Museum Trouble

By 1901, the public museum was firmly established as an importantnational institution in British life. Its very centrality led to its involvement ina wide range of debates about art, knowledge, national identity, and individualagency. Ruth Hoberman argues that these debates concerned writers as well [...]
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By 1901, the public museum was firmly established as an importantnational institution in British life. Its very centrality led to its involvement ina wide range of debates about art, knowledge, national identity, and individualagency. Ruth Hoberman argues that these debates concerned writers as well."Museum Trouble" focuses on fiction written between1890 and 1914 and the ways in which it engaged the issues dramatized by and withinthe museum.Those issues were many. Art critics argued about whatkind of art to buy on behalf of the nation, how to display it, and whether salariedprofessionals or aristocratic amateurs should be in charge. Museum administratorsargued about the best way to exhibit scientific and cultural artifacts to educatethe masses while serving the needs of researchers. And novelists had their ownconcerns about an increasingly commercialized literary marketplace, the nature ofaesthetic response, the impact of evolution and scientific materialism, and therelation of the individual to Britain's national and imperialidentity.In placing the many crucial museum scenes of Edwardianfiction in the context of late nineteenth-century and early twentieth-centurycultural discourse, "Museum Trouble" shows how thisturn-of-the-century literature anticipated many of the concerns of the modernistwriters who followed.