Weak Feelings: Femininity, Affect, and Sexuality in Modern Fiction and Theory by Tiffany D. Ball A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (English and Women’s Studies) in The University of Michigan 2016 Doctoral Committee: Professor Valerie J. Traub, Chair Professor Sidonie A. Smith Professor Elizabeth R. Wingrove Professor Patricia Smith Yaeger, Deceased Associate Professor Andrea Patricia Zemgulys © Tiffany Ball All Rights Reserved 2016 For my parents and for MK ii Acknowledgments This dissertation couldn’t have been written without my incredible committee. They cheered me on. They spent countless hours responding to my work. They illuminated the path. Sid Smith, I am grateful for your pragmatism, humor, and keen eye. Your seminar helped me see my way to finishing. Andrea Zemgulys, thank you for the clarity you bring to the study of modern literature. Your unflagging enthusiasm for me and for my project bolstered me in difficult times. Elizabeth Wingrove, I am grateful for all your sharp responses to my work. Thank you for stepping into the committee seamlessly when I needed you. Patsy Yaeger, my time with you was too short, but I see you in this project in so many ways. I miss your vitality and charm. And Valerie Traub, I really can’t begin to thank you enough. I lost track of the number of times I left your office feeling invigorated and capable. I am grateful for your patience, guidance, and faith in me. I am amazed by your brilliance, rigor, and generosity. I am honored to know you as mentor and friend. Thank you for inspiring me to be a better teacher, writer, and thinker. I am also grateful to many other scholars who facilitated this project and enlivened the process of researching it. David Halperin, thank you for your insight, for your wit, and for always sharing your champagne. Your provocative writing inspired me to go to graduate school; your constructive criticism motivated me to stay in it. Thanks to Sara Blair, for your insight into Henry James; Dean Hubbs, for your lucidity, especially about class politics in the academy; Benjamin Kahan, for your inspirational work on modernism and celibacy; Susan Lanser, for your warmth and for the long walk we took together; Heather Love, for your work on modernism and iii feelings; Sara McClelland, for your teaching support and good humor; and Gayle Rubin, for your generative seminar on the science of sexuality. Thank you, Eve Sedgwick. I didn’t know you in life, but your work made this project thinkable. My sincerest thanks to the University of Michigan Women’s Studies Department; the University of Michigan English Department; and Rackham Graduate School for the generous support that made going to graduate school in the humanities a possibility for me. Thank you to the Institute for Research on Women and Gender; the Sweetland Center for Writing; and the Doing Queer Studies Now Workshop for creating spaces in which I was able to write and/or share my work. Thank you to King’s College, Cambridge, for granting access to the Rosamond Lehmann Collected Papers. I am grateful to all those scholars at the University of Georgia who helped me make my way to graduate school. Thanks especially to Amanda Gailey, for your lack of pretension and the heaps of advice; Sujata Iyengar, for your insights into feminist literary theory and embodiment; Tricia Lootens, for the inspirational class you taught on femininity; Bethany Moreton for introducing me to the history of sexuality; and Isabelle Wallace, for teaching me about feminist theories of visual culture and making me watch Alien. All of you prepared me for the rigor I encountered at the University of Michigan. Overall, I am indebted to the University of Georgia Institute for Women’s Studies for introducing me to feminism. It changed my life, both personally and professionally. Thank you to the many amazing friends I’ve made during my time in Michigan. Blurring the line between friends and colleagues, you all teach me things even when I don’t know I’m learning. My love and appreciation go out especially to Cass Adair, for being so smart in both heart and mind; Amanda Barker, for being a confidant, a cheerleader, and a feelings genius; Wes iv Barker, for listening to me complain and making me laugh; Sony Bolton, for our real talk and your beauty; Scott De Orio, for your optimism, work habits, and conviviality; Candice Haddad, for your compassion, zest, and love of dancing; Jina Kim, for our text messages, your whip smart feedback, and all the times we reassured each other that we’d be okay; Mejdulene Shomali, for your puns, kindness, and incredible wisdom; and Wendy Sung, for your flair, nimble wit, and pool playing. You all have kept me afloat both intellectually and emotionally. Thank you to my wonderful family. Septimus, your cuddling sometimes thwarted the writing process, but I love you anyway. Meghanne Barker, you are like a sister to me. Thank you for everything—for your wit, intelligence, and giant heart; for your advice; for your funny emails; for the karaoke songs; for letting me tease you; for crying with me; for laughing with me. You made grad school better. Angie, thank you for teaching me to read, for always appreciating my curiosity, and for letting me stay up late to watch television. Never-ending thanks and love to my father and mother, J.W. and Belinda Smith, to whom I dedicate this dissertation. I wouldn’t be who I am today without your love, support, and labor. Thank you for enabling me to do what I wanted with my life. I am proud to be your daughter. Finally, all my thanks and love to Michael Kolassa. You saw me through the daily grind of graduate school. You believed in me when I didn’t believe in me. I would be lost without your composure, loyalty, and love. I’m going to be thanking you for a long time. v TABLE OF CONTENTS Dedication ....................................................................................................................................... ii Acknowledgments .......................................................................................................................... iii Abstract ........................................................................................................................................ viii Introduction ..................................................................................................................................... 1 Weak Feelings in the Libidinal Age .......................................................................................................... 3 Why Feelings? Affect, Attachment, and Sexuality Studies .................................................................... 10 Weak Modernism and Surface Reading .................................................................................................. 13 Queer Fatigue, Or A Note on Terminology ............................................................................................. 19 Chapter Overview .................................................................................................................................... 21 Chapter 1 Setting Libido Aside: Surface Reading Femininity in Elizabeth Bowen’s The Hotel .................. 26 The Failures of Femininity ...................................................................................................................... 28 Surface Reading Femininity: The Weakness of Mrs. Kerr ..................................................................... 34 Narrative Reticence and the Ironizing of Psychoanalysis ....................................................................... 40 The Weakness of Elizabeth Bowen ......................................................................................................... 46 Chapter 2 “Inexplicable Reactions”: Affective Susceptibility in Rosamond Lehmann’s Dusty Answer ...... 49 Reading Rosamond Lehmann ................................................................................................................. 54 One Novel, Two Receptions .................................................................................................................... 57 Modernist Sexuality ................................................................................................................................ 62 Sentimental Attachment .......................................................................................................................... 66 Weak Grief .............................................................................................................................................. 75 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................................... 81 Chapter 3 Weak Will: Feminine Influence in E.M. Forster’s Howards End ................................................ 84 The House That Love Built ..................................................................................................................... 86 Love Lost ................................................................................................................................................. 91 Bricks and Mortar .................................................................................................................................... 93 Uncanny Influences ............................................................................................................................... 101