Silence and Power: A Reevaluation of Djuna Barnes

Abstract

Roughly chronological, these essays explore early work in the New York newspaper world of the teens, proceed through the 1954 publication of The Antiphon, include several approaches such works as Ryder, Ladies Almanack, Nightwood. This judicious mix of essays many of them illustrated by photographs and drawings presents a comprehensive picture of the creative imagination of Djuna Barnes. Essayists include Mary Lynn Broe, Nancy J. Levine, Ann Larabee, Joan Retallack, Carolyn Allen, Carolyn Burke, Sheryl Stevenson, Marie Ponsot, Frances M. Doughty, Susan Sniader Lanser, Frann Michel, Karla Jay, Jane Marcus, Judith Lee, Julie L. Abraham, Meryl Altman, Lynda Curry, Louise A. DeSalvo, and Catharine Stimpson. Individuals sharing personal recollections of are Ruth Ford, James B. Scott, Alex Gildzen, Hank O Neal, Chester Page, Andrew Field, and Frances McCullough. Janice Thom and Kevin Engel provide an updated bibliography. From The Book of Repulsive Women to The Antiphon, Barnes challenged old gender dichotomies as she shaped radical sociopolitical views. Her textual methods celebrated a multiplicity of voices, heterodox forms, and genres, transgressing those tenets of modernism that privilege the high art of a single, unified textual identity or a discrete discourse. These essays offer various critical approaches and sinuous readings of the full range of achievement. Interwoven through the essays and reminiscences is a lively commentary from friends and contemporaries as well as herself.

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