Writing Performances: The Stages of Dorothy L. Sayers

After Dorothy L. Sayers became famous for her fictional sleuth, Lord Peter Wimsey, she began investigating the mysteries of Anglo-Catholic Christianity, writing plays for both stage and radio. However, because her modernist contemporaries disdained both best-sellers and religious fiction, Sayers has been largely overlooked by the academy. Writing Performances is the first work to position Sayers' diverse writings within the critical climate of high modernism. Employing exuberant illustrations from Sayers' detective fiction to make theoretical issues accessible, the book employs insights from performance theory to argue that Sayers, though a popularizer, presciently anticipated the postmodern ironizing of Enlightenment rationality and scientific objectivity.

Author: C. Downing
Publisher: Palgrave MacMillan
Published: 09/17/2004
Pages: 199
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 0.82lbs
Size: 8.56h x 5.68w x 0.68d
ISBN: 9781403964526

Review Citation(s):
Choice 01/01/2005 pg. 852

About the Author
CRYSTAL DOWNING is Associate Professor of English and Film Studies, Messiah College, Pennsylvania, USA.