1. Djuna Barnes: melancholic
modernism by: Deborah Parsons
BBL 5106: MODERNISM AND BEYOND
By:
Amalia Qistina Abdullah
GS25731

2. Deborah Parsons
Senior lecturer at Birmingham University
BA in English Lit. and Philosophy
MA in Lit. and Visual Arts
Phd. in Birkbeck College University
Thesis: Women writers and the city in late 19th
and early 20th century
Author of Streetwalking in the Metropolis:
Women, the City and Modernity

3. Djuna Barnes
Born in Cornwall-on-Hudson
Henry Budington “Wald” Barnes – free spirited father
- unsuccessful painter
Elizabeth Chappel Barnes – violinist mother
Zadel – suffragist grandmother
Fanny Faulkner – Wald’s mistress
Thelma Wood
Suffered psychosexual abuse – victim of
incest
Married at age 18 to Perce Faulkner (52)
Djuna Barnes

4.  Worked as a journalist
 Married Courtenay Lemon (editor Brooklyn Daily Eagle)
 Alcoholic
 Affair with Thelma Wood
 Married to Charles Henri Ford
 Had an abortion
 Lived in seclusion till her death on June 18(?) 1982
 Self-professed melancholic
 The unknown legend of American literature

5. WORKS:
 The Book of Repulsive Women (1915)
 A Book (1923)
 Ladies Almanac (1928)- erotic pastiche of
lesbian life
 Ryder (1928)- autobiographical; denounces
patriarchal authority
Nightwood (1931) – doomed homosexual &
heterosexual love
Antiphone (1958) – incestuous family where
Miranda was killed by her own mother

6. WHAT IS MELANCHOLIC MODERNISM?
 Depressive modern/contemporary work of
art
 Decadence that scorns contemporary
society
 Talks about the artificial, morbid,
grotesque and inevitably followed by
dissatisfaction and ennui.

7. NIGHTWOOD by: Djuna Barnes
 It is a modernist text
 Very much adored by T.S. Eliot
“To say that Nightwood will appeal primarily to readers of poetry does not
mean that it is not a novel, but that it is so good a novel that only
sensibilities trained on poetry can wholly appreciate it.” T.S. Eliot
 Milestone on gay literature

8. Parallelism between Djuna’s life and Nightwood
Elizabeth + Wald + Fanny Robin + Felix
Guido
Djuna Perce
Dr. Mathew O’Connors
Courtenay Thelma Charles Nora Jenny
Both being unorthodox
Deals with human suffering, both gay or straight break themselves into
pieces
Choose the wrong lover and crucify themselves on their own longings
Are crucified by the world that fears the stranger whether in life or in
love

9. Quotations:
 “Life is painful, nasty and short…in my case, it has
only been painful and nasty.”
(interviewed by Thomas Hobbes)
 “having life is the greatest horror, I cannot think of it
as a merry, gay and joyous thing, just to be alive.”
(letter to her mother)
 “ I am not lesbian, I only love Thelma”
(ask about her relationship with Thelma Wood)

10. Work Cited:
• Parsons, Deborah. “Djuna Barnes: melancholic modernism.”
Ed. Morag Shiach. The Modernist Novel. Cambridge:
Cambridge University P, 2007. 165-177. Print.
• T.S. Eliot, Letter to Geoffrey Faber, quoted in Phillip Herring,
Djuna: The Life and Works of Djuna Barnes. New York:
Viking, 1995. p. 231.
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nightwood#Plot_summary.

11. THE END
Thank you for your time