Date Available
5-3-2018
Year of Publication
2016
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Document Type
Doctoral Dissertation
College
Arts and Sciences
Department/School/Program
English
First Advisor
Dr. Jonathan Allison
Abstract
“Resonant Texts” draws from literary criticism, history, biography, media theory, and the history of technology to examine representations of sound and acts of listening in modern experimental fiction and drama. I argue that sound recording technology, invented in the late 19th century, equipped 20th century authors including James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, Ralph Ellison, and Samuel Beckett with new resources for depicting human consciousness and experience. The works in my study feature what I call “close listening,” a technique initially made possible by the phonograph, which forced listeners to focus exclusively on what they heard without the presence of an accompanying image. My study examines the literary modernists’ acute attention to the auditory in their goal to accurately represent the reality of the subjective, perceiving self in increasingly urban, technologically advanced environments.
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
http://dx.doi.org/10.13023/ETD.2016.103
Recommended Citation
Toth, Leah Hutchison, "Resonant Texts: Sound, Noise, and Technology in Modern Literature" (2016). Theses and Dissertations--English. 29.
https://uknowledge.uky.edu/english_etds/29
Included in
Literature in English, Anglophone outside British Isles and North America Commons, Literature in English, British Isles Commons, Literature in English, North America, Ethnic and Cultural Minority Commons
