Upending the traditional view of modernism as defined by skepticism and emotional detachment, Anthony Cuda argues for a perspective that emphasizes instead its deep commitment to understanding human vulnerability, powerlessness, and the unpredictable energies of passion. In "The Passions of Modernism, " Cuda explores how four modernist writers--T. S. Eliot, W. B. Yeats, Virginia Woolf, and Thomas Mann--conceptualize passion, how they dramatize its upheavals and illuminations, and how it affects their ideas about the creative act.

Cuda argues that many literary scholars have not allowed...