Nightwood
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Nightwood is a 1936 novel by Djuna Barnes. An edition published in the United States in 1937 by Harcourt, Brace included an introduction by T. S. Eliot. Author Charles Henri Ford typed an early version of the manuscript for Barnes during the summer of 1932, and it took Barnes several years to find a publisher.
Nightwood is one of the first lesbian novels (or, for that matter, homosexual novels) to be published.
It is also notable for the highly florid style in which it is written. Some may find this style pretentious. Others, however, may enjoy moments of great verbal brilliance, as T.S. Eliot suggests in his introduction to the book. He claims that though it is not "poetic prose" - because, despite its language, it has a rhythm and musical pattern which are not those of verse - it "will appeal primarily to readers of poetry" and "is so good a novel that only sensibilities trained on poetry can wholly appreciate it".
Characters
The major characters consist of:
- Felix
- Nora
- Dr. O'Connor
- Jenny
- Robin