In this study of solitude in modernist fiction, Edward Engelberg explores the ways in which solitude functions thematically to shape meaning in literary works, and how solitude as a condition has contributed to the making of a topos. Selected novels are analyzed to highlight the ambiguities that solitude brings to their meanings. The freedom that solitude bestows also becomes a burden from which the protagonists seek release. Although such ambiguities about solitude have existed from the Bible and the Ancients through the centuries following, they alter their shape within the context of time....

In this study of solitude in high modernist writing, Edward Engelberg explores the ways in which solitude functions thematically to shape meaning in literary works, as well as what solitude as a condition has contributed to the making of a trope.

This volume makes a distinctive contribution to Yeats studies by bringing under discussion the kind of aesthetic views developed by Yeats in order to rationalize his own practice as poet and dramatist.