeration, it responded tothe public’s (mis)understanding of homosexuality and the opinion of “sexual inversion”which was defined by dominant sexologists in the late nineteenth and early twentiethcenturies. Barnes takes advantage of the linearity and cyclicality which are both present inthe almanac genre. She uses them in her anatomy of lesbianism and the subsequentmisunderstandings, which lead lesbian sexuality to become the “melancholic sexuality.”Chapter3explores the anatomy of melancholic love in Nightwood. The characters inthis novel carry with them strong metaphorical implications. They represent the“wandering Jew,” the “possessive American” and the “paralyzed modern man/woman”respectively. They all share the same object of love, but this person is merely a“sleepwalker,” or to put it more exactly, an empty centre. The love they hold for thissleepwalker is obsessive, but the obsession is attached to this individual who is incapableof giving response. Nightwood disposes of the traditional method of narration, and turns toanatomy as the overarching spirit of the text. Thus, with the extremely poetic language andthe overarching spirit, Nightwood blurs the boundary of poetry and prose, and in turnexhibits and anatomizes the melancholic love with the pattern of spatial form.Chapter4analyzes the anatomy of melancholic reconciliation in The Antiphon. In thiswork, Barnes returns to the family which brings her trauma and melancholy. What isdifferent from Ryder is that this play concentrates on the reunion of the family after many years of separation. Retrospection and repetition can be regarded as the most appropriatefootnotes to Barnes’s way of anatomy. The Antiphon adapts archaic elements of themorality plays, and anatomizes the irreplaceable sense of estrangement and the universalpresence of melancholy.The dissertation argues that Barnes tries to locate the cures for melancholy throughthe method of anatomy. She traces back to the origins of the sentiment. The cures aremetaphorically presented. The third section of each chapter is devoted to this issue. It is onthe basis of the above mentioned analysis that this dissertation explores the fundamentalcharacteristics of Barnes’s melancholic modernism.