Modernists and the Theatre - The Drama of W.B. Yeats, Ezra Pound, D.H. Lawrence, James Joyce, T.S. Eliot and Virginia Woolf

Modernists and the Theatre examines how six key modernists, who are best known as poets and novelists, engaged with the realm of theatre and performance. Drawing on a wealth of unfamiliar archival material and fresh readings of neglected documents, James Moran demonstrates how these literary figures interacted with the playhouse, exploring W.B. Yeats-s earliest playwriting, Ezra Pound-s onstage acting, the links between James Joyce-s and D.H. Lawrence-s sense of drama, T.S. Eliot-s thinking about theatrical popularity, and the feminist politics of Virginia Woolf-s small-scale theatrical experimentation. While these modernists often made hostile comments about drama, this volume highlights how the writers were all repeatedly drawn to the form. While Yeats and Pound were fascinated by the controlling aspect of theatre, other authors felt inspired by theatre as a democratic forum in which dissenting voices could be heard. Some of these modernists used theatre to express and explore