Modernist literary abstraction: Joyce and Stein (James Joyce, Ireland, Gertrude Stein)

This dissertation is divided into three parts. Part one is a methodological essay concerning the use of theory in the discussion of literature. This chapter uses Wittgenstein's philosophy to criticize various post-structuralist positions. Part two traces the concept of abstraction in art history, specifically focusing on Clement Greenberg's appropriation of the phrase "abstract expressionism" from its original coinage by Alfred Barr in Cubism and Abstract Art (1936). This appropriation resulted in a number of critical distortions still prevalent in contemporary discourse on abstraction. Part three is a two-chapter essay developing the aesthetics of modernist literary abstraction through close examination of James Joyce's Finnegans Wake (1939) and Gertrude Stein's A Novel of Thank You (1925-26).