[The Department of Literary Studies will be hosting a conference this fall on Wide Sargasso Sea, and to celebrate we are giving away five copies to any interested students. If you would like a copy, please write litstuds@newschool.edu.]
By Elaine Savory
Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea came out fifty years ago this year. I have already participated in a celebration of the novel in London, last week there was one in Trinidad and Tobago and at the end of next week, I’ll be at another celebration as part of a literary festival in Barbados. Rhys has readers all over the world.
So why are so many people still excited about this novel after half a century? Firstly, it is a superbly written text, the product of Rhys’s experimentations with style and structure since her debut in the moment of high literary modernism in Paris in 1924 ( in the company of Joyce and Hemingway). Between 1924 and 1966, she published numerous excellent short stories and four novels, always developing her fictional craft.
Then Wide Sargasso Sea appeared at the confluence of three currents of literary response to enormous cultural shifts: the increasing pace of the formal ending of British colonialism, the rise of local, culturally diverse feminisms across the globe and the appearance of postmodernism. The novel seemed to catch the zeitgeist of the mid1960’s perfectly. In our moment, gender studies, postcolonial studies and interest in the fault lines between the modern and postmodern fascinate serious readers and thinkers.
Wide Sargasso Sea has a secure place in many a literary curriculum. But it is also just a very, very good read, paced perfectly and with its multiple narratives, able to offer the reader ways in to the complexities of her characters. Even her villain demonstrates, through the way Rhys creates his voice and story, how he loses his humanity. There could not be a better summer read. And when everyone comes back in the fall, we shall be preparing for our very own celebration of this novel in a Lang symposium. Be ready to join in!
October 10, 2019
Ann Snitow May 9, 1943-August 10, 2019 Ann Snitow, a founding faculty member of Lang College and the creator of the Gender Studies Program at the New School, passed away on August 10, 2019. She was a beloved member of the Literary Studies faculty. While indeed her books and essays are crucial texts in feminist studies and in the life of the mind, as Literary Studies colleagues our remembrances here are more personal, testaments not just to her work but to the power of her being.
February 3, 2021
Congratulations to Dr. Julie Beth Napolin, recipient of the annual J.H. […]
[The Department of Literary Studies will be hosting a conference this fall on Wide Sargasso Sea, and to celebrate we are giving away five copies to any interested students. If you would like a copy, please write litstuds@newschool.edu.]
By Elaine Savory
Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea came out fifty years ago this year. I have already participated in a celebration of the novel in London, last week there was one in Trinidad and Tobago and at the end of next week, I’ll be at another celebration as part of a literary festival in Barbados. Rhys has readers all over the world.
So why are so many people still excited about this novel after half a century? Firstly, it is a superbly written text, the product of Rhys’s experimentations with style and structure since her debut in the moment of high literary modernism in Paris in 1924 ( in the company of Joyce and Hemingway). Between 1924 and 1966, she published numerous excellent short stories and four novels, always developing her fictional craft.
Then Wide Sargasso Sea appeared at the confluence of three currents of literary response to enormous cultural shifts: the increasing pace of the formal ending of British colonialism, the rise of local, culturally diverse feminisms across the globe and the appearance of postmodernism. The novel seemed to catch the zeitgeist of the mid1960’s perfectly. In our moment, gender studies, postcolonial studies and interest in the fault lines between the modern and postmodern fascinate serious readers and thinkers.
Wide Sargasso Sea has a secure place in many a literary curriculum. But it is also just a very, very good read, paced perfectly and with its multiple narratives, able to offer the reader ways in to the complexities of her characters. Even her villain demonstrates, through the way Rhys creates his voice and story, how he loses his humanity. There could not be a better summer read. And when everyone comes back in the fall, we shall be preparing for our very own celebration of this novel in a Lang symposium. Be ready to join in!
