ABSTRACT
In order to provide a contextual backdrop for both one's readings, and for the oeuvre itself, this chapter traces some of the main currents in Djuna Barnes criticism. It discusses publication reviews of Nightwood that are accessible through Jane Marcus' 'Mousemeat'; and focuses on critical works from the 1940s onwards. Critical-political investments have shifted, but Barnes' subtle and ambivalent texts retain the ability to unsettle their readers' ethical responses, and it is this that keeps the texts vibrant and engaging. The chapter argues that, rather than read Barnes' autobiographical statements as keys to decoding her texts, it is important to acknowledge that they are part of a textual field which demonstrates many of the same characteristics as the fiction. Critical re-evaluation of modernism has created sympathetic cultural conditions for the re-issue of some of Barnes' early works, the re-assessment of the publication history of her major texts, and the publication of her late manuscript work.
