On Bathos

Sara Crangle is a Lecturer at the University of Sussex, UK, and the author of Prosaic Desires: Modernist Knowing, Boredom, Laughter, and Anticipation (Edinburgh UP). Peter Nicholls is Professor of English at New York University, USA. His books include George Oppen and the Fate of Modernism (OUP 2007), Modernisms: A Literary Guide (2nd ed., Palgrave Macmillan 2009) and Politics, Economics and Writing (Macmillan 1984).

"We think we know what bathos is and how to judge it. This fascinating collection of essays shows just how mistaken we have been. Bathos is a concept that productively unsettles many existing concepts of reception, interpretation, literary value, affect, and ideology. With scholarly wit and a highly readable awareness of the potential bathos of commentary, these essays explore the origins of the idea and its contribution to modern culture, in a compelling series of close readings of both familiar and surprising manifestations in art, poetry, fiction, and music. At the risk of a bathetic blurb, a risk that these poets and scholars suggest is almost unavoidable, I will say that this is an essential volume for anyone wishing to follow current developments in the literary and cultural study of the highs and lows of modern arts."

• On Bathos: Introduction, Peter Nicoholls and Sara Crangle (New York University, USA and University of Sussex, UK); 2. What is Bathos?, Keston Sutherland (University of Sussex, UK); 3. Dada is Bathos! Or: of the the hobbyhorse endlessly rocking, Sara Crangle (University of Sussex, UK); 4. The Strings are False: Bathos, Pastoral, and Social Reflexivity in 1930s British Poetry, Tyrus Miller; 5. Jim the Jerk: Bathos and Loveliness in the Poetry of James Schuyler, John Wilkinson (University of Notre Dame, USA); 6. She Disappeared into Unhappy Consciousness: Louise Bourgeois and the Bathos of Surrealism, Doug Haynes (University of Sussex, UK); 7. Cultures of Musical Failures, Francesca Brittan (University of Cambridge, UK); 8. Bathos and Mind-reading, Bob Perelman (University of Pennsylvania, USA); 9. Low Resistance, Martin Crowley (University of Cambridge, UK); 10. Kallos anti-Bathos? (From Calle to Freud, Lacan, and back), Jean-Michel Rabate (University of Pennsylvania, USA); Index.