De närvarande

The 1999 Oxford University Press edition by Harold Love of the works of John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester, praises Marianne Thormählen's Rochester: The Poems in Context (Cambridge University Press, 1993; a paperback edition appeared in 2006) as the most up-to-date book on Rochester's poetry, a "fresh, personal, and profoundly learned" study (pp. xlvi-xlvii). Other scholars have called it "splendid" (The Yearbook of English Studies), "intelligent and careful" (The Review of English Studies), "judicious" (Times Literary Supplement), and "smart and useful ... a treasure trove of information [for which] readers of Rochester will be indebted to Ms Thormählen for years to come" (The Scriblerian).

Marianne Thormählen regards Rochester as a serious poet who devoted much time and care to his verse and aimed for the highest standards in his writing. This view runs counter to the traditional idea of Rochester as the "wicked earl" who wrote with ease; but she bolsters it with convincing evidence of painstaking literary desk-work, deliberate exploitation and subversion of poetical conventions, and subtly crafted references to people and events in Charles II's and Louis XIV's Europe. Rochester's much-talked-about obscenities are shown to belong within a sombre framework of dissatisfaction with sensual pursuits and distrust of male sexual ability. The book ends with a consideration of Rochester's famous deathbed conversion. A select bibliography directs the reader to every notable work on Rochester up to 1990.

Rochester: The Poems in Context, hardback
Rochester: The Poems in Context, paperback

Around 1979, scholars adopted the term "modernism" as a designation for the radical changes that took place in Anglo-American literature in the early twentieth century. The concept lent prestige to works and authors associated with it, encouraging the development of a vast body of criticism while blocking academic recognition of literature to which it does not readily apply. In Rethinking Modernism, published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2003 and edited by Marianne Thormählen, fifteen scholars of modernism subject the concept to sceptical scrutiny as they revisit their special areas of expertise. The general question they all face is not so much "what was modernism?" -- a familiar question -- as "was/is modernism?" Their results show that although "modernism" remains a useful concept under certain conditions, for them -- as for any reader of this book -- modernism will never be quite the same again.
The book ends with a 20-page bibliography of works on modernism in two parts, compiled by the editor; the Literary Research/Recherche littéraire reviewer called it "comprehensive and invaluable". Other reviewers have praised the book as forming a "both focused and vigorous" volume (The Yearbook of English Studies) and as offering noteworthy "considerations of category breakers and the construction of categories by the reception of literary works" (The Review of English Studies).
https://www.palgrave.com/page/detail/rethinking-modernism-marianne-thormählen/?sf1=barcode&st1=9781403911803