Modernism & Liberalism

This talk will explore the intricate relationship between modernist literature and liberal democracy by focusing on how some early twentieth-century English writers in London—E. M. Forster, Ford Madox Ford, T. E. Hulme, and T. S. Eliot-engaged with Edwardian liberalism, a dominant political ideology that championed both reformist policies and more radical New Liberal ideas. Challenging both popular historiography that stresses liberalism’s demise during the Edwardian era and the view that modernists were opposed to liberal democracy, this talk will contend that liberalism endured beyond modernism, and that even anti-liberal ‘classical’ modernists embraced fundamental liberal values (though certainly not all of them).