Katherine Mansfield is widely acknowledged as a literary innovator, who reinvented the art of the short story in the early 20th century. Her writing career was brutally cut short with her tragically young death at the age of 34, and such was the respect for her as a fellow writer that Virginia Woolf was moved to record in her Diary there seemed “no point in writing any more. Katherine won’t read it. Katherine’s my rival no longer” (Virginia Woolf, Diary, Jan. 1923). What had Mansfield achieved in her comparatively short writing life which caused Woolf to regard her as a friend and serious rival?
This course will focus upon a selection of Mansfield’s short stories which span her entire literary career, from ‘Frau Brechenmacher Attends a Wedding’(1912) published in her first collection, In a German Pension, to her remarkable works of 1922, such as ‘The Garden Party’ and ‘The Fly’, published less than a year before her death. We will consider the effect of her colonial background as a New Zealander on her literary ambitions in Europe, and how this is reflected in her many stories which present the view of the ‘outsider’. We will also discuss her feminism, her rebelliousness and her perspectives on marriage, modern life and her devotion to art of writing.
To get the most from this course you should read the set text before you come to Cambridge and expect to re-read selections from it when you are here. In class we will undertake some ‘close reading’ in the Cambridge tradition which will help us to understand the very precise ways in which Mansfield uses language. This in turn will give an appreciation of the richness, economy and complexity of her prose. We will consider the historical context of the stories in relation to Mansfield’s own life and also in relation to world events, ie the First World War. You may find Claire Tomalin’s biography, Katherine Mansfield: A Secret Life, helpful as background reading.
Learning outcomes
- To gain a greater knowledge of the primary texts and an understanding of their historical context;
- To become familiar with some literary-critical ways of responding to Mansfield’s short fiction;
- To develop students’ skills of close analysis and response to tone, style and genre;
- To be able to discuss the reading in seminar group and to contribute usefully to general debate on the issues raised in the course.
