Intermodemism: Literary Culture in Mid-Twentieth-Century Britain

[...]Twenty-first century scholars of intermodemism are the 'real' intermodemists" (6), and to establish this community, Bluemel emphasizes the common purpose shared by the contributors (1-2) and closes her introduction with a call for other scholars to join in this critical effort (14). Some seem to fit the assigned theme only loosely, and many address multiple themes, but that looseness of classification may be intentional, for Bluemel asserts that the thematic groupings are merely precursory to the "more subtle or complex frames of analysis" that will arise when scholars have had time to theorize this new field (2). Because Bluemel herself sees the thematic organization as provisional, I will discuss the essays out of order. According to Maslen, many of the period's critics, conditioned by modemist aesthetic autonomy, "could not cope with matter...which privileged community in all its complex intricacy" (25). Lisa Colletta attributes to J. B. Priestley a similarly acute social vision by demonstrating that Priestley's unconventional travel narratives centered on the opportunity for a "classless democracy" to emerge after the Second World War (98), as opposed to Hollywood culture's "standardisation of a people without building a real sense of identity or creating a real political agency based on communal experiences and shared values" (103).