Includes bibliographical references (p. 175-189) and index.

Introduction. The paradox of the ordinary -- Everyday life theory -- The nineteenth century and the everyday -- Ordinary life and modern war -- James Joyce and the realism of the ordinary. Ibsen and epiphany -- The lists of Ulysses -- Virginia Woolf and the "cotton wool of daily life". -- Poetry versus prose -- Mrs. Dalloway -- Facts and things -- Gertrude Stein, William James, and habit in the shadow of war. Habit : "the enormous fly-wheel of society" -- "Suspended in time" -- A "perfectly ordinary couple living an ordinary life" -- Wallace Stevens's commonplace. The normal poet -- "An ordinary evening in New Haven" -- Conclusion. Beginnings and endings : Proust's temporality and the everyday.