The study begins by situating the moment in the context of the history of ideas, then takes a cultural history approach drawing upon selected examples to point up crucial stages in the history of the moment at which its ongoing secularization becomes particularly apparent: Christian Middle Ages, Romanticism, Aestheticism, Modernism. In its given context, however, the moment also stands as an instance of metaphysical or quasi-metaphysical experience of the world militating against the progressive loss of transcendence. Against this background various aspects of the experience of the moment in Dorothy Richardson's "Pilgrimage" novels are discussed. These range from their thematic and structural function to their significance for central concerns of the work such as identity formation, memory, experience of space and time, perception and art. The way the handling of the moment generates literary meaning in Richardson's work is also a token of the central function of the moment in modern writing. The outworn metaphysical certainties of yore are replaced by moments of authentic and significant subjective experience of reality.

Autorentext
Eveline Kilian, geb. 1959, ist Professorin für englische Kultur- und Literaturwissenschaft an der Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin.