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Wyndham Lewis: Portrait of The Artist As An Enemy
Wyndham Lewis: Portrait of The Artist As An Enemy
LYRASIS
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WYNDHAM
A
LEWIS
Enemy
Dichter.
dem
Theater," Faust
I.
Wyndham
A
Lewis
PORTRAIT
BY GEOFFREY
WAGNER
New
Haven:
Inc.
may
not be
To
the
memory
of
my
uncle
EDWARD WADSWORTH
y.'ho first
introduced
me
to the
work
of
Wyndham Lewis
POETRY
The Passionate Climate The Singing Blood
TRANSLATIONS
Selected
Poems
of Charles Baudelaire
SOCIOLOGY
Parade of Pleasure
NOVELS
Born of the Sun
Venables
Contents
Foreword
ix
Acknowledgments
xv
INTRODUCTORY
The Men
of 1914, the Detached Spectator,
3
31
2.
3.
4. 5.
The "Group-Rhythm" The Democratic Conceit A Compromise with the Herd "Mister Ivory Tower"
44
60
70 90
Sort of Life
105 115
141
9.
153
The Many
against the
Master Joys
161
168
12.
13.
On
the Side of
Common
Sense
189
202
209
Failure of Energy
226
viii
Wyndham Lewis
The Tragic Impulse The External Approach Time Stands Still
245
16.
17.
269
18.
290
313
Bibliography
Index
349
Foreword
was T.
S.
Wyndham
called
we could have
a collected edition of
Wyndham
essays
as perhaps
Lewis
we
should understand,
we don't,
his
immense
unity." V. S. Pritchett,
if
on the other
and
hand, denies
last
this unity to
Lewis' work;
one looks
at the first
will rarely
The
It is
divided into four parts, roughly on the basis of the interest Lewis
field.
al-
my
its
The
checklist
which concludes
work, while
it is
know
from
Lewis
have examined
of this
one item
I believe,
outstanding.
The chronology
list is
only threatened,
when I have been unable to trace month of publication in the usual way and the work in question has been relegated to the end of its year. The secondary sources simply gather a fairly arbitrary selection
of works with divergent views
on Lewis
that
not included,
al-
may be found in the text. It is Wyndham Lewis' own contention that he has been a neglected
Wyndham Lewis
on
this subject
may be
well known.
As he has
lately
put
it:
indulge in truths that would lead straight to suits for libel) that the
'conspiracy' dates
from 1913
it
long." This
is
recommended by book
societies
and eulogized
retrospective exhibition
called
it
work (and the Museum of Modern Art in New him regularly in shows of contemporary British masters), with The New Yorker devoting a seven-page article to Self Condemned (and Time Magazine one and a half pages), with The Times Literary Supplement in the course of a full-page panegyric on his work referring to The Human Age as "manifestly one of the
of his
an
York
featuring
great prose works of our time," with, finally, the last laurels of safe
respectabihty descending on
him
in the
form of a
my research,
1956
On
the
Modern
British Literature,
W. Y.
scholarly
However this may be, it is certainly true that there has been little work done on Wyndham Lewis, certainly nothing ap-
now hedge
interest
in,
say,
been taken in
work, as
it
dissatisfied
by
work has so far drawn forth. nor American libraries have colit
lected his
that
ironic
many of my slips requesting works by Lewis at the British Museum were returned to me marked, "Destroyed By Enemy
Foreword
Action." Lastly,
his
this side of his
xi
easier
by
as
PMLA
American Bib-
liography for 1955 (and the latter despite the article listed drawing
attention to the similarity in names), both quite recently confuse
our Percy
chiefly
Wyndham
any
Wyndham
if it
Lewis,
known
as a polite biographer.
case, the "conspiracy of silence,"
existed,
I
Possibly, in
was
that
justified; I shall
hope
do
so.
Wyndham
on him.
writer
we
needed, I
felt,
more
is
light
We
needed a "primer" to
his
he a
who
does not take the uninitiated with him into some of the
of his critical forays, he constantly, every few years,
more audacious
in a
fact,
is
rewrites his career or revises the opinions of earlier books. These are,
word, "Destroyed
By Enemy Action." As
The Childermass
so that
it is
go to
press, in
he has
just rewritten
(i.e.
all
the
is,
in a
plead for
Wyndham
Lewis.
He
questions that need honest and impartial answering, and for that
much of what follows here is expository as well Many people, friends of the Enemy and others, have
this
helped
me
is
with
book, and
my
and the
British
Museum,
The
in
libraries of
and the
New
York Public
Lewis
I
Library.
proved characteristically
of Sangorski
xii
Wyndham Lewis
I
am
indebted to A.
Zwemmer.
at the
to inspect a large
number
of letters from
Wyndham
Uni-
Yale University,
collections
the Pierpont
Morgan
Quinn
of the
New York
my
am
W. H. Bond,
Pierpont
Morgan
Library, to
Angus Wilson
at the
British
Museum,
On the more personal side, I need first to thank Mr. and Mrs. Wyndham Lewis most warmly for their hospitahty to me on more
than one occasion, and for their patience and courtesy in answering
my many
questions.
My
who
acquainted
me
Goldring,
Sitwell,
my
researches,
me
imcol-
mensely in obtaining
My
leagues Clifford Josephson and Marvin Magalaner have been unfailingly sympathetic.
As
to
my
innocent of any
lured
me
academe
Foreword
xiii
and under whose wing no scholar can come without being made both better and happier. Gilbert Highet, J. B. Brebner, and Mrs. Suzanne
Nobbe,
all
of
Columbia University,
its
all cast
their
knowledgeable
it
early stages
and improved
in small
my German
researches,
in
my
temporary French
literature at
me
during a very
busy period in
I
my
career.
To
Professor William
York Tindall
owe an enormous
my
re-
me
on
my
judgments some balance and perspective, without ever trying to impose on them his own. Mentor mansues,
Finally, I
my
thanks.
owe
same
Geoffrey Wagner
The City College New York
Acknowledgments
IwiSH TO THANK
originally
and Amer-
book
that
The New Mexico Quarterly, The New Republic, Nine, The Romanic Review, The South Atlantic Quarterly. The section dealing with the controversy between Lewis and Joyce was originally delivered as a paper at the 1955 meeting of the Modern Language Association of America in Chicago, under the aegis of Richard EUmann. Acknowledgment is gratefully made to the following publishers in England for their kindness in allowing me to quote from works by Wyndham Lewis to which they hold copyright: John Lane, Chatto and Windus, Cassell, Faber and Faber, George Allen and Unwin, Jonathan Cape, Eyre and Spottiswoode, Robert Hale, Hutchinson, Dent, Nicholson and Watson, George Weidenfeld and Nicolson (for Contact Books), and the present pubhshers of Lewis' work in England, Methuen. Acknowledgment is also gratefully made to the following American publishers for their similar courtesy: Alfred A. Knopf, Harper and Brothers, Harcourt, Brace,
The Hudson Review, Modern Fiction
Studies,
New
Directions,
in
am am
I
mission to quote from one work by Lewis to which they hold copyright. I
from
I
which
Wyndham
Lewis.
am
equally indebted to
xvi
Wyndham Lewis
me
Wyndham
Lewis him-
And I am
pals
and
directors
of those
The drawing
bellishes this
of
Wyndham
is
volume
INTRODUCTORY
Introductory:
The Men of
1914, the
"From
p. 105.]
if
were
free."
{Rude Assignment,
can be divided in
and
it is
Of
their relationship
^
Lewis himself
it,
tells
us
his
as
he
calls
grew out of
creative genius.
1.
But
my
and cut
my
christian attribute."
He
will therefore
be referred to as
Wyndham
Lewis here.
2.
think,
Ramon
"De
March
gomery Belgion. Lewis may have been introduced to Fernandez by Aldington's translation of his essay on Newman, which appeared in The Criterion for October 1924, the year when Lewis himself began writing for this periodical and when he
started using the phrase.
critic
of strong rational
world of
common
sense;
the
pubHc for
this criticism
should be "une
elite
Fernandez
vie."
finds in Meredith's
un-
Ramon
must
join at
some
it
human
experience: Pater
is
is
210-16). This
precisely
what Lewis'
nearly
all
his
and
4
temporary
neoclassicist,
Wyndham Lewis
according to Constant Bourquin in his
book on Benda, makes it hard, though not impossible, to fit books Uke Count Your Dead or Left Wings over Europe into such an
explanation. Perhaps what Lewis
"I
means
is,
as
he puts
^
it
elsewhere,
am
an
artist first,
and a
critic
afterwards."
and informal
(critical),
that his
pamphlets
of
were published
But he
Again,
it is
books with
when he
what
consistent in feeling
his creative
in
twentieth-century England.
However one may eventually feel about Lewis' own explanations of his writings, it would be rash to contest, surely, that he has been
a "portmanteau-man" in the multiplicity of his interests and variety of his skills.
which he has
put these
in
skills
two spheres,
gift in
and graphic
art,
nary
made
of
himself,
some decidedly
who
is
a novelist, a
critic,
3.
Wyndham
Lewis,
Men
p. 130.
4.
In one place he writes that he began his criticism in 1926, and one at once
thinks of
politics.
The Art of Being Ruled of this year as being principally concerned with Lewis, Blasting and Bombardiering (London, Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1937), p. 5. He himself sees it as such in ch. 30 of Rude Assignment, but he also calls The Lion and the Fox "my first political book." Wyndham Lewis, Rude Assignment (London, Hutchinson, 1950), p. 160. Confusingly, T. S. Eliot calls The Lion and the Fox an " 'anti-political' book." T. S, Eliot, "The Lion and the
Wyndham
Introductory
cal pamphleteer, as I
in the analysis
am: who has been engaged, as in my case, of what is obsessional in contemporary social life;
verse; exposing abuses in art-politics; cele-
in
composing
satiric
and
creative, arose
from a
single ex-
perience,
it
would
and here
main
influences
contemporary with,
in
These were
this century.
Born on November
5. 6.
18, 1882,^
on a ship
in the
Bay
of Fundy, the
Rude Assignment,
p. 10.
difficulty
Lewis himself
this
And
New York
is
may
14,
it
already
On
all
good
faith, the
is
Library of Congress has adopted the date of Lewis' birth as 1886. This date
to
listing
Many American
libraries
and Manly-Rickert) have followed the Library of Congress. But Marriott early
(New York, The Dial Publishing Co., 1923), a volume Germany. The date 1886 occurs as late as 1950 in Sherard Vines's 100 Years of English Literature (London, Duckworth, 1950), p. 290. More recently, Scott-James, Handley-Read, and others have preferred 1884, in common with the current Who's Who. Benezit also gives this date. And in the Catalogue
gave 1884, as did Living Art
significantly printed in
himself.
Who's
Who
submitted
was further
surprised,
Accordingly
and other
facts
may
It
likely to
be accurate since
they were either given by Lewis' parents, or by himself before any need for obfuscation arose.
did Joyce
know
that
Lewis was
bom
in
the
same year
as himself
when,
in
his t\\ins?
Wyndham Lewis
Wyndham went
1898 and
to
Rugby
in
left in
December
of
the following year to study at the Slade Fine Art School between
1901.'^
bad
effects of
Edward Wadsworth
in
also
he was on the Continent, EngHsh education." Lewis first the Heimann Academy at Munich, where studied, and his Munich pension is on
six years
Delambre
in Paris, travel-
ing in the
in 1909.
Low
we have is from Sir William Rothenstein, who says that Lewis came to read his poems to him and was at this time a man who "liked to shroud
The only published Slade School memoir
of Lewis
To
but
it
his period in
Munich Lewis makes little allusion must have given him a firsthand knowledge of
this
in his
work,
the
German
essentially
German
expatriate,
who
Wake we
Shaun/Shem
one
two
clots of egg."
to
have "won a scholarship at the age of The information as to the place of Lewis'
at
file
who was
7.
assist
Lewis
in the
ship papers.
My
dates
come from
am
indebted to
the
Alumnus
The Art
this
of
Handley-Read
the books, folios, or journals" in each case, seven works are misdated or mistitled
of the few selected. Both issues of The Tyro are dated as 1924,
these.
Hugh Kenner,
in his
Wyndham Lewis
New
Introductory
hangs himself in a village on the Franco-German border, and the satire, as we shall see, is one on German manners.
The
influence of
was the
Munich on Lewis was mainly graphic. This Munich that that latter-day Savonarola, Thomas Mann's
sees as the art city par excellence in "Gladius Dei," a
Hieronymo,
delightful story to
collection.
Mann's
turn
tete
Mecca at the of the century, in the passage beginning "MUnchen leuch..." and continuing to describe the atmosphere among the
Munich
as art
young artists, models, and their friends at the time. Georg Fuchs, whose Der Kaiser, die Kultur und die Kunst was published in Munich in 1904 (and followed by his Deutsche Form in 1907),
has also given us a lively general picture of the city at this period.
Fuchs reminds
genius,
stern
us,
Wilhelm
German comic
Witzhldtter.
Munich
in these days,
and
it is
of
more
than merely speculative interest to compare Busch's black-andwhite illustrations to the Fliegende Blatter of the period with Lewis'
first
artists
work in the Munich satiric press, as he must that of Thomas Theodor Heine and the Simplizissimus group. A competent art
their
critic
in the
German
aestheticians like
first
was
that
formed
his critical
mind more
obviously.
He
"my
literary career
began
in France,"
and
that at the
same time
8
his interest in philosophy
Wyndham Lewis
was awakened.
first
It
was out of
his experi-
pubHshed
is
no
needed than
his
admis-
Modern French
earlier told us
begun
in 1903,
1907, quickly running into a second edition the next year. This
dissertation,
ires
its
later,
"the
first
'text-book' of
and
la
and Lasserre,
in particular,
is
an antiromanticist to
whom
he con-
men were
ligueurs of the
Action Frangaise by
this time,
Maurras
started
et la
The organ
its
of the politi-
on July
had been
whom
are considered by
Pound
in his Instiga-
tions. This was the Maurras who went to Greece to report the first modern Olympics in 1896 as a lover to his mistress; he went for La Gazette de France, to whose editor, Gustave Janicot, he dedicated
his
Introductory
9
this
presided,
and
for
common,
it
is
much
resist
as that
group
of
young and
who
gathered to
romanticism
and, as
first
decade of
this century,
and
whom MM.
sisting chiefly of
Ernest
tain.^
Seilliere, Julien
and extreme,
to
critic
M.
le
baron Ernest
his
Seilliere
published his
Le Mai romantique
Babbitt's
in
name
echo through
Democracy and Leadership and On Being Creative. In Maurras himself was by 1 905 author of three works all more or less directly damaging to the nineteenthcentury romantic ideal. Benda, who more than any of these critics was Lewis' master, began to attack Bergson, and through Bergson Romance, in 1912,^ while his friend Charles Peguy had begun his
Cahiers de
la
Benda's Sur
his
le
UEvolutionisme de M. Bergson
in 1913. In
et
1911 and
his Philosophie
de
M. Bergson
8.
Henri Girard
romantisme. Bibliographie
l^f
la mobilite first
appeared in
1912. In 1913
la
Benda published his Une philosophie pathetiqiie in the Cahiers de quinzaine, and later his Reponse aux defenseurs du Bergsonisme. These last two
le
works were collected in 1914 and can be found in the edition I have used of Sur succes du Bergsonisme. I have used the sixth edition of Belphegor; the first was
before 1914. In chapter 6 of
finds
in
1918 but according to the "Avertissement" provided the work was mainly composed
On
him
inclined to misanthropy.
10
Wyndham Lewis
litteraire
et sociale
d'une renaissance
and
citing
it
With
this
record in mind
is
There
critics.
are,
of course,
Yet
as a revolt of the
young against
in Paris, just
typically
what they
elders, this
as
it
attracted
there.
And
its spirit is
des Lettres
is
opposed to
overscientific
method-
name
of
For "Agathon,"
is "I'esprit
frangais." This
a criticism, of course,
that after the Franco-
It
War
is
essen-
Germanic.
It is
of
this view,
and
it
The view
lingers in
not carried
Wyndham
whose
"classical" artist
resemblance, called for a new assimilation of the classical spirit in German literature in his Die Bedeutung unseres klassischen Zeitalters
fUr die
is
Gegenwart of 1916,
another
German
critic of this
period
who
is
tactfully forgotten
by the French
neoclassicists.
And
I shall try to
show
that Ernst
Introductory
others.
Meanwhile
in Italy
even Benedetto
on the whole,
that in
There
Lewis'
is
no doubt, however,
England
this revival
it
found
was publishing
first work, The English Review was giving space to both Moreas and Paul Bourget. In its pages for June 1910 Bourget Jean characteristically laments "cette funeste annee," 1870, marked as
it
was by
"I'installation
Edmund Burke,
man Babbitt
Rousseau
in
Democracy and Leadership. Hulme, Lewis' friend by now, and an avowed classicist of a sort, tells us how he attended a lecture on Racine in Paris heckled by irascible young students; Montgomery
Belgion adds the information that these hecklers were indeed the
The
New Age in
By 1914 Lewis was not only defense of Hulme but he was also,
roi.
little
man, on the
railings of
Soho Square
to press
home
written:
critic
"We
happened, that
is
all,
to
in
and
'creator.' "
On
one hand,
November
9,
on the
"North
Staffs" of the
war
years,
Hulme
Maurras
in his discrediting of
pacifism.
12
Wyndham Lewis
Although French neoclassicism continued throughout the nine-
teen twenties,
it
was formed
as a
movement
in
France in the
first
decade
of this
Maurras
is
using
it
firsthand.
By
a camouflage
Raymond
sympathy
de la Tailhede
show. Consequently
it
in France. This
surely
career.
He came
to
prominence
on the wave
soon
lost
tion in the
Chambre
first
World War
'nationalistic' elections of
re-
had
The
in the
classical-romantic controvery
1921,
and two cahiers on the same subject were published by the Association des Etudes Frangaises in
to see
it
it is
hard
way
had been
earlier.
The
bibliog-
MM.
final
appearance.
New
names,
Ramon
but
its
This
some
"the
men
of
1914"
Eliot,
is
that of
whom,
Introductory
13
after a century of romanticism, a reaction
it
interesting that
at first temperate,
but
by 1913
calls
him
later).
Probably
was due
at the College,
was
in a
way
We
shall
and
we
admirably expressed
S. Eliot:
life,
"there
is
there
no place
in
to translate
Bergson
(if
we
as to the health of
Western man.
des
La Trahison
and
(In
in
some
Maurras
(his Coriolan)
The
London Conserva-
tive Political
now
sees
The
first
chapter of
Babbitt's
entitled
"The Terms
Classic
ture for
Germany by
Strich. In
published books.
tively, in
Men
is
without Art and After Strange Gods respecreference to the debate. But I cannot see, bethere,
which there
much
"lO. T.
were
first
S. Eliot,
published in 1920.
14
Wyndham Lewis
earlier
France
and
in
America,
if
we
Gorham
Davis, ^^ later.
London. His
first
publication was
its title
in
Ford Madox
Ford's
assert that
it
was founded
Ford denies
in the
in the
poem
of Hardy's.
it
was
head of
his colleague
Marwood, but
poem
"A Sunday Morning Tragedy" starts the first issue. Apart from Ford's own inimitable memoirs, Douglas
fluential review. It consisted of
Goldring
this
in-
W. H. Hudson,
Henry James, Hardy, Galsworthy, Wells (whose Tono-Bungay was first printed in these pages), Meredith, and Arnold Bennett, while
"les jeunes," or the
them, included
It
among
was
this
Norman Doug-
las, Eliot,
"H.D.," Aldington, R. A. Scott-James, and R. B. Cunningthirty years older than Lewis, of course),
whom
Lewis met
at
editorial ofiice.
influence
own,
1,
if
we
are
May
1915, that
movement began
its
in
11. Robert Gorham Davis, "The New Criticism and Democratic Tradition,** The American Scholar, 19, No. 1 (Winter 1949-50), 9-19. 12. Stanley K. Coffman Jr., Imagism (Norman, Okla., University of Oklahoma
Egoist, 2,
No. 5 (May
1,
1915),
Introductory
15
we
find
them
re-
corded in Aldington's Life for Life's Sake, despite the fact that
Pound
it
school in 1909.^^
However
this
may
be,
at this
time in-
Pound "made
Imagism
to
mean
pictures as
Wyndham
it
that
Amy
Lowell
more masculine ("Amygism"), that Vortex. The anthology, ofiicially uniting the Imagists, Des Imagistes,
did not appear until 1914.
to Blast
to
it,
too, that
work
this
in
The
also
review
in
May
1917
issue
what we
the
"men
of 1914."
whom,
so he says,
Pound
important association for him, that with the Egoist Ltd., with which
press he
is
was
it
portant periodical
is
article,
"Imagisme," Poetry,
No. 6 (March 1913), 198"A Few Don't's by an Ezra Pound, Pavannes and Divisions (New York,
cf. p.
Knopf, 1918), pp. 95-6. 14. Coffman, Imagism, pp. 4-5 (but
154).
Pound
in
one place
calls the
Note
to the
"Complete Poetical Works of T. E. Hulme," Ripostes of Ezra Pound p. 59. Hugh Kenner takes Pound, as he takes
own word on
New
16
23, 1911, Harriet Weaver's
Wyndham Lewis
The Freewoman is announced as to Dora Marsden and Mary Gawthorpe; this became The New Freewoman and on January 1, 1914, The Egoist. In the summer of 1916 we find Aldington and "H.D."
be under the joint editorship of
assistant editors, but with the former's
took over in June 1917. "Tarr" began in The Egoist for April
1916.
Among
these
many
Pound was pre-eminent. Lewis maintained that Pound was the animator of
Iris
"men
of 1914."
Ford and
this
impres-
sion.
Hugh Gordon
literary
flat
was
at this at Bel-
Bowen
in Soho,
tribute to
Pound
own
met many,
first
who were
of 1920.^^
to be
that
And
it
time in the
summer
Indeed, Lewis must have been too busy with his painting at this
War
brief
During
its
Marinetti.
To be reminded
of Marinetti,
and
London when he gave a celebrated lecture at the Dore Gallery in Bond Street, is to be reminded that, as Ford puts it, "for a moment in the just-before-the-war days, the Fine,
of his spectacular visit to
the Plastic
15. Blasting
Pound
leaving for Paris around August 15, 1920. The Letters of Ezra Pound, 1907-1941,
ed.
p.
156.
Introductory
17
is
As we know,
at the
Lewis shared in
this
portmanteau period.
it
Handley-Read has
that Lewis'
first
exhibition
was
Ryder
famous "Post-Impressionist" show organized by Roger Fry at the Grafton Galleries in 1911. It was this exhibit, whose aims were
The Fortnightly Review for May 1, 1911, that attracted Hulme to comment so vividly on the visual arts. To it Lewis sent his drawings for Timon of Athens, v/hich he later published as a portfolio from the Cube Press, for if he did not, like Max Weber, write Cubist Poems, Lewis at least ran a Cube Press
summarized by Fry
in
Sir
left
us a
Men and
Memories, 1900-1922,
how he used
to
art
The war sealed this third period for Lewis. Although Lewis' name can be seen on the editorial committee of Coterie for December 1919, along with Eliot, Huxley, and Aldington, the war inevitably narrowed some of these friendships, as it ended Hulme's
life
own
battery
was dug
in,
Royal Artillery
in
in 1915.^^
At
is still
in Blasting
and Bomhardiering
how he
him
touch with Lewis after the war and he does not invite
to contribute to
is
in 1924, nor
scription of the
fell
days of
review in
if
first
editor
memoirs
16,
one can
and
Drawn from
For
Life. If
Lewis
scarcely be surprised.
Handley-Read, Art of
Wyndham
cor-
while
83).
Pound
on June
Ezra Pound,
p.
18
Wyndham Lewis
y
ception of Blast
Ford
says,
Lewis
"
(whom he
calls
is
"D.Z.") and
which Lewis
supposed to
is
me, not
. .
at Ford. "
A Vortex
...
lives
...
... The
change
Vortex.' "
There
he
is little
1920 and
it,
today in Notting
first
the
place of his
If it is true,
it
grew out of
his creative
work,
must make
any consideration of
nating his entire
artistic genius.
For
it
follows that
if
Lewis' criticism,
we resume And as we
a statement
more
neoclassical than in
its
pretensions to
impartiality.
By the word "clerc" Benda designates the intellectual or thinker who has, in the past, remained apart from practical necessity and
current controversy in an effort to safeguard lasting values;
this
it
is
is,
lest
only in name), Lewis reminds us over and over that he takes the
"outside" position, keeping his
mind
free of
dogma and
refusing to
is
one form
IMPARTIAL man
is
1926 he
protests that he
"an independent
It is
observer," and
as-
Ford Madox Ford, Return to Yesterday (New York, Liveright, 1932), p. Ford repeats this story with minor alterations in his Mightier than the Sword (London, Allen and Unwin, 1938), p. 282.
400:
Introductory
19
fly
^^
"I
my
in everything, in
complete detachment";
^^
no party";
^o
"Politically I stand
nowhere";
^i
"I believe
am
alone
among
no partisanship
in
the
my
heels"
minds us
befl,
Note
to
Flowering
Rifle,
Roy Camp^^
by a
in fact, con-
to
that he
be
finds,
Fascist party in
is
The
British
aU."
25
this
mask
we
18. Wyndham Lewis, Left Wings over Europe: or, How to Make a War about Nothing (London, Cape, 1936), p. 17. 19. Wyndham Lewis, The Diabolical Principle and the Dithyrambic Spectator (London, Chatto and V^indus, 1931), p. 37.
20.
Wyndham
21.
Rude Assignment,
22. 23.
p. 51.
p. 263.
Satire
in
Press,
1930),
Answering an inquiry
New
the gentleman on my
my
right."
my
left I
cf. "I
shake with
my
left
man on my
24.
right with
And
i.e.
see
DNB),
25. Blasting
and Bombardiering,
p. 244.
20
find
Wyndham Lewis
him
writing, "it
is
impossible to be non-partisan,"
^^ or,
more what
am writing
about."
^^
on
his political
more impartial, especially in his recent reviews in The Listener. The ideal of detachment, however, is an important classical principle for Lewis, who believes that when art, philosophy, and literature descend to the level of ordinary men, they are contaminated. If he is one-sided, it is as what he calls "a
criticism,
where he
is
actually
in a
Vision, as
posite of
was
essentially
employed
as
an ideal
is
part of what
Ellmann
calls "his
more intimate self," and Ellmann word "mask" began to occur in Yeats' writings in the first decade of this century. In Yeats' case it was in consonance with his poetic movement away from his early romanticism.
antiself,
or ''antithetical being,"
he called
it
in /I Vision, In
on the energy
some other
his
is
self."
Thus
we
The Lion and the Fox bears "Or Shakespeare Unmasked." The artist as opposite creation is best expressed by Yeats in his poem "Ego Dominus
The Enemy:
Literature,
Men
Introductory
21
Ille
(Willie, as
Pound
called
concluding:
"I call to the mysterious
Shall
And And
my
double,
prove of
all
imaginable things
The most
unlike, being
my
anti-self,
characters, disclose
AU
that I seek;
." ^s
its
this
was
for Yeats
that I
am
my
Lewisian
Hugh Kenner
says,
who manage
is
to corrupt
^^
power)."
It is
often compelled
The
Little
Review
mainly
not to
come
dovm from
his
disguise.
"Stagnant gases from these Yahooesque and rotten herds are more
dangerous often than the wandering cylinders that emit them. See
that
them without your mask." ^^ made on a gas mask, of course, one Lewis
in
liked
W. B. Yeats, Essays (New York, Macmillan, 1924), p. 484. Hugh Kenner, "The War with Time," Shenandoah, 4, Nos. 2-3 (Summer/ Autumn 1953), p. 22.
29.
30.
Wyndham
London
The
Little
Review (1917),
Cantleman.
When
peared in The Little Review (causing the issue to be confiscated by U.S. postal
authorities),
he was variously
substituted for
spelt.
where he
full-dress
is
Thomas Blenner
last,
appearance as Cantleman.
22
to prolong, for after
Wyndham Lewis
an attack on him
as the
Enemy
in transition
for
1927 (a
prolific
to give himself
some
first
label,
"L." terms
the
your pardon.'
" Lewisite
Nearly
all
on the
title
Enemy
or the
One-Way Song,
Man
You Are" and including the Enemy episode, showing an armored man accompanied by his Doppel or sosie. Again, we read that the characters in his play The Enemy of the Stars are masked, while the autobiographical Enemy hhnself enters the long poem One-Way
Song with a mask
personalities to
It is
on.
The Herdsman
is
personalities himself,
criticism directly.
Lewis makes
it
his
Often some
alias or alter
that reason
some of
Chronologically, the
first is
Cantleman. Lewis
calls
Cantleman
"my
man
first
is
aged
thirty-three,
about Lewis'
own age
He
is
a retired
first
lieutenant with a
among
He
is,
thus, a
Crowd-Master, a
life.
man
is
who
Cantleman
military alias,
politics
bear signs
own
visits to
gun-
Introductory
23
gunner
oiSicer
enemy
terrain
on
which
his
felt
an ironic symbol of
own
The
is
from Petrograd to his wife Lydia in the first World War. The correspondence, in which Pound joined as Walter Villerant, characterizes Burn as a hater of the herd, or swine, and a man
longing to change humanity back into
men
own
again.
But
it
is
the
Enemy
that
is
Arthur Press
name chosen
is
for his
publishing house by
^^
the
same
in all languages
advocates
society. In
many
method
of attaining truth in
comtemporary
Enemy seems
Enemy
to
y
sow
discord.
The
editorial to Vol-
ume
defines the
Enemy
foe of
modern
times,
though the
an
The
editorial to
No. 2 reaffirms
Enemy's duty
and pseudo-
Time school
Lewis
in a
newspaper
article,^-
us that the
Enemy
is
Rude Assignment,
p.
205:
Wyndham
Human?
(London, Allen and Unwin, 1939), p. 48. The Abbe Bremond, a writer to whom Lewis refers with reluctant respect, introduced a new edition of Ulric Guttinguer's
in
when
32.
Wyndham
Lewis,
"What
It
Feels Like to Be an
30, 1932), p. 8.
24
alias
Wyndham Lewis
good-by
in his
one
satiric
His balance
is
astonishing
when you
consider
He
Never has
week
for twenty
summers
that
was undramatic
kaltes blut [sic]
He
own bagman,
critic,
cop, designer,
and shoe-shiner.
He
goes on:
You must
To
Enemy
Man You
Armitage thought
of our everyday
as
good
on the sham
inter-
life
very reminiscent of
Hugh MacDiarmid's
it
"hokum" passage
esting to note that
in
To
is
One-Way Song
aliases.
Ned, a
political alias of
sits
on both
16-17.
34.
One-Way Song,
Introductory
Bull.
25
is
He
pro-German
to
racy."
it
Ned
loathes usury
sadly,
and he wonders,
why
him
so
The
alter ego,
exemfound
a
man
impervious to
,
the
to his society)
is
also
in the
Men
is
without Art.
Kemp,
of
writer
whose time
in
to
be
found
Lewis'
period.
sympathy with
own
Kemp
lie.
expedient
Thus he
tells his
enemy
is
Commander
The Apes
he
of
God. Ned,
and we
find that
it.
As Kemp
society
is
a falsehood: "Self.
One must
are insanity."
This
that
is
orthodox
Wyndham
no
is
Lewis, for
Kemp
is
simply saying
is
what we
call truth is
truth, since
our civilization
a fake.
This,
we
shall see,
venge for Love; as he says to Gillian, " Tf you don't use the
is
as
if
you made war upon a nation armed with bombs and gas with
fists.'
"
^'^
It is
from
this point
on that Gillian
36. Wyndham Lewis, Count Your Dead: They Are Alive! or A New War in the Making (London, Lovat Dickson, 1937), p. 276. 37. Wyndham Lewis, The Revenge for Love (London, Methiien, 1952), p. 202. In general, I have used first editions of Lewis' works. The recent Methuen reprints,
fidelity,
last
work
26
begins to dislike him, for she
is
Wyndham Lewis
part of the
sham herself. And so Kemp tells Miss Godd, a murderess, "What I meant was that honesty
it
was a rhythm;
^^
Some final masks should be mentioned. The first is Maj. Archibald whom we meet in America, I Presume gazing with "Olympian detachment" on the New York crowds, "staccato crowds" as he calls them later. There are many autobiographical
("Corkers") Corcoran
elements in this creation of 1940, the son of an army
ried to a wife (a
officer,
mar-
in
start of the
is
An
monocle "Corkers"
his eye.
appearance to
Indeed, his eye "explodes" behind his monocle, his eyeglass (or
"eyeglassed optical sentinel") has a "menace" in
it.
"Corkers"
feels
very lonely and unique and at the end his wife, a celebrated mystery
writer (authoress of
A Poppy
in the
Chocolate)
and
at the
of course, a stage
John
playing the
game
more
for Lewis. In
partiality
is
one place, in
he suggests that
im-
where everyone
a phony: "It
is
am
...
I shall
go ahead, in
my
unsport-
ing way."
Rene Harding, the hero of Self Condemned, who also leaves England for Canada at the same time as "Corkers," and then leaves Canada for the U.S.A. at the end of the book (Lewis himself left Toronto for St. Louis and a number of littleknown portraits). "You see," Rene remarks at one point, "I think in a manner in which one is not allowed to think. So I become an outsider, almost a pariah." Father Card of The Red Priest should
Secondly there
is
also
be mentioned.
He
is
Introductory
27
described as a "Man-Eating
the Asiatic."
He
is
Man"
(he
kills
One
see."
it
book
says of him:
"He
loathes everything,
you
among
who
kill
him.
Lastly there
aged thirty-nine and nine months (about twelve years younger than
his creator),
He
indeed
calls himself
human
race. Physically,
feet tall.
he
is,
like
leg
and a plate
Thus he
is
One
to the
Many
(what-
One)" and he refers affectionately to What is more he laughs like Samuel Butler, a man he much admires as a fellow misanthropist. As usual he claims detachment: "To register the roar of storms you must
ever be the condition of the
the genius of the Lewis-gun.
yourself be just
beyond
critic
surely
any
approaching his
own
my race's
Look for nothing but descriptions out person who has given up hoping for Man, who just, if only out of contempt for those who are
sound.
trary." 39
39.
scrupulous and
so
much
the con-
Wyndham
PART
I:
POLITICS
"I
am
artist."
Human?
p. 78.]
Chapter
i:
to
my
per-
During
there
is
Lord Osmund's
in
The Apes
of
God
To
is is
Lewis
common
view of
human
What
that
politics for
Lewis?
Politics
men
so
much
so,
he once
says,
that
intellectual
equipment
is
politician.^
from the
start since
it is
its
There are several key places in Machiavelli's work where we meet and
Discorsi. This distinction seems to escape
this, in
book of the
2.
James Burnham
in his other-
Wyndham
Gang and
the
New Gang
(London, Desmond
Harmsworth, 1933),
32
Politics
opposition to the Platonic doctrine that the State can condition the
individual. In all spheres the State acts as a restrictive influence
on
might not do
power,
is
so, as
we
shall see.
But
politics,
set
on a lower plane
on which the
^
below the reason," and "There are no good There can be no objective truth
politics."
in politics,
Lewis
asserts, since
Today
and
violent, rather
In
La Trahison
Benda
and
when the moral was invited to determine the political; the second, when morals were to be dissociated from politics (as in Machiavelli) the third, when politics is to dictate
morality; the
;
politics of
men
like
Maurras).*
this
Lewis begins
last
thus inimical
Romain
puent."
Ned
3.
Rude Assignment,
one place Lewis
One should
here. In
melodrama
(Wyndham Lewis, America and Cosmic Man, New York, Doubleday, then we find him arguing that contemporary fiction must be steeped
be an adequate reflection of reality (Rotting
4.
1949, p. 12);
in poHtics to
Hill, p. vii).
clercs
(Paris, Grasset,
work
to this
new
edition,
expressed in
"
A
lie
33
opposed
whom
life
more
intense
result, the
group or
in-
when
the
body triumphs
over
intellect,
"sensation" over
general masses of
dividual effort
that treat
mind (and woman over man). The mankind are less and less able to make this inand consequently welcome political organizations
it is
them
like children.^
This
is
the
by
Benda here
everywhere to immediate
and
class passions.
The organ-
(what Lewis
calls
"group-rhythms"), the
championing of
attack
main
points of
on contemporary
society
was
in this "key-book," as
calls
it,
that
Lewis
first
human
society. It
way by
several of the
serre in his
5.
Time
Wyndham
(New York,
366-414.
34
Politics
this
Roman meant
constituted
a free person only; a slave was not a person, but a res or thing." In
is
Rome what
minor
'thing'
a lion in the
was a
^
'res
was not
his
'wild,'
owner by capture."
persona,"^
status of
Roman
as
Lewis generally
in the State,
and
is
the structure
on which
(
his satire
is
based. In
The Art
of Being
as
"things" ), cor-
Dead we
men'
"
divided between
" 'free
and "slaves"
"
Greek
the former
Of
these
Many"
finds the
body of humanity
no
as
work he is unbending in his belief that the main is composed of "things," idiotic units who have
he
calls
selfish
and
acquisitive"
Man
for
Lewis
is
"by
it
was not
Augustus
Wyndham
For example, he
roman
citizens"
were "persons"
70-2). Lewis used lower case type for nationalities, on the grounds that
sick.
35
and groups
"The mass
of
men have
we
ask
pick up, from book after book, references like the following: "In
the mass people wish to be automata."
of
men
"Men
Most
less
and
especially
strongly
'static'
on the
corrupt,
to
man
and
In
untidy,
incomplete
animal"
^^
naturally
sin.
drew him
desire."
What
is
culture,
Beyond
this
on
this par-
one
it
finds the
view
fair
enough
in
Pound,
finds
it
Eliot,
and
others, but
would not be
to say that
one
Pound's money pamphlets take the same view of the masses, while
the Student in his
is
An
Anachronism
at
Chinon remarks,
"
'Humanity
a herd, eaten by
Nor
is
Eliot
more sanguine
on the
nor of strong resistance," Eliot writes, and again, "at the moments
when
is
is
series
p.
173;
Wyndham
Lewis, The
p. 178.
Doom
of Youth
(New
p. 93;
p.
Rude Assignment,
Men
without Art,
211.
la
11. Julien
12.
Pound, Pavannes,
p. 18.
13. T. S. Eliot,
(New York,
p. 60;
T. S. Eliot,
p. 8.
36
Politics
To some
Harvard on March
of the uncivilized."
3,
democracy to power"
is
"the rise
But Lewis
is
more committed and does not trouble to kind of evasive prose of which Eliot has shown
far
is
"common
as "of such
demand and
crowd of
defy analysis."
Many"
detest
from them:
The answer "Do most people really ever desire 'freedom'? ... is an emphatic No! Freedom and irresponsibility are commutative terms, where the average man is concerned. The majority of men have to be persuaded or coerced into freedom Ninety percent of men long at all times for a leader." ^^
. . .
These words were written in 1936, and a second world war has
not shaken the conviction they express. "The average man," he
writes in 1950,
will
is
"would rather
is
rely
upon somebody
still
else
His
feeble.
He
'Strong Man')."
Maurras or
Many," or
all
composed
1.
of
social
No. and
Cantleman
sees the
William
"gentleman-animal," while in a
1,
for
March
2>1
at
jail).
Shakespeare's
Coriolanus
English upper-class system in The Lion and the Fox. But nowhere
is
Men
into
German
as
John
is
a thoroughgoing imbecile
as
who
an
article of faith.
all
for
Lewis drawn
from
by lack of
intelligence;
is
The
it
Human
important to
make
this distinction,
is
no doubt but
from a "thing"
if
more
likely to
only
There
is
This
is
Vulgar Streak.
a
jealous sister
is
The working
is,
snobs of the lot") are here shown as totally unwilling to change their
status of
underdog
in
in
harmony with
this
on "the
so-called
working-woman,
designed to
who
in
England does so
little
called
We
38
Politics
Roy Campbell, whose extroverted and often autobiographies owe so much to Lewis' social criticism.
in
So Campbell writes
classes: "I
make up
am
view, but
it is
necessary to advance
that
ward by Grigson,
of his persuasion
Lewis attacks
without dis-
and
their "thing"-ness.
What he
what Blenner-Cantleman
calls the
what Maurras
if
myriapode
will
is
only half-alive,
that.
So Lewis
whom
per-
sonal extinction
so what does
it
is
matter?"
by
its
is,
the
more mechanical
into a machine.
And
human animal
atrophied
The
is
man
in all of us
^^
or "savage Robot"
as
he
calls the
is
mean,
as
we would
mean
"thing"-like, that
is,
coerced by the
170.
A
tivity
39
intelligence. In the
Phaedo Socrates recounts his disappointment in the alleged intellect of Anaxagoras, which he finds "altogether forsaking mind"
(Jowett trans.) by emphasis on mechanical matter.
after this that Socrates discusses the idea of
It is
shortly
man
as vortex. If
we
we would
only be con-
and
criticizing
Mexicans.
He
book
Fili-
busters in Barbary, a
machine
less
he does the
saying
no
fault of their
this
own, lacking
one accepts
Bertha of Tarr, that "The machine, the sentimental, the indiscriminate side of her awoke."
So much for the "thing." What of the "person," that noble element
of society, the quintessential core of the
human
individual rapidly
life?
"person"
a "person," and
is
"we
is
become
who
matters.
book on
Roman
persona.
more care to
calls for
The
his
what
c'est
et
is:
"Une personne,
la liberte
un
con-
doue de
de choix
40
stituant
Politics
la
For Lewis
this
"person"
is
He
is
the form,
or abstract, of the
human
making
which
I will
it is
safe to say
that for
race,
and
and
others.
Certainly
it is
is
man
is
not. In
on Spengler
in
and
"what we think
is
Enemy
is
of the
Stars.
real truth,
and
that such
therefore
in the
traditional
^^
role of the
enemy
of
life,
This
is
Equated with
is
truth,
the only
p. 17.
Jacques Maritain,
Babbitt,
Humanisme
integral (Paris,
19. Irving
Mifflin,
1924),
20.
p. 193.
Wyndham
p. 51.
it
Lewis, The
Enemy
this
Desmond Harmsworth,
itali-
1932),
cized
Lewis thought
when first printing it. Wyndham Lewis, "The Physics of the Not-Self," The Chapbook (A Yearly Miscellany), ed. Harold Monro, No. 40 (London,
p. 68.
Cape, 1925),
41
The
is
conservative; they do
we
call revolution is
merely
affair.
The
indolent
Many,
what he
change."
calls
^^
"creatures
of
habit"
rather
than
"creatures
of
social change,
is
where intelligence
If
lodged
"To
is
think
we
we
will see
why
we
will better
understand
standardized
pun on
is
Cecil F. Melville,
who
has
made an
is
intelligent
it is
un-
Our duty
to preserve
heroic being.
He becomes
divided against himself, against those minute particles of the NotSelf left within him. This type
Apes
of
God.
It
should be
made
is
tudinal cleft, as
shown by
is
drawing
at the
tendency"; he
21.
not
split in
Wyndham
No.
1
endar, 3,
42
sonalities, like Jekyll
Politics
The Childermass
are "split-men or
half-men."
The
is
revoking,
can almost be
tinuity of culture
human
developed an individual
is,
or the
more
is
The
'personality'
condition."
^^
So Corcoran,
at loose in
American psyche."
the function of the
artist,
it is
Lewis
says, to
2, "the purest
is
is
the dis-
who presumably
exists
all
Benda
Lewis
would admit an
fact, for
him
it
hands of Einstein,
on the
merging us
all
would be rash to
norm, making
fifties.
all
down
From
"individualist."
science (Paris,
24.
Un examen
de con-
43
a disturbing absurdity."
And
he,
"I demand no absolute, except only God," he wrote in One-Way Song and, although he has opposed organized religion, he yields to the idea that there is a spiritual power related to us all, in the
same way
is
body. Thus,
the
more reason
heavenly one
that
is it
if
much
that
all
political principles.
If
he
criticizes
series of
work.
can be found throughout The Art of Being Ruled, in the recent The Writer and the Absolute (see p. 127), and in various pronouncements on graphic
It
below.
ff.
26.
Lewis' detachment
is
describe his politics at the time of writing these words as that of a "straight
'leftwinger'" (Blasting
and Bombardiering,
p.
as, later,
21).
Chapter
2:
The
*'
Group-Rhythm"
'A class
is
p. 178.]
Uniformity
Benda
group
is
by
in
La Trahison
when manipulated
as a political
and so the
Herdsman,
''ourselves
In a lecture given at
Brown
humanist (in
his sense).
The group-rhythm
units,
is
that
Lewis
excess,
to
war
Seilliere,
mocracy susceptible
the
group-rhythm,
or
de
man
in
Here, of course,
we reach
why Lewis
spent so
it
much
is
his
rich),
war (poor versus sex war (woman versus man), age war (young versus old),
as five:
class
agricultural
Ernest Seilliere,
Le Romantisme
The "Group-Rhythm'*
45
man. Apart from the urban-agricultural war, on which he does not often take a stand, Lewis is here defining what he sees as warfare
and
man,
old,
highbrow).
One should
other, the
as such,
on one hand,
while,
on the
lowbrows
in fact,
he
calls
them
in
The Apes
called
American Bar," the unpleasant Split-Man Ratner associates "At the poor, women, and young in his mind with "wild nature to be
encouraged to flourish
Ratner
classes
feels
at the
oppressed
women,
and so
naries
forth."
Roy Campbell,
mires and
satires,^
whom
Rifle.
to
Flowering
Dog
against the
Man,
the
Jew
against the
For
2.
in
some obvious
Hill, p.
friends of the
Enemy
are assembled,
Shenandoah,
4,
Nos. 2-3
114), an attribution
accepts, for
Thirdly, Campbell claims that he sat for the character of Zulu Blades of The
Apes of God (Roy Campbell, Light on a Dark Horse, Chicago, Henry Regnerv, 1952, p. 220), although in The Apes itself Zulu is described as a "disgusting beast." Finally, Campbell is frequently praised by Lewis (cf. Men without Art, p. 160)
and clearly has much
serre's
in
common
movement
am
studying
in Las-
found
in
46
Politics
he has often attacked, namely the race or color war of black against
white,
which
is
is
the queen
Race, utilized
politically,
can be also a
group-rhythm;
this is
in
They Human? he
izations of the
human
first, it
he
says, "a
is
monstrous social
ever, a call
"underdog" in
made to the white man to resist worship the name of the Negro. Lewis, after all, was
writing
on top of books by D. H. Lawrence and Sherwood Anderson in which the resources of the colored races on the American continent
were highly admired. Lewis sees the American Negro
a sort of Proletariat," and the criticism
is
as "racially
made
growing sense of
disbelief in himself
(or "negro-worship")
should be
a fantastic
countered,
Lewis advocates, by an
3.
"esprit
234;
p.
Wyndham
Fox (New
state-
p. 306.
The reader
book the
ment that "Class in these adjustments is, of course, the great rival of race" (Lion and Fox, p. 295). But Lewis is consistent, for he goes on to explain that genius must be raceless and that all true personality must overcome "the mechanical
ascendancy"
(p.
He
class,
though
more
p.
easily fixed
it is
rhythm than
4.
Rude Assignment,
Man,
pp.
shown
in
Wyndham
Lewis, "Ameri-
can Melting Pot," Contact Books, 2 (London, Contact Books, Weidenfeld and
Nicolson, Oct. 1946), 58.
5.
first
pot" of America can be found ten years before Paleface in The Caliph's Design
p. 46.
The "Group-Rhythm'*
47
Lewis denies that he was attacking
at the
later
asserts that
he was laughing
white
man
for
man was
At
is
fair, if
the bottom of
or Lawrence, that
since the
it
is
Negro
aspiration
Negro has no
and
is
taken
and Lewis'
dislike of
Negro
jazz, so
is
popular
of course in
European cafe
epitomized in
are parodies of
the
first
The ChildermassJ^ In this work there both D. H. Lawrence and Anderson, and one of
in the Third City of
things
we meet
Monstre Gai
is
derided Negro band. For Lewis always associates jazz with the
lower, emotional elements of society and so here the jazz
staffed "with a
band
is
On
the other
no
Negro behind the American Bar at Lord Osmund's (unlike the other characters), and we are explicitly informed that he was no friend of "Tropical Man." The "imperialism of Black serfdom" is what Lewis tells us in
affection for the
1950 he was
criticizing in Paleface.
The work
itself,
by
setting out
is
a neojustice
stampeding us into hero-worship of the Negro, an adulation sponsored primarily by the socialist:
"it is
The
war
is
is
used elsewhere,
and Cosmic
Wyndham
Man
socialist
is
responsible for
is
7. Paleface, p. 6.
8.
p. 197.
48
Politics
we
also
all
...
is
colored people, because they work for less money." This would
conflict with
Negro
slaves in
to "usurocracy"
(Campbell
habit of
also writes,
it
"No
all his
For what
Lewis
is
criticizing in the
if
lect and,
the
way
Negro
(as
when
in
1936 he complains
that
England
sponsoring
Negro aggression),
are suggestive.
He strongly
down
means
of popular culture.
Here Lewis
is
often thought
is
Youth,
like the
Negro or woman,
is
op-
Benda
am
thinking of a
work
like
Bride
in
many
points
am
B. Brebner
for calling
my
Dean Harold A. Innis, of the University of Toronto (as was McLuhan). The Bias of Communication and Changing Concepts of Time, both
Innis, contain
10.
by
104,
W^yndham Lewis, The Doom of Youth (New York, McBride, 1932), pp. 60, 201, 253. Lewis, The Old Gang and the New Gang, p. 19. This latter work
as a "sister-book" the year after
was published
The
Doom
"
The ''Group-Rhythm''
49
(as
Andre Maurois
it
calls
him) de Lacretelle.
,
And in
has to face.
As an appeal
war
is
Doom
of Youth, in
title
a parody
Loom
For youth,
trained, militarized,
rigid),
was being
was becoming
first
in
had shown
youth and
itself
woman
And
he
World War.^^ Briefly then, "youth-politics" aims shorten human life by insistence on being young (the "doom"
to
of
England quickly withdrawn from publication. The second short book, however,
adds
little.
Roughly speaking,
it
defines the
capitalist
politician
"new gang"
is
as
the
new kind
in ch. 8
of
politician
of
The
Doom
of Old
written in a deliberately
"nursery"
style,
an elaborate discrediting of
Benda, Trahison,
p. 91.
ii,
Doom
is
entitled
the 'Individual.'
13.
p. 56.
Wyndham
50
youth), to level genius, break up family
life,
Politics
encourage precocity
and radicalism, extinguish the true individual, effeminize values, and turn youth into a unique value
abolishing
it,
at the
same time
as (in fact)
aimed both
at
public.^'*
made
use of in Lewis'
Dan Boleyn of The Apes, and in the horrible Third City Human Age. But in its critical applications Lewis is not
consistent.
The
find,
always
For
if
we
pick up
Rude Assignment
of
1950 we
as
we might
had Baden-Powell
in the
If
we
refer to Hitler,
"Youth with
its
eyes
wide open!"
^^
Hitler
is
more
sensible
an
illustration of
German youth
work in the Reichstag) and, above all, same way, in 1927, Lewis had expressed
made
fruitful
Men
bemoan
political criticism,
but before
first
we
spring to attack
in
mind
that his
book on
Time and
Germany
glance
14. 15.
Doom
Wyndham
p. 99.
16.
Men
The "Group-Rhythm"
the year after Hitler, Lewis
cult,^^
is
51
openly
critical of the
German youth
war
and he repeats
Hitler that
year following. ^^
It is in
is
we
mensch. Lewis had previously made the same criticism in The Art
of Being Ruled, while in
Man
he indicted Sex
beside
Romance,
was untroubled
by any
"sex-cult."
On
this subject,
by arraigning
woman
French
under
the general head of what the French neoclassicists like to call "le
critics
But
it
Joel,
who
women
in philosophy. Joel
kommenden zu
und
^^
den Barbarismus
flir
die Kultur."
woman
"God how
was a
an
artist."
And when
Tarr
reflects
life,"
we
realize
Romance
in his conversaall,
and Sex
itself
in the
The shadow
tions.
of
Madame
Although
17.
18.
Seifliere
saw woman
5.
at the
head of romanticism,
it
Doom
of Youth, p.
New
we again
him suggesting
Gang, pp. 17-19; however in The Doom of Youth that German youth politics could be a satisfactory
(p.
development,
Com-
munist youth
19.
politics (pp.
52
Politics
was Maurras and Lasserre who devoted more space than any of their colleagues to this question. Maurras' Le Romantisme feminin
is
often an attack
on woman
as agent of "le
Le Romantisme
"Le
everywhere
woman
with
remark that
if
to
make
love to a
serre,
Benda
women
woman
adoring sensation in a
way
femmes,"
^^
writes Benda.
And
it is
here. Characteristic
U Ordination
von
or Les
Germany
the neoclassical
Scholz's
features a hero
who
U Ordination, which
in
la
quinzaine
1911 and 1912, Felix, the hero, has the same Tarr-like entanglesensation, in the person of Madeleine: "L'esthetique de
et
ment with
Felix
des larmes,"
femmes."
lectuelle."
antithesis:
He
is
intel-
It
of course,
"when
of the
Yahoo
species I
it
struck
me
Thomas Browne
Le Romantisme
frangais (Paris,
pp. 155-72.
21. Benda, Belphegor, pp. 112-13, 211-14. 22. Julien Benda,
U Ordination
The "Group-Rhythm"
53
to perpetuate the
World withNor is T. S. Eliot entirely free of this anti-feminism; the death of some woman recurs in his work from Sweeney Agonistes to The Cocktail Party. Needout this trivial and vulgar v/ay of union."
less to say,
most
featureless,
^^
Nor would
this respect,
Hobson
its
at the start of
Tarr
is
most interesting
in
and
shows
a monstrosity' "
is,
for example, a
is
tellect);
is!
Tarr
says: "
'How
foul
and wrong
haunting of
women
"
always
and
all
Women
and
particularly
The Herdsman
is
advised,
"As
to
same year (1917) Ker-Orr, the central character of The Wild Body stories, says, " 'Sex' makes me yawn my head off." It is true
that the idea recurs, but
it
is
mitigated,
and
in Rotting Hill
we
scarcely
meet
it.
But what so
as
clearly
influence
on Tarr,
nowhere
else in Lewis'
thesis of
German
likes
23.
women
Doom
of Youth, p. 210.
24. Cf.
Wyndham
8;
Tarr
54
is
Politics
drawn
to the emotional
Liepmann
mann
or Lippmann).
Nor can
To
time Bertha would recall one of their principal enemies, the famous
artillery piece,
fired
on the
"the
miles,
while Anastasya
edition as
Munich German Madonna." The dislike of woman as an agent of Romance occurs somewhat in other satires, but not to the same extent. No women appear in The Childermass, and in The Human Age they are kept in what is called "a pen incommunicado." ^^ In the recent The Red Priest we read of Mary Chillingham: "For such a woman to be able to
think was as rare as to find a famous man, undominated by his
fame."
And Mary
is
later
actions. ^^
such a capitulation to
in Lewis'
literally
no instance
work of
is
happy,
between
as there so
supremely
in Joyce's
the
women
some reference
enough,
his
is
we
find significantly
made
trepanned
skull,
a head
wound
recalls Tarr, of
him
Val's
bed
to
which Snooty
is
drawn
is
her bedroom
The Revenge
Lewis char-
women
for a leading
this
Sometimes
antagonism to
Wyndham Lewis, The Human Age (London, Methuen, 1955), p. 192. Wyndham Lewis, The Red Priest (London, Methuen, 1956), pp. 90, 241.
Revenge for Love,
p.
197. Jack,
Jill
in this
book,
is
identifies
with him
The "Group-Rhythm"
Sex
will lead to
its
55
her palms
Lewis'
women
Rose
Lily
sleepy, indolent,
and
soft, in
physical appear-
all
large.
Hotshepsot, of The
roll in the hips."
Enemy
ever,
is
of the Stars,
is
is
"a big
girl
with a big
of Snooty Baronet
how-
she
is
"statuesquely genuine."
definitely
^Maddie
One
of
The Vulgar
all large,
The Revenge
for Love, the "obese groceress" Lewis met on his travels in Filibusters
in
Barbary-
they are
and usually so
in their posteriors. ^^
(Old Spain)
at
The Revenge
for
Love
The
its
is
given by Lewis
when he
says, in
I
Doom
volume
prefer
my
pictures to
would coincide
low
is
side," but
Lewis
woman
about as far as
strikes
will go.
me
as
little
Steven
Marcus,
"The
Highbrow Know-Nothings,"
at
which
Kemp
{Ideal Giant, p.
26).
29. Snooty, p.
And
Gillian
is
113).
30.
is
56
likes,
Politics
we
shall see
is
largely
romanticism. So
we
Sex
is
of the
same clay
as
Time!
of the
same clay
tart
One-Way
its
Time
is
And
He
continues to describe Sex as another "Front" for the Oneare therefore "eyeless," since they can only blindly see
life.
is
Ways who
the
In the same
is
way we
find that
crowd Blenner-Cantleman
and by merging with
it
opposing
blind,
In
this dislike of
woman Lewis
phenomenon. Again
this criticism
it
much
satire, as
Apes
of
God. More
The
increase of
war
in
women
reproductory function
manhood
is
being cariit
on the
other.
The wake
of a v/orld
"sex-
from
responsibility
over-all ef-
women
No.
(London, John Lane, the Bodley Head, June 20, 1914), p. 94. sees women as "blind as bats" (Revenge for Love,
The "Group-Rhythm"
57
become "anti-he-man
perverts"
their role
as
by turning
to
Sodom.
male
to the female
(concomitant
subservient
woman
argument with
big business
is
uncritical,
up current American parlance), being principally emotional, and thus a natural consumer for the capitalist system.
is
The "shaman"
Lewis took
a "sham-man" in
all
shaman has
que
le
established an
hegemony
is
any
woman
roi"), the
Sodomite
leader
of a disciplined host,
and
Ape," characterized
in Part
men,
fulfills
Being Ruled.
"The 'homo'
Lewis
dis-
has written more than once, meaning that both share in the
integrating processes going
on
in
an
32. In
"A shaman
is
a person following
word shamanization
have em-
who had
in addition
transformed himself."
He
finds the
same phenomenon
World War
{Rude Assignment,
p.
177).
more
excitable kind of
woman
will
revenge herself on
those things towards which she has always been in a position of veiled hostility"
p.
252).
p.
Rude Assignment,
Doom
of
58
Politics
^^
male
the
is echoed almost word for word at the end of The Childermass when a member of the Action Frangaise enters, a Greek who clearly stands for masculinity since he is called Alectryon (meaning cock), and who opposes the liberal and Bergsonian Bailiff. " 'Homosexuality is a branch of the Feminist Revolution. The pathic is the political twin of the suffragette,' " Alectryon declares. He goes on to explain that the
sex."
This
first
part of
is
today
that
is
The group-rhythm,
then,
is
for
overthrow of
body of French
woman
as romantic
nowhere
suspect as in Paleface.
more personal
It is
which he
And
sensitive to sex").^^
attack here. French scholars like Faguet, for instance, faced with
had
clas-
in
drawing attention to
than romantic.
Nor can
woman
as
classics, let
alone for a
liked hard-
who
become
is
glaring.
politics.
illustrate
this point in
Art of Being Ruled, p. 277; Lewis produces the same anecdote to both Snooty, p. 26, and Rude Assignment, p. 174,
36.
Wyndham
Lewis,
p. 34.
The "Group-Rhythm'*
It is, after all,
59
first
part of Faust,
whom
Goethe makes
say:
Denn
bei
dem
oben
an.
Lewis
is
attacking a
symptom of political
instability
and he admits,
in
one place,
women
common
political sagacity.
Frequently
and
writing,
Lewis has,
One
reproduced
at the
somewhat savage
girls!"
^^
Modern
Poetry.
Chapter
3:
it
not?" [Paleface,
In APPLYING those general beliefs already examined to European society of our day Lewis' main criticism has been that our so-called
democracies are
Liberalism."
sion
^
in the
words of T.
S.
Eliot
"wormeaten with
slightly
handicap."
From 1926
until a
modifies his view on this point, Lewis finds this kind of liberalism
like-
name
The Art of Being Ruled. In Light on a Dark Horse Roy Campbell echoes this today: "Far more people have been imprisoned for Liberty, degraded and humiliated for
oppression," he wrote in
1.
two
Liberal" and that "the twentieth century Left Wingers repudiated the Western
He
title
given no
more
definition than
something that
distinct
still
characterizes
in
is
tradition
Good
liberalism, then,
lit
"Western"
the
true
sense,
traveling
"graeco-roman highway"
Raphael,
Dante,
Epictetus,
by the
Aristotle,
p. 192).
"Disgust has been vulgarized" (Art of Being Ruled, p. 89; and see pp. 56,
87-8, 146).
61
name
of
Fraternity during the last thirty years than in the previous thousand
under
less hypocritical
forms of despotism."
some
we
allow
it,
stand
much
Lewis
boasts. This
The burden
if
is
in diametric opposition to
was
that
let
loose in the
same arena,
truth
would
invariably prevail.
By
dom
Rippers."
Why
so? Because
common
education pro-
"meaningless"
"So
in
'democratic' government
is
far
more
effective
this cari-
cature of freedom
just nothing," says
politics possess a
banished,
man
cannot be
free.
"Free means
Arghol
The Enemy
to
Now
writes
this idea of
and a cloak
England of the
thirties
Lewis
"No
Party-state could be
more
summary
fashion in
Democracy and
we have
seen,
to
be
free.
The attempt
p. 133.
to
4.
Wyndham
Lewis, "V,"
p. 53.
Freedom
Unwin, 1936),
62
equality led, and, according to
terrorism."
Eliot
is
^
Politics
will lead to
more
circuitous:
"By destroying
of the people,
by dissolving
cleverness rather than wisdom, the upstart rather than the qualified
.
way
^
for that
which
is
its
own
is
negation: the
chaos."
Benda,
the
less vociferously
same in La Grande Epreuve des democraties. By placing "liberty" above life and being, the modern democracy is for Benda both antihumanitarian and warlike.'^ Lewis goes further, calling the
egalitarian political ideal criminal
Red
Priest
we
find
The model of
in
calls
little flexibility
dogma." Lewis
it I
In particular,
leveled by Lewis at a
number
of contemporary politicians.
In
of this attack.
potism," Roosevelt
Roosevelt in
astute,
anti-Jeff ersonian
whom
he
calls,
Babbitt,
7.
is,
however, one that contradicts the idea of nonresistance for which both
equally criticize contemporary democracy. Benda's
men
La Grande Epreuve
is
largely
War
to the
nature of
its
democracy
at the time.
63
The
dislike of Roosevelt
is
balanced
by admiration for the authoritarian temper of Hamilton. For Lewis, "poor Hamilton" had to suffer for believing what is neither wicked
nor stupid, namely that "a democracy necessarily
disorderly type of government."
the Stars,
^
is
a corrupt and
Or, as
we read
in
inside
you
The Enemy
of
is
Wilson was
that
filled
and/or Mussolini, where we read that Woodrow with "power lust." All the same, one can say
far, in his criticism of
America, as
who
rise of
head, with Heaven knows what taint from a Negro ancestor hiding
in his infuriated
If
it is
marrow."
Lewis attacks
in
specific politicians
1929
^
ment
dum-Tweedledee charade
name
of difference of opinion.
We
find
in this criticism in
tells
an
article
is
published in
Germany
1937. This
us that England
composed of a
Parliament,
*'grosse sanfte
The English
their
a farce
a bad thing,
by universal franchise.
that
p. 145. I
is
makes him
great
for
Lewis; in another,
as
we read
that "Lincoln
was
at least as
much
of a centralizer
was Hamilton; and they both had the same guiding principle Union and Power" (p. 147). Nor does the last "power" refer to national strength.
9.
64
Politics
The English
is
far
from heroic,
is
it is
Baldwin
assailed
an overthrow of royalty
Baldwin
is
second Hitler
fairly puts
As he
it
in
was of 'democracy'
was based
on the conviction
freedom."
^^
that
democracy
Once
by
this
Enemy,
status quo.
Accordingly
it
carries a
complacent
air
"every one
to-day
is
somewhere on the
one he labors,
intel-
and
it
Other
same
sub-
criticism of
stitute left
10.
an orthodoxy of the
left,
's
"Agathon"
^^
we
"republicaine."
Wyndham
xiii
Jahrgang,
Wyndham
1939), pp. 120-1. Baldwinian "Liberty" is also scathingly denounced in Count Your Dead, pp. 55-6. In 1952 Lewis juggles with the difference between "freedom" and "liberty" in taking issue with Sir Herbert Read, but in the body of his work
When
ill
housed,
clad,
11.
12.
and regimented {Writer and Absolute, pp. 23-7). Time and Western Man, p. 137.
Maurras, Romantisme
et
Charles
revolution
(Paris,
Nouvelle Librairie
Le Romantisme feminin, and other characteristically Maurrassian works. 13. "Agathon," Les Jeunes Gens d'aujourd'hui (Paris, Librairie Plon, 1913),
p. 110.
65
The "dead
Lewis
of Being
level of liberal-pink
'fixation' ")
finds in
rich; in
The Art
Ruled he wrote,
educated
who
point of view in
The Revenge
is
we
so called
'intel-
who
Communists
When
workman becomes
get!
for
what he can
cynicism,
all his
... he
and everybody."
which even
sees
^^
In Broken Record
Roy Campbell
last
"For the
agitators
are
no more workmen
them. Extremely
for these martyrs
difficult
to
become
like a
good neo-
he
calls the
Laming
The
siveness' " is
what he
is
satirizing in the
Canto
itself
characterizes the "Fronts" as unreflecting units, standardized revolutionaries, puppet-like busybodies playing at social change, dolts
14.
p. 225.
Wyndham
105.
Lewis,
p.
p. 44.
66
Politics
who
Of
"strut
and pant
in insect packs."
"How we One-Ways
stink /
progress!"
we read
and,
when Lewis
opinion has been particularly the case in literature (he does not
attack painters in this
it
way)
"From
Shelley to
Shaw
in
England
has been rather the rule than the exception for a writer to be a
^^
Here Lewis,
that
closely concerned,
becomes intemperate.
It is
true
we may
Benda denounces the contemporary clerc for utilitarianism. And find in Conrad the idea that the average political revolutionary is simply "a brazen cheat." But for Lewis any writer on
^'^
the political
left
self-interest,
1950:
"ours has been in the West a generation of hypocrites generation that has
for a great
...
shown
less
care for
men
this
in the
many
centuries,
combining
demonstrable
Common Man:
tie
a generation of power-addicts
who put on
a red
and propose
Campbell
also, in
new type of double-faced dominion." ^ Light on a Dark Horse, attributes all socialist
it
to a
instincts to "base
seems to have
felt bitterly
profession: "the
same
on
discreetly to
drop
off it."
at-
Page, 1923), p.
18.
Rude Assignment,
p.
142;
cf.
"Most
older
men
is
is
rooted in power
67
made on any
writer,
namely
his chapter
is
on George
represented here
and
at
self-seeking.
Having "succumbed
as
to the fashionable
pink rash"
much kudos"
out of social-
"Slumming."
He went
to
War
"for
no very
up
Orwell
Lawrence
Two
points should be
first,
what he had to
way he
said
it.
(I
am
critics, like
V.
S. Pritchett,
journalist.)
had
Communist or
who, when
It
was not
for
The
politics
The Re-
a game. But
it is
we
find
shall
elaborate
below,
Genevan
Bible" that
we
"The moralist
politics of Prot-
estant Christianity
was
Jew
also
is
Liberal world."
19.
-^
had
No.
(Summer
1946), 323. Cf. Francis Fytton, "Laughter and Letters: Dominic Bevan
Wyndham
Lewis," The Catholic World, 181, No. 1,086 (Sept. 1955), 425: our Lewis seen as
"perpetually
20.
. .
flirting"
with communism.
p. 268.
68
the added advantage of
Politics
making modern socialism un-French. Maurras, who Hke Toussenel traced Protestantism to the Jews, was especially strong on this point, and even the relatively cool Benda
finds
contemporary egalitarian
politics
estantism (though
Benda grew
it
critical of
tholicism). In passing,
that he could,
is
of
modern democracy
that
it
is
1943, was
to
human
dignity
was fundamentally
assisted
by
"I'inspiration evangelique." ^^
But
the
to
Sermon on
to irresponsibility. Christ,
by
Lewis
says,
resembled Nietzsche
asking everyone to
true freedom,
become an
is
aristocrat.
which
a perpetua-
intuitive, rather
made by Lewis
Rotting Hill
fact, a
year
later.
in this
that socialism of
Jesus. ^^ Father
criticism.
what he
of
calls the
Card
The Red
For de Maistre, master of French antiromantic criticism, democracy was an awful visitation from God. In the face of "the
liberal opera-bouffe" of
"the
Editions de la
pp. 33-67.
p.
326;
cf.
is
69
manufactured
or-
The
we
I to
secretaries, I should
know
was
At
the
and were
to be
admired for
their
organizing
abilities. ^^
new and
^^
he wrote
step
re-
The
Soviet also
...
in
Both
commendable but compassionate. Let us now follow to which Lewis was led by this early analysis.
24.
25. 26.
Art of Being Ruled, pp. 387 ff. America and Cosmic Man, p. 160. Art of Being Ruled, p. 79.
Chapter 4:
A Compromise
"Do
that
p. 33.]
Inapril 1929
T.
S.
Eliot grouped
Wyndham
kind of fascism."
as "partly
own
politics
communist and
in
monarchism
my
marxism, but
^
When we
him
that
"At no
we
that
we
made by
Eliot
when he wrote
would be
safe,
true that in
I
The Art
we read
also, "I
am
not a communist;
if
anything, I favour
some
form of fascism rather than communism." ^ Moreover, The Art of Being Ruled pours scorn on Marx and pictures the Marxist
politician as totally cynical
1.
and ruled by
Criterion, 8,
lust for
power. Adverse
p.
T. S. EHot,
"Commentary," The
378.
2. 3.
Andrew es (Garden
Doubleday, Doran,
1929), p.
4.
5.
p. 381.
Compromise with
the
Herd
in theory
71
references to
communism, both
and
The
Doom
of
Youth
it is
creed that has ever seen the light." No, Lewis can fairly write in
his recent
Man
that
is
"Communist methods
of Being
What
pathy for
is its
communism
The Art
Ruled
affinity
"An extreme
...
is
fascismo,"
we
merely
like,
you
also,
in
La
ascribes both to a
that Sorel praised
common
source
We know
But nowhere
sistent
is it
attitude
more than on
difficult in
this
point.
Even
the
most sympathetic
true socialism.
We know
told in
from seventeenth-century
really in support of
Bible-religion
The Art
was similar
to a sort of
Marx
in
The Dance
like
one of the
Marx
of
6.
Brothers").^
The Revenge
for Love, to
Groucho Marx
p.
in
Rude Assignment.
Stephen Spender,
17;
Jews,
p.
74.
The
p. 150.
72
Politics
Then we have
socialism."^
Confusion
is
that the
method
is
of seizure of
violence
by means of military despotism.^ Faced with these equivocaonly think of the instruction given the Herdsman
^^
it
we can
up."
as
can be
He was
was
the
first
munism and
is
elastic.
Nor
Marx
is
absolute
be
lifted
and
aesthetic duties.
But even
as
was
re-
more rabid
Wyndham
Lewis, Anglosaxony:
9.
p. 134.
10. Ideal
beliefs,
is
The general
to
find
contradiction
beliefs,
apparent
these
contradiction
in
his
cf.
some of
remain insoluble;
me
a great deal"
(Rude Assignment,
p.
"My
writings possess this unity because they are functional" (p. 141).
p.
we
find
Marx
A
one
is
Compromise with
the
Herd
73
artist, of the kind he had seemed to welcome in The Art of Being Ruled, "more deadly than puritanism." ^^ Still, together with the theory he advanced in it was this idea, I think 1 929 that if you could persuade one class of people they were better than another there was a chance they would act in conformity with this behef that seems to have led him to write in 1926, "for anglo-saxon countries as they are constituted to-day some modified form of fascism would probably be the best." ^^ Meeting this remark in 1926 one would naturally imagine that Lewis would view Italian fascism with sympathy. Such is not the case. Mussolini is consistently ridiculed, in 1927, 1929, and 1932; the charge that he has an "actor-mind" in Time and Western Man
patronage of the
is
Dime Novel
of
Modern Rome,"
his satire,
traits
as the
Duce
is
called in
The Apes
by no means ridiculed
is
The Apes
almost the
frequently
only
man
of
good
will in the
while in
of Hyperides give
what may be
way Eliot Rock a satire of Mosley, whom However it is certain that Lewis never
saw the
possibility of
an
intellectual elite
is
and
is
gathered by
now
that this
what Lewis
is
in
Wyndham
a severe criticism,
this
when
article reverses
381.
v of Pound's
ABC
74
Lewis shows any enthusiasm for Mussolini. In two need of a ruling
Politics
articles in
The
supply
and urges an
alliance
between France,
its
and the
British Empire,
rulers in
Rome.
little
Why
sible.
when
we know he wrote
the
Two
express
(expose
itself,
for
him) on the
criticizes Italian
fascism as politi-
Roy Camp-
bell)
of "action."
He was
an
artistic
movement,
a
in
hensible
traits, in
way
that
German
with
its
stress
however,
is
it
was
in 1925, after
November 1923
German
filled
parallel of this
was concerned,
Lewis showed
little
explicit
sympathy.
He drew
a head of Mosley
Germany
in
politische Einsicht
und Fuhrereigenschaften," ^^ but it cannot be said that he ever praised Mosley in the way T. S. Eliot did in his "Commentary" to The Criterion for April 1931.
16. "Insel
und Weltreich,"
p.
701.
Compromise with
the
Herd
J.
75
On November
Berlin.
A. Symons from
series of articles
As a
he published a
These he reprinted
in Hitler,
political
is
work
as
an "ex-
Bombaydiering
the
of 1937 he reminds us of this impartiality again; book was simply a series of impressions of Germany given "as a spectator, not as a partisan." In the work itself, however, he con-
fesses in
one place
is
to a
"sympathy"
^^
for the
time,
and such
find.
men of mankind,
if left
a total expression of
of peace" who,
to
to himself,
would be unlikely
has, however, not
to
want
alone
expand or to
start a
war.
He
been
left
arm
Lewis
"Any
is
expelled
consisted
armament
Germany
called a "racial
would grow
laid lately
more
As
this raises
a passionate con-
troversy,
at Lewis'
mentary, perhaps
17. Hitler, p.
In the
first
place
143.
p. 235.
19. Hitler, pp.
35-43, 48.
76
it is
Politics
presumably unsound to
call
lines,
of potency)
may seem
would of
course be unwise to adduce a racial attitude from these characterizations. Similarly, those
(who has
anglicized his
or
for
of Isaac
The Revenge
we
find Archie
to draw conclusions from these. In 1939 Lewis pubThe Jews, Are They Human? (following the successful The English, Are They Human?) which is a direct plea for the Jewish
do not intend
lished
and
less
German
its
racial theories.
sincerity,
One
can,
more or
kindly, speculate as to
but
it
Lewis anti-Semitic.
At
the
same time
as
late,
fat Jewish-looking
," etc.,
etc.).
Card
if
lose his
so
many
who
cele-
it
threat-
in the press).
No,
Compromise with
the
Herd
11
this delicate matter.
The
edition of Tarr:
"Rembrandt paints decrepit old Jews [, the most decayed specimens of the lowest race on earth that is]. Shakespeare deals in human tubs of grease." ^^ In the margin of the manuscript
on art to go into The Dial in 1921, he marks a passage on the emotional nature of the Jew as not to be included. ^^
for an article
In
Jewish psychology
is
feminine
and
Lewis in The
Doom
of
Youth and
with a Jew, finding the Semite hostile to true individuality and char-
and
the
Jew
is
work praised by
to the race." This aptitude for organization leads, like all group-
we
on the
partly
World War
No,
1:
"The SEMITIC
VORTEX
its
was the
lust of
war."
^2
This attack, which refuses to allow for the fact that the Jewish
race has had to struggle for
at first glance
especially as
it
moment when
(as
it,
"wucherischen," as "accursed"?
{Hitler, p. 175.)
22. Blast
No.
1. p. 156.
78
Politics
was being
literally
it
repeatedly.
indicts
Even
Benda
in
La Trahison
for organization
("nationalisme
sort.
But
in Belphegor he takes up the attack on the Jews as agents of Romance, made by so many French neoclassicists, and acquits them of this charge.^^ Lewis is closer to Benda and Maritain ^* on this
He
example, as to
find,
with T.
^^
S. Eliot,
"any
number
This remark,
Gods,
a work to which
Pound has
Eliot, in this
man
purges himself of
this
achieve understanding.^^
attitude to the
Jews
makes a neat
many
Benda, Belphegor,
p. 155.
Les Juifs
in 1937,
and
5,
this essay
was expanded
in a lecture given
by Maritain
in Paris
on February
book
trans-
lated into
Enghsh
as Antisemitism
this
appears to
Christian
Looks
at the Jewish
Question
(London, Longmans, Green, 1939). Like Lewis, Maritain obviously detests the
violence being meted out to the Jews at this time.
More
is
it
essential for
Europe
to try
Gods,
p. 20. Cf.
Ezra Pound,
Visiting
Compromise with
a fairly
the
Herd
attitude in such minds.
79
lution as allied,
common
But
du
it
his
surprising to find
it.^^
and tending
to agree with
Benda Maurras
we
shall find in
itself
neoclassicist indeed
we meet
mind of blanketing everyCommunist calls any "bourgeois," so the Oriental mind with be monotonously Semitic. The obviously
that habit of
is
Romantisme et revolution, p. 275. I have also used a convenient digest of his political views Maurras made in 1937 Charles Maurras, Mes idees politiques (Paris, Librairie Artheme Fayard, 1937) where, on pp. 193-4, there is a characteristic syllogism. For Maurras suggests that the masses are all demagogues, and then that the Jews are all demagogues. Presumably, then, for this "thinker," the masses are all Jews. This is further complicated when we read Maurras claiming that the Dreyfus agitation was "subventionnee" by England.
Charles Maurras, Kiel et Tanger (Paris, Nouvelle Librairie Nationale, 1915), p. 121; this work was first published in 1910.
28.
Juifs,
rois
de I'epoque: histoire de
la
feodalite
tome premier,
p.
iv.
Louis Thomas*
(Paris,
recent study
Alphonse Toussenel,
de France, 1941)
contains
Mercure
at p.
que sa le?on
jouant
le
tout pour
le tout, risquerent,
en 1939, I'existence de
la
France en
Juifs.
la lan?ant ignominieuse-
Croisade pour
80
of his interminable volumes
Politics
steeped in the Semitic Orient and inimical to truly "Aryan" Hellenism; Seilliere, though far
more resigned on
Le Romantisme But
.
the ideal of racial purity of this sort has not been wholly
in our century.
European
disliked
The "meteques"
(resident aliens)
Maurras
so are the same "degenerate breeds" whose multiplication in America Babbitt dreaded,
to write:
"Circumif
stances
get the
may
arise
ourselves fortunate
we
to
we conclude that Lewis has been more careful than these intransigeants, we must equally remember that he has played with
Yet
the paradoxical
is
and that
in
reality the
Aryan
is
Even
as late as
To be
we can
more
say that
was due
bias breaks
down
class bias.
Class feeling
is
restrictive
feeling;
he retains
this idea in
The
Hitler
is
"The more
the
only
Hitler adversely in
it is so, when he comes to criticize The Hitler Cult. Roy Campbell, of course, is more open, writing in Broken Record of 1934, "I fail to see how a man like Hitler makes any ^mistake' in expelling a race that is
and indeed
homogeneity
is
and an
Western unified
30. Babbitt, 31.
culture,
A
jingo,
if
Compromise with
the
Herd
all
81
White Western
its
context,
It is
may
well be an-
Soon
to Hitler
may be
and Fascist
put on
Lewis was
damage
Hitler did
him
in literary circles. In
One-Way Song,
reputation,
Hitler (v/hich
in
of 1933, he refers to
to
how
the
his
into
German
so,
Quarterly could
"still
man
is
And
it
was
Lewis published
we
is
an
at
being practised in
Germany
it
in
humanly
possible to get
and has
as
who is now
'Dictator' of the
ment
as
as occult, usurious,
It
and
despotic,
and of
British
democracy
an egregious sham.
32. Hitler, pp.
German
184-9. In fairness,
Aryan
culture.
and even uses the theory of diffusion of culture (which he had come across
one of the many reasons for condemning Hitler
Jews {Hitler,
33. "Select
p.
as a
97).
2,
No.
82
friendship for England. In short,
Hitler.
it is
Politics
pleads that
Germany be allowed
to rearm, a view
in 1942.^^ In the
same way the Abyssinian war was a "war of upon Mussolini by Great Britain. ^^
Germany
is
states,
is
quoted
to the effect that all Russian leaders are Jews.^^ This prejudice,
The British Union Quarterly, formerly Quarterly which had numbered Mussolini, Goebbels,
contributors. Addressing the British Fascists
"You
as a
Fascist stand for the small trader against the chain-store; for the
peasant against the usurer; for the nation, great or small, against
the super-state."
35. Ibid.,
^^
The
(and
pp.
105
ff.
p.
91,
"the
of
attacking
France");
Wyndham
Lewis,
"That 'Now-or-Never'
Saturday
(e.g.
rather than the lazy, stupid, and predatory Ethiopian, should eventually control
Abyssinia
is
when
Lewis
criticizes
Wyndham
p. 322.
Quarterly, J, No.
He
Dead,
No
The
British
and Bombardiering,
p. 17).
The quotation
in
my
text touches
upon Lewis'
Since his views on nationhood are almost impossible to reduce to consistency, and
Compromise with
the
Herd
83
at the
time of
(for ex-
War and
is
bitterly attacked
by Lewis
way
we
from
a suggestion that D. H.
disease).
new
on
this
subject,
have thought
it
best to
relegate
them
to this note.
At
first
against nationahsm, as another force in our world tending to align disparate points
of view.
in Blast
The
No.
this,
and such
is
what we
find
"All Nationahty
is
necessary and delightful rest for the many." Later, he claims that his Blast period
was
saw nationahsm
as antipathetic to art,
Wyndham
Lewis,
Wyndham Lewis
the
from "Blast"
to Burlington
pp. 15-17.
However, there are many other references during the twenties which show
(cf. Wyndham Lewis, "A World Art and Drawing and Design, 5, No. 32, Feb. 1929, 56); in this way, he parts company from Maurras and, indeed, in Hitler, contrasts Maurras unfavorably with the Fiihrer, who is more democratic than the leader of the Action Frangaise
As Lewis becomes
sacrifices this early
interested
in
fascism
in
the
thirties,
nevertheless,
he
sequently, he can plead that the nation-State facing this "collectivism" resembles
the individual trying to liberate his potentialities against the fabric of democratic
society {Left Wings, pp. 144-8, 268-73). In 1937 the U.S.A., the U.S.S.R., Britain,
restrictive
Don
Alvaro, a fictional
Man
He
is
much
to the
84
In 1937
Politics
we reach
it is
necessary always to read The Revenge for Love, his principal poagainst the background of these sympathies. In Count Your Dead: They Are Alive! Lewis commits himself on the Spanish question. Like other EngHsh writers, such as Edmund Blunden, Evelyn Waugh, Roy Campbell, and Lady Eleanor Smith,^^ Lewis here sees Franco as the legitimate aspirant for power. The book, which is composed of the notebooks of one Launcelot Nidwit given
litical satire,
sham
"The Death
first
of
title
page of the
taken
you have
to say to Britannia
links
is 'Hitler'
and she
sees
fist,
Litvinov, and
^^
The freedom
comes
on the
and that
in the U.S.A.
the Hearst Press alone gives the truth. Baldwin has stifled public opin-
ion and
made England
result that
"we are about to go to war to make the world safe for Communism." ^^ The picture Lewis draws here of the situation in Spain is this:
Franco,
who
is
little
endowed adversaries, controlled by Moses Rosenberg. England and France have broken the Non-intervention Agreement, though the Germans
39.
am
warm
adherent
Lewis here uses such pro-Franco source material as Eleonora Tennant's Spanish
Journey (London, Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1936), which contains a useful chapter
p. 199.
it
twice
before:
Wyndham
Lewis, "Notes on the Way," Time and Tide, 16, No. 13 (March
p. 66.
Compromise with
the
Herd
Hitler's
85
manners
sponsoring
Red atrocities.
is
The cure
is
the
1950 "a
first-rate
peace pamphlet."
these views in
They Human? and The Hitler Cuh. These works begin a trend of
political
But
in
March 1939
Lewis joined
group.
The Hitler Cult calls Hitler warlike, vulgar, and romantic; he is a power politician, both a true bolshevik (on one page) and "a typical democratic statesman" (on another). As for Hitlerism, this latter-day Sturm und Drang movement is now an unsubstantial Gothic dream, living on stale slogans, mystical and nihilistic. This ideology of the mob, a copy of Marxism, is relentlessly antiindividual. Lewis takes up the Blutsgefuhl idea and discredits it as
a group-rhythm. In fact,
Hitler. Point after point,
is
it is
clear that he
is
made on
book,
refuted,
die,
such as
within
their
(in
satires
Presume an auto"barbarous
little
biographical
character
refers
to
^^
Hitler
as
The Vulgar
and
is
Streak, of 1941,
Czech
crisis
villain of the
book
is
And
at the
end of
way
to a fair-
ground where,
42. T. S. Eliot,
in a booth,
he shoots down
Criterion, IS,
effigies of
both Hitler
59.
43.
America,
in
(and see
p.
"touchy
mountebank"
The Hitler
lU.
86
Politics
makes his peace with Britannia by dropping a threepenny bit in her mug. The Fascist-like Hyperides, from the first version of The Childermass, is killed off brutally at the end of the recent Monstre Gai, Self Condemned is even boringly
and Mussolini, and
finally
anti-Hitler.
that this
for
We
own word,
start.
The
In Anglosaxony:
League
more honest perhaps in claiming that as soon as he understood fascism it had no attraction for him.^^ Cecil Melville, replying in 1931 to Lewis' Time and Tide articles on Hitler, suggested that if Lewis really knew what Hitler stood for he would never support him. It is only fair to remember
is
here
this volte-face,
however,
if
we
He
has repeatedly
intel-
lectuals
"men
is," as
Edmund
Lewis,
it is
of political opinion
1952
Sir
"Surrealism, like
sentence reads,
artists to
Communism, does not call upon artists we read in 1936. In 1952 this "Surrealism does not, like Communism, call upon
left at
was writing on
much
the
work Hitlerism
criticized as too
would prove
A
Hitler
Compromise with
to
the
Herd
87
seem
Arthur
my
were a
myself convinced by Communism," he describes his acceptance of membership of the Communist party in World within World and it
is
and
Pollitt at
once
gave
as a
me
a membership card."
trifler"
^^
Mary McCarthy
thirties. ^^
describes herself
"mere
John Lehmann's
in effect,
left
agree,^^ that at
time the
and the
right simply
wrong:
"We
right reasons;
and
with a few
Wells
those
who
ginning, did so mostly for reasons that were less honorable than
our error."
^^
Of
the
"men
and EHot
the
first
dead, the second blind, the third mad, and the fourth an
O.M.
ques-
only Joyce seems to have been able to keep apart from the political
passions of our times and live the
life
The
Maurras died
in (comfortable) imprisonment.
in the
Pound
is
Blue
1952),
p. 270.
Part
ii,"
The Reporter,
10,
No.
(Jan.
1954), 31.
48. Ibid., p. 30.
49. Koestler,
Arrow
and
cf.
256-8.
88
in a lunatic asylum.
Politics
ended
his life
on
the gallows. It has even been asserted of Yeats that "In the political
field, his
^^
And to
am
It is
disciple." ^^
later.
W. Y.
"among the Fascists," showing how Lawrence's Mexican writings were recommended as Fascist apologia by Rolf Gardiner. Some distinctions should be made, however, before we pass judgment too
easily.
all
for the
human
a cri
du coeur
working inside
wrote Fascist marching songs (and rewrote them, too) for the Irish
contingent which was to fight on the same side as Campbell's
"Christs in uniform" in the Spanish Civil
War. So Sacheverell
Sitwell
Italy."
one thing;
it
is
quite another to
make
critical analysis
it
with a
number
Lawrence never
of these books
if
did,
and we can
a literary criticism.
We
was reciprocally an
Heidelberg).
and
Letters, 1,
"The
Politics of
W.
B. Yeats," Politics
No.
(Summer
51.
1947), p. 13.
ed. Allan
p.
734; and
W.
B. Yeats,
Vision
Compromise with
the
Herd
is
89
the destruction of
electorate, in Britain,
T.
S.
on "The Literature
later that "huis
of Fascism" in
The
few years
calls
"moral perversion")
"always dangerous."
^^
vacuum
after the
inside
in our century;
now,
pep
talk
from the
political issues
to associate
am no
The
Fascist,"
Campbell
an
article of his in
word on
this
problem
Lewis should be
left
with Eliot,
who
^*
in
for
Mr. Lewis's
politics, I see
no reason
I
to sup-
any more of a
'fascist'
or 'nazi' than
am."
52. T. S. Eliot,
Criterion, 8,
No. 31 (Dec.
1928), 281.
Criterion, 11, No. 44 (April 1932), 467. "The Lion and the Fox," Twentieth Century Verse, 6/7 (Nov./ Dec. 1937), unpaged. Stanley Edgar Hyman, The Armed Vision (New York, Knopf, 1948), p. 87, explores the (obviously absurd) idea of Eliot being in any
53. T. S. Eliot, 54. T. S. Eliot,
way
we
Contemporary Issues
(1956), where
"The thing
Chapter
'
g:
'Mister Ivory
Tower
woman
acquaintance in
I
St.
remark."
[Rude Assignment,
p.
100.]
what
Attheendof
Many they
do they matter?
face,
.
and
.
may
seem,
is is
is
necessarily so
and
is
in the spirit of
Pound's statement:
"There
no misanthropy
for
2
in a
There
no respect
mankind save
dividuals."
enemies
If
in respect for detached inmen,' " Tarr says, " 'are always the
deceived, his basic idea of a successful society does not alter. Only
common good
is
a fallacy, for
1.
Tarr (Chatto),
p.
second edition.
2.
Little
Review Anthology,
p.
ed.
102.
91
common
to
an unorganized
mob
of
"per-
''perpen-
Ned
Democracy more
tells
like a
pyramid,
and
less like
us,
reached world
Man
the enormously
.
.
is
a degeneracy
it
such
in
One-Way Song,
we
To move
it
from
its
latter-day doldrums.
individ-
has also like Carlyle and Arnold (not to mention Ortega y Gasset) referred to the necessity of stirring the pampered masses
of the
of their apathy
by means of a few
elite
in-
dividuals.
Maurras
called for
his political
it is
perhaps
this
notion. In
1950 he
writes:
"The more
intellectual minority
proposed here
development as
with
it
it
human
group, takes
no effluvium of
herd,"
is
This intellectual
elite,
who
"human
function"
is
to
remain apart, on
is
him, after
3.
all,
"La
Babbitt,
92
Democratic accourt done,
les
Politics
Thus
as a necessity for
mankind
in its
own
interests.
is
What Lewis
elite.
And
alter,
humbug
to
life
with
name
of the Not-
Self, politics
must cease
dominate the
deavor, and creative intelligence must guide the world. For "The
life
of the intelligence
is
The
is
Kemp
form of the
Condemned.^
For only
To
this
a "person"
for the
may
we
are told,
meant
Greek or
Roman
Thus a
stranger, lion,
it is
human
name
suggesting the
dawn
of a
new
social era
the case for the elite against the Bailiff's liber alp. xxiii.
Maurras frequently
finds
democracy a kind
p. 448.
6. 7.
Wyndham
It
Condemned (London, Methuen, 1954), pp. 79-96. would merely complicate Lewis' argument here to introduce the case
Lewis, Self
slave.
of the
Roman
The
slave
was
having recog-
nized the laws of the dominant society under duress; he was thus "normal," for
Lewis, in that he lived by the rules of this society and served the "person," but
93
ism ("liberally loving and even worshipping black red and yellow
men
and teachers").
a premise of neoclassicism and rests largely
The
an
elite is
on the idea that order, authority, discipline are the foundations of a good society. For Maurras, indeed, order was a sacred syllable, an echo of Comte heard in the silence of the night. Not "organisation" but "ordre"
is
Maurras'
call; for
knew
was only
as important
and genius,
Pound
is
the "will
like the
Duce;
Pound
of which
"order." Eliot,
who
has consistently
of Essays
The
most closely
Sir
allied in this
matter
of the elite
now famous
and Romantic."
finds
him
close to
Benda and
Gorham Davis
de-
(to
whom
Eliot
Seilliere.
In fact,
Leander
8.
finds
them
"identical." ^^
3,
Jews, p. 74; Wyndham Lewis, "The Artist as Crowd," The Twentieth Century, No. 14 (April 1932), 12. This periodical recalls a literary society of the thirties, called the Promethean Society, to which Lewis may or may not have belonged,
men
if
like
Hugh Gordon
not Lewisite.
10.
Folke Leander,
94
Politics
Yet only
be linked
much
of
which
is
Seilliere says,
his "libido
it
dominandi," as he
calls
(from
St.
Augustine), likening
praise-
worthy
if
humaine" which
calls
most of us
Reason and
logic,
calls "raison-experience."
With-
Seilliere
means
this
may be
must
savoir"
and
"le conseil
his
this
book
kind
is
on Lawrence,
Seilliere finds
Lawrence's "vitalism" to be
is
this
d'elite
approaches Lewis
evil (in his fourth
he sees romanticism as
in his
book
literature
Hugo
or Baudelaire, he
yet ready to
et
Le Romantisme,
Romantisme
demo-
cratie
romantique (Paris,
fiditions
et
p. 21.
12. Seilliere,
Romantisme
13. latter
Benda
democratie romantique, pp. 26, 33, 141. and mysticism, calling the
Benda
it
sees
this
form of
libido
life,
is
may be
217. There
on
this page.
Benda himself
should read
p. 85,
however.)
''Mister Ivory
Tower"
95
In passing, one notes that the in-
villains,
Hugo and
elite
is
mal romantique"
thirties.
The
idea of an intellectual
it
may be found
in the
can,
what
elite
may,
elite,
instance,
who
One
Of
course,
may be some
many
most
critics feel
movement reached
its
fruitful
it.
and
the
we should
On
more
intelligent
than
also,
"Agathon,"
Lanson
nombre"
in
UEsprit de
la
elite intellectuelle" in
is filled
was Babbitt, or
As
and
regards
its
Eliot.
And
perhaps
why
Eliot,
"an insolent people," has yet been able to praise so highly the
Action Frangaise. Maurras continually insisted on hereditary values,
as located in family,
14.
monarchy.
State,
also
is critical of Maurras himself throughout La Trahison but whole neoclassical love of order which he finds linked to war.
When
Lewis
is fair
criticizes
"action." It
to say that
Maurras held a
different
96
Politics
critics
who
is
may be
found quite
"A
real
democracy
and
a
responsibilities." ^^
More
community
body of
In-
(which sounds
deed, Eliot will allow no alternative to this view other than totalitarianism: "If
you
will not
have
God (and He
is
a jealous
^^
God)
to Hitler or Stalin."
Chapter 2 of
between
elite,
art
and
religion,
is
like. Eliot's
which we should
instantly elect
is
live in
dominant or governelite,
ing
elite,
of the nation
as a whole,
would
consist of those
whose
responsibility
^^
was
in-
and
position."
To which we may
^^
Eliot's elite
may be
but
it is
not the
name of his movement) from Lewis or Benda. But Lewis also number of places. Like Hulme, Maurras for Lewis helped to
the average
true, as
praises
Maurras
It
in a
{Blasting
may be
Mansell Jones writes (P. Mansell Jones, Tradition and Barbarism, London,
81), that Maurras has been one of the few today to
I
simply after novelty in thought, one need only repair to a lunatic asylum.
Humanisme
integral, p. 266.
et
elite in
is
work, as in Christianisme
democratie in the
not
opposed to an "6galitarisme
97
^o
to use Eliot's
word
for
And
it
was
For
Confucianism was
humanism "alarmingly
^^
in
The Forum
it
The
real
than a servant of
The Criterion for October 1933 Eliot regrets that Babbitt's mind remained "obdurate" to the Christian religion to the end, and "Second Thoughts about Humanism" adds little beyond further fear of the Protestant nature of American humanism.
of Babbitt in
word "imagination"
life,-^
as the faculty
which sought
The
"critical
humanism"
-^
intellect) to
Maurras
word
opposed to
niveleur" and
is
common man. He
elite
come
Christianisme et
democratie,
politics,
89-90,
108).
which he
intellect
calls "politicisme,"
much
stress
on the
as does Lewis,
281-4).
Gods,
this
p. 45.
Would
this reference
Card? The Use of Poetry and the Use of Criticism (London, Faber
book, already
cited, in
Visiting
p. 132.
use of "imagination"
24. Irving
Democracy and Leadership, pp. 10-13; Babbitt develops his special more fully in On Being Creative. Babbitt, Rousseau and Romanticism (Boston, Houghton Mifflin,
1919), p. 382.
98
Politics
false
is
is
good when
it
humanism,
that
human animal
the concrete
is
in the abstract.
in
modern hu-
this,
was bound up
and
in this
Lewis
the
would not
elite
presumes that
art,
aesthetic will,
presumes that
am
He
is
he
likes to
elite,
as
when
is
minority
is
ethically energetic
^^
and
and exemplary."
is
above
ethics,
beyond
morals. These are for the animal kingdom, for the "thing": "Dogs,
natural,
and the
moral philosopher,
I believe." So, in
a word,
we can
him
from
that
neoclassicism
the
for
is
Hulme was
divided.
He
defends Bergson
^^
same reason
but
and
posed by
for
in
The
New Age
November
drawn
and constant
calls
nature of
man"
Hulme
dislikes
what he
social progress
25. Babbitt,
26.
upward and,
as
"North
p. 309.
Hulme
T. E.
Hulme, Speculations (London, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1924-), pp. Bergsoniii," The New Age, 10, No. 4 (Nov. 1911), 79-82. In Time and Western Man, as well as elsewhere, Lewis arraigns
Bergson as "mechanical."
99
who
The New
Age.
much
interpreter;
and
it
critic,
who
combat a
politician
much
with us as
all,
write
for fear
camp by
what Leon
what
Daudet
writers
(and Pound, in
for
its
Gold and Work, "the infamous century of usury") would never have supported today, is enough,
of
in the
words
^^
W. Y.
Surely this
the neoclassicists. It
politics of
bring with
suck.
of
may
take
And
my
own, concludes
in
that the
France
was
to
Of
course, there
is
some elements
of value in order
become
such,
and the
resolutely antitraditional
finds neoclassicism
As
own
as far as
politics
is
in
Modern
British
Literature
1 885-1946
29. Regis Michaud, Modern Thought and Funk and Wagnalls, 1934), p. 262.
Literature in France
(New York,
100
a periodical edited from
Politics
Cambridge (England)
at the
end of the
The
Empson and
J.
Bronow-
happy
^^
both
men
of philosophy.
And
it is
if
this is true of
we must
remember
a
la
that
you
in the
dilemma of on
art
disliking
any assoreality.
and
politics
and of
insisting
being close to
Yet our
forced against his will into association with politics, Lewis has
this
criticism
is
him)
is
an anachronism now,
in
five
hundred years
five
Europe. "There
are
no good
''a
politics,"
but today
we must
by
himself
man
which
laws. It
is
not
no one
else apart
of the revolution necessary for that "tabula rasa," or of that formulation of acceptable laws
is
under which
^^
men might
live freely.
One made
p. 2.
"Wyndham
mann, 1935), p. 476. 32. Quoted from letters to Sir William Rothenstein, thanking him for sending copies of The Enemy to T. E. L. in Karachi. Sir William Rothenstein, Since Fifty (London, Faber and Faber, 1939), p. 70.
101
leapt Lewis' garden wall to
all
and the
latter
man who
meet
that since his party consists of himself alone he has been kept busy.
As Arghol
puts
it
in
The Enemy
self is dirt."
is
that a writer
fact, that
irre-
It is
amazing, in
man
sponsibly. It
suggestively puts
where
art
and
politics meet.
else,
the works
we have
an enormous waste of time and energy for the author of The Apes of
God and the artist who could draw "Surrender of Barcelona," and who had made his place in the history of painting secure by 1920. In general terms, however, Hugh Kenner puts the case against Lewis best here when he writes that "The polemics exalt a rhetorical
kind of knowing over a grasp,
is
to
know."
PART
II:
ART
"Reality
is
image only
in life,
approach so near as
The
question of
focus depends on the power of his eyes, or their quality." [Blast No.
J, p.
135.]
Chapter
6:
Sort of Life
"Art
of
at its fullest is a
life,
a very great
'reality.' "
thyrambic Spectator,
p. 69.]
If
we can
say
that for
Wyndham
art is
to depict reality,
we need
first
to fortify ourselves at
of definitions. Let us
The
apprehension of
reality,
which
is
human
awareness,
is
always to
This can be
article in
The Apes of God), and throughout Time and Western Man. In his attack on Spengler in this last work he puts the contrast, to be repeated by the sympathetic Greek Hyperides, in The Childermass, between "classical," external painting and "romantic," internal music. He would have agreed with Hulme who wrote that "an art like music proceeds from the inside.'* Spengler is "musical." He attacks the principle of the hard outline, as do Bergson and Einstein. So, riding roughshod over any particular distinctions on this point, neglecting a composer like Bach, for instance, Lewis writes in Time and Western Man: "the line (or 'drawing,' in whose repudiation by his faustian spirit you see, above, Spengler exulting) is the Classical;
is
the musical
p. 290.
106
"Je
ha'is le
Art
les lignes!"
Lewis
tells
us he
said to Marinetti,
own
Heron
writes in
The
New
Kemp, Lewis maintains from the first that art is stronger and more important than life. "The Artist's OBJECTIVE is Reality," we read in Blast No, 1 (when Lewis had arrived at his purely abstract phase), to which is added, "The 'Real Thing' is always Nothing." If we watch Lewis' use of inverted commas, we will not find him contradictory on this
between
art
and
life?
score.
Life, in other words, "reality,"
is
artist.
"Deprived of
Life in-
becomes so brutalized
that the
as to
this
be mechanical."
We
^
must
There
remember
man who
wrote
was
also to
be author of the
we contaminate
ourselves."
are two important essays where Lewis develops these views, "Vortices
and Notes"
in Blast
Plastic
To summarize
these essays
aesthetic.
Only
artistic life,
the
life
of the intelligence,
is
true
life.
The only
unimportant,
No.
2, that
he must rearrange
or
"ENRICH
abstraction."
"Dissociating vitality
life.
from
One
2.
3.
much
Blasting
p. 262.
4.
"Vortices"
respelt to "Vorteces" in
1, p.
127), but I
Sort of Life
aesthetics
107
(especially
nineteenth-century
those
of
Whistler
or
Baudelaire), for
individual,
we have
the
artist as privileged
supreme
interpreter,
dem
horte.
But a
distinction arises as
is
manner
in
reality
artist
its
to
be brought
namely the
the eyes.
intellect.
felt in
"The
act of creation,"
here the
will, "is
human
will."
He
for
goes on,
The Tyro,
to describe
what
Wilhelm
Worringer
ment,
is
we may have
The
watching a river or a
star, is for
art").
is
means
of the intellect,
and
one unafflicted
see a
the onlooker
would
new
"One
is
that has so
many
it
attention
by an impressive novelty, he
own
reality
^
this veil, as
In passing,
humanism"
was
to
intellect," as
opposed to
in the ro-
saw
Democracy
But
al-
writes of "the
supremacy of
it
will."
is
this subject,
not easy to
Lewis
supernatural in origin
"That
likely"
Man,
6.
p.
198).
2, p. 33.
108
define
Art
"will." Still,
it
is
inner spiritual
'
The
"ethical
was Babbitt's
and
to
was
finally subordinate. It
is
sary to evidence
how
strongly Lewis
knew
by
for he
^
saw a Lewis
drawing in
Eliot's flat as
The
it.
declaration of
war on
art
artist
should cease to
that
I
Far from
to
We
man
it
Enemy
in
One-Way Song
"He knows
it
live
comes
does
much
all,
as I
is
do drinking
But
mean
alone of the
intellect.
For, after
number
of
inventive, creative
men
In
art, as in politics
is
and philosophy,
a fluid moving
in
^^
Pound wrote
The
Spirit of
Romance, and again, "The arts are kept up by a very few people." ^^ The heresy of what Lewis calls the "dithyrambic spectator," then, is the invasion of the inviolable artistic stage, or dance, by the
Democracy and Leadership, p. 195. Montgomery Belgion, "Irving Babbitt and the Continent," T. S. Eliot. A Symposium (London, Editions Poetry London, 1948), p. 52. Perhaps this reaction explains why Babbitt wept at the first Cezanne he saw. That is to say, one is
7.
Babbitt,
8.
never sure whether Babbitt wept with dismay at the "incoherence" of the Cezanne,
or with joy at seeing classical principles reintroduced into painting. The latter
reaction
it
art
and war
"I
in
his
this
67.
On
work which he
inscribed for
Lord Carlow, we
him
writing,
send
this war-life."
10.
11. 12.
p. 141.
Spirit of
1910), p.
vi.
p. 3.
A
spectator
Sort of Life
109
part of
is
"audience-participation," as he also called it. The second The Diabolical Principle and the Dithyrambic Spectator ^^ a discussion of a work that pretends to show art and ritual close,
The
spectators
must be kept
today, but
be corrupted. Philosophy
(Spengler, especially)
it is
and
politics
Lewis
mixing
in forms of reality to
want
to
be an
who can
afford the
Bohemia he
excoriates
in
The Apes of God. For, although he uses "ape" in another, special work are dithyrambic spectators, apes
artist; this is
perhaps epitomized in
Wyndis
child art,
since art
is
partly a
phenomenon: "Communism
actors."
^*
is
swarm on
it,
and
become
we
and
life is
and
sees
finds too
much
les choses,
13.
Although we
principle, or inveterate
enemy of
to romantic
"diabolism."
He
is
and of
" 'the
arch-enemy of any
it
to Anastasya.
Tarr (Chatto),
p. 302.
110
Art
the
XX^ siecle est dominee par cette And one can find the same in other
one should remember that
should remain detached, in
intellect
artist
But
in Bergson's defense
Le
domains he accorded
and
in-
tuition in
ticists.
UEvolution
by the antiromanstatic
de
la conscience,
intelligence (Paul)
and dynamic
intuition (Pierre).
life
But
and
Lewis
is
closer to the
German
to
aestheticians,
and particularly
I will
to
Whistler or Baudelaire.
go into
below; here
it is
enough
(first
Mensch"
of
human
life,
from
which he abstracted
existed
life
it
inasmuch
as
The art of primitive man was removed from, and an ordering of, the
in the truest sense.
this
condition
For Worringer,
on
its
absence
of
was accordingly a
and
"Die
By
contrast:
ist
Linie
der
primitiven
Ornamentik
ist
geometrisch,
tot
und
allein
und
^^
is
For Worringer,
geometric,
aussermenschliche Starrheit
15.
16.
ist
^'^
This
Wilhelm Worringer, Agyptische Kunst (MUnchen, Piper, 1927), p. 7. Wilhelm Worringer, Formprobleme der Gotik (Miinchen, Piper, 1912),
Worringer, Agyptische Kunst,
p. 106.
p.
35.
17.
Sort of Life
111
(or real)
life,
is
most important
it is
to
proaching Vorticism.
And
mum-
comes nearer
to being life
than at any other recorded period: and apparently for the reason
that
it
was death."
from the so-called
alive,
or spuriously alive,
since
what we
machines)
is
a kind
mummification (which
art has
is,
after
all,
unimpeded by the
is
and yet he
Eccentric as
it
may
seem,
this is
what Lewis
And
bones.
chair,
*
It asks nothing better than a corpse, and it thrives upon Did not Cezanne bellow at his sitter, when he fell off the You're moving! Les pommes, qa. ne bouge pas!' " ^^
is
Lewis
this
kind of art
is
the greatest of
all
time,
a pantheist in Tarr.
And
criticism of Bergson's
It is in this
for the
mummifier
art.
artist
"The
this,
EYE
my
was the
last
however, his
mummy
that
is,
it
became
Dan
Boleyn (Apes,
231).
frangais, p. 537.
19. Lasserre,
Romantisme
At
work Lasserre
of which
much
may
criticizes political
pantheism (fanati-
112
Art
difficult,
and otherwise
at the
"What
"Very
"No."
art?
all
it
"Life with
the
do?"
well: but
what
is
life?"
it is
"Everything that
art."
"Very
well:
Death
is
is
peculiar to
life."
"And
to art as well."
first
edition,
we new
find
an
speech,
which she
material so
remark that
dignified
life
When
flects of her:
"How
when a
incidentally,
Counter Point),
is
deadness
is
the
first
condition of
art.
of the
hippopotamus, the
and machinery,
in
along with
no
elasticity of
camp. Deadness
the
human and
masses are
for
its
is
lines
and
soul,
it
restless
inflammable ego
imagined
interior:
that
capital. ^2
cism), aesthetic pantheism (love of the norm, rather than of the beautiful), and
Tarr (Chatto),
p. 302.
Wyndham
One should
soul should
art,
A
In
Sort of Life
113
Man
that
as his
will,"
human
Moore
in
only
way
all,
most concrete
This
is
not so perverse as
sounds; reality
only in the
artist's
the v/orld
common
sense.
Here experience
is
ordering of "reality,"
"person"; "reality
is
to
be sought in the
Clouard makes a very similar claim for the benefit of the French
neoclassicist,
and
its
For
col-
no
valueless:
sift,
"when we
'get together,'
and
clash
at
and
fuss, scrutinize
and
we
which
collectively
we become convinced
not red."
From
inspired
verity. "
mind
abstracts a static
is
permanence which
aesthetic
"
'Death
in
life,'
Tarr
says,
and
it
an
article
calling
in the
middle of
statue
...
still
is
one of the
This
for Lewis.
diversity.
It is
associating
with "oneness."
The
since
it
is
performed
Lewis often
confesses.
23. 24.
Wyndham
the Painter
i,"
The
EnglisJi
Review,
34 (Jan. 1922),
114
center
is
Art
the
consummate
it
is
"The Art
^s
is
"DOING
WHAT NATURE
DOES,"
true centre
the abiding
implicated."
25. Blast
No.
2, p. 46.
26. Babbitt,
p. 391.
Chapter
7: Lyrical
"In
my
has seemed to
me
job
uncreative.
It
makes the
is
we
a
all
do
only
when people
grow
too
much
that
it is
good
that
it
is
highly unsatisfactory
is
that I
restless.
is
If
Wyndham
a correction of contempo-
set
is
The French
No.
on
,
light
(though
this
reached a
essentially the
French nine-
teenth-century
movement
in painting
was
we
interpene-
tragic literalness,
its
wavy
contours,
its
fashionable
super-
fuss, points
life itself
sedes art."
We
this
movement,
for
Lewis simply challenges Impressionism as nineteenth-century romanticism, and pass on to the present. In doing
so,
Cezanne should
critics,
be excepted. For, in
1.
common
2, p. 31.
116
Art
classical principles
is
work
of Cezanne.
Cezanne
"something
^
when
faced with the post-Cezanne Cubist movement. This, Lewis paradoxically asserts,
is
taste. ^ I shall
return to
this,
but
it
was
as
an ugly
dis-
Stamp seems to be indulging in, The Revenge for Love) that Lewis really disliked this movement. Handley-Read and Patrick Heron both independently see Lewis' own drawing as opposite in method to
in
who,
far
first,
work from
within,
sensation of a plane
Handley-Read
art is to
calls
it.
be found in
his de-
The Caliph's Design. Architects! Where sionate plea for the divorce of art and
strident
one of the
it
least
works, and
seems
to
his
Cosmic
Man
The
Piccadilly
Review (Ford
Madox
all
bridge Magazine,
its
literary style.
The
daily papers
seem
to
polite,
unusually so in their
2.
This
1, p. 137, Cezanne is called an "imbecile." comments on this painter, and I cannot account for it, beyond pointing out that the first Blast was concerned to advance English painting beyond that on the Continent and therefore Cezanne may have
Wyndham Lewis
below.
Men
without Art,
p.
203,
Cubism seems
this
awakening of
111
some of this approval can be put down to the fact that superficially The Caliph's Design can be read as a conservative appeal to "stop the rot" coming from Paris.
course,
One
sicists.
facility for
Benda, making the same criticism in Belphegor, adds that our love
of novelty
is
living today.
is
What
for
Lewis the
apply
is
we
will
new
may have
modern artist is too lazy to approach nature in manner and so seizes whatever in nature will confirm his own inner theories. This tendency Andre Lhote also calls "apriorisme" both in his La Peinture: Le Coeur et V esprit and his admirably intelligent articles in The Athenaeum after the first World War, and for Lewis it finds a dupe in D. H. Lawrence. T. S. Eliot, who thought Lawrence's work that of "a very sick
the classical (external)
chiefly considered,
"my
as
an exposure of Lawrence's
is
Such
it is.
Lawrence
guilty of having
imported
own
committed "on the side of the oppressed and superseded, the underdog." Seilliere goes nowhere near as far as this in his book on
4.
118
Art
intellect
and author of a
study of Stefan George published in 1902. The year after Paleface came out Lawrence was highly impolite to Lewis in an introduction to Edward Dahlberg's Bottom Dogs, while for Lawrence's real attitude to the Negro his derogatory review of Carl van Vechten's Nigger Heaven should be read.
is
Hungering
after sensation as
we do,
setting
up novelty
as authenticity,
we approach
we
by two trends
the cult of
in for
Gauguin stands
Lawrence.
Gauguin, "a vulgar tripper by the side of Cezanne," shares in that
kind of romanticism which champions Asiatic exoticism over Euro-
and
defeatist exoticism, of
which Dada
also part,^
is
Gauguin, ridiculed
is
characterized in
as
like
But
this
masquerader,
this
bag of
schoolboy conceits,
this old-clo
was not an
artist-type.
an
artist-type.
He was
He
was
5.
sunny friends
And Lewis
gives the art
in the
Marquesas
chance
Wyndham Lewis
like
movement
Dada
bad since
it
world
just the
it
is
119
a savage as an American
He was
in as limited a
way
negro
is
typic, or a
Among
posed to
same primitivism ("naturisme"), but "cette ecole regressive" of modern art which Seilliere sees as seriously risking its sanity includes Van Gogh and Cezanne. The whole appendix to Seilliere's Le Mai romantique, entitled "Le Romantisme dans
I'art
Andre Lhote, on
the other hand, though milder in his criticism than Lewis and clearly
more concerned to help his reader than somewhat similarly opposed to Gauguin
ing and, in
solide'* of
La
Peinture,
line
and "realisme
cult of the
Cezanne.
this pictorial primitivity is
For Lewis
art
He
and
in
The
adult.
He
this respect
Herbert replying
the story
"My
likes.
Disciple" in Rotting
on the kind of
art
Read
Here an
art teacher
Read,
of
The
New Laokoon
And if this
7.
Ernest
Seilliere,
Sir Herbert
Faber, 1952),
p. 44.
120
child in contemporary painting
Art
seem
to us today unexceptional
and
it must be remembered that Lewis' own art grew up against these trends. Thus, in the Catalogue to Roger Fry's famous "Post-Impressionist Exhibition" of 1911, where advanced
unexceptionable,
styles in painting
were
first
shown
to a
much
in
an attempt to
the
^
represent what the eye perceives as to put a line round a mental con-
work
of the primitive
artist,
extraordinarily expressive."
say, but expressive of
They
what? So,
going from
this exhibition to
work
in Fry's
Omega Workshops, he
There then followed
is
espe-
When
The Athenaeum, The Caliph's Design, and an important Foreword to his first one-man exhibition, called Guns, at the Goupil Gallery in February 1919. At this time he formed his "X" Group, to which E. McKnight Kauffer among others belonged, but he tells us later
of
art
criticism,
including
some perspicacious
articles
in
my
The
sign,
is
summarized
The
Caliph's De-
which
much
as for
anything.
It is
of executant genius.
We
are the
first
civilization,
Lewis reminds
mode
of our time.
life
The
great
cultures of ancient
whole, in
art either
is
way we
refuse to,
perversely insensitive or
cisely
art."
This
pre-
the average (or ugly) rather than exceptional (or beautiful) going
hand
9.
to justify such
pp. 11-12.
121
reminds
us, is
making
an
ethical,
The
between executant
vitality in
serious scepticism
and discouragement
The
first
Again
in 1940, writing in
The New
Republic, he sees
modern
title
abstract art
question of Lewis'
McKnight
art,
even
this of
What The
was the
modern
in
executive
skills,
mark
of studio art.
You must
and
into life
somehow
or other
if
new
he
is
vitality dessicated in a
vievv' is
Pocket of inorganic
This
"The
10.
artist
must,
to survive,
come
Another ambivalent
is
attitude
must be recorded
No.
1, p.
142,
when Matisse had developed his characteristically distorted odalisques, Lev/is classes him in the category of imbecile artist, to which in literature Gertrude Stein belongs. So we read, "The
Matisse
highly praised. However, later, perhaps
goitrous torpid and squinting husks provided by Matisse in his sculpture
are
home" {Art
of Being Ruled,
419).
11.
Caliph's Design, p. 7.
122
at large,
Art
his
The Caliph's Design refers only to the artist up to 1912 or 1913, we also find from the pamphlet that Lewis had visited the Picasso exhibition put on in London shortly after the end of the first World War and which drew somewhat similar, though far less severe, criticism from Andre Lhote. But Lhote defended Picasso from "apriorisme," and it must be borne in mind that Lhote, for whom Cezanne constituted "the first recall to classical order," ^^ liked the resuscitated interest in David at this time, an interest Lewis explicitly deplores in The Caliph's Design. In Lewis,
possibly from the authority of his
the
critic
of this time
making a thorough,
and
especially
who wrote
scathingly of Lewis'
it,^^
own
painting,
of R. H. Wilenski's praise of
when approaching Picasso in his articles entitled "Order and Authority" which began in The Athenaeum for November 7, 1919.
Having said
Design Picasso
artist," 1^
this,
one must
hastily
ability as a painter.
artist,"
Even
is
in
The Caliph's
a "great
and a decade
later
still
Picasso
sees
is
him as a "performer" like Joyce he exhibits that love of novelty and of the ugly which afflicts our art today. The source of his constant alteration in style is boredom and lack of belief; pro12.
and
Lewis
Wyndham
Lewis
[Letter],
The
New
the
(May
20, 1940),
675.
13.
Modern
Artistic
Sensibility,"
5,
107.
123
will quickly tire
of each
new
he explores. In
brief, Picasso is a
mirror of his
^^
as
he
wrote in 1940. For Lewis' criticism of Picasso has not altered. Reviewing a Picasso exhibition in London in 1950, he
still
finds
smug
vitality." ^^
So Lewis
criticizes in
is
Picasso our
of truth in
own
age.
As with much
other artists
a grain
it,
who
had remained
call classical
as
some
he
is
gamut
of prac-
But
bankruptcy of our times, one can happily add that in the discussion of Picasso in
The Revenge
for
^^
seems to
own
Vorticist paintings
Love Tristram Phipps (who and is thus probably a symon Picasso made by the po-
conscious
artist,
At
first
art
How
artist
with
removes the
artist
from humanity
tells
lest
he become contaminated by
him
Wyndham
Kenyon Review,
200.
17. Wyndham Lewis, "Round the London Art Galleries," The Listener, 44, No. 1135 (Nov. 30, 1950), 650. 18. Jack Cruze describes one on Tristy's wall as like "a blooming airplane crash in the middle of a football scrum" {Revenge for Love, p. 116).
124
Art
contradiction
is
The
must
only apparent.
The
artist's intellect,
housed in
it
the eyes, must remain aloof, apart from particular passion, but
irradiate the
sentative section to be
Secondly, there
practice.
beliefs.
is
own
But again
it is
up with
art
his critical
On
the whole,
shows three
and
fully abstract.
In the
at St.
first
group we
S.
of 1938 Augustus
John tendered
body (he
is
and the
portrait
now
at
in his autobi-
Goupil Gallery
all
The Observer
for
November
we
man
him-
suffering
some
distortion.
But the
metallic, armored,
machine-
work (cf. "Inca and Rude Assignment) are not really disfor Lewis when we acknowledge his view of the human What is more, this artistic transcending of the world of
which he
is
"things,"
I
giving us here,
it
is
by no means ugly
so.
at least
am
to
be
The
distortion
is
based
on his philosophic beliefs: "We preferred something more metallic and resistant than the pneumatic surface of the cuticle. We preferred a helmet to a head of hair."
The
to Lewis'
decade of
his
this century,
altogether
drawing and
relied
from
shall
a period
we
125
"stylistic
watch Hulme
criticizing below,
^^
arrangements of experience."
primarily designed to
this fully
on the Continent. In
and we
and shapes.
War
I. I
attempted totally
my work
all
reference to nature
... At
It
was
their practice
by painting a
straight
,
still-life,
as
to abstraction
and distortion ... If you are going to be abstract, I argued, why worry about a lot of match-boxes, bottles of beer, plates
of apples, and picturesque guitars?
upon
Why
any
since
almost disap-
peared?
2^
Such
is
but an idiot
in that
or a Dutchman, like
^^
Mondrian
same
would
is
pass his
life
vacuum."
to his
Virtually the
criticism
made
in his
Foreword
justified
and
is
at its best
when
its
complete, as in Kandin-
1914
Vorticists,
20.
ings,
Wyndham
Draw-
May
43,
5,
1949), unpaged.
21.
Wyndham
Lewis,
"Round
the
London
Galleries,"
The
Listener,
No.
126
rather than
Art
when
its
basis
^^
is still
dogma
will
artistic
development
know
his strenu-
new
its
naturalism
"Superof
flicker
in 1939.
on
in
America, and
second
its
World War
Burra,
his
hos-
Edward
Keith
Michael Ayrton
Ceri
Richards,
at the
end of
the
phenomenon
to
extent,
attributable
two sources,
as
we
shall see,
total
this latter
all,
source in Blast-
ing
abstraction, after
makes a
telling
man
at the center
Wyndham
castigated elsewhere.
As
must simply
Wyndham
Lewis,
Note,
Catalogue,
Exhibition
Drawings,
Book
Illustrations,
May
by
which
a clarity in form, the shunning of the romantic blur and blotch, fastidiously dis-
127
I believe, to
see as he
would wish us
to
what he
means by calling Cubism photographic. For although there are moments when Lewis seems to suggest that Cubism made a refreshing (and anti-Bergsonian) re-emphasis on form, he usually associates it with Impressionism. He does so in The Athenaeum in several places: "The particular decomposition and distortion of Cubism
is
One need
Cubism, but
criticism.
is
otherwise a
difficult
ing the
One of the tenets of Impressionism, he claims, was "catchMoment on the hop," that is, the artist's "photographing" a specific moment at a specific time and in a specific place. This, of course, is opposed to the classical ideal of permanence. He
The Athenaeum, and Lhote
agrees, that the Cubist
is
explains in
was aiming
just the
more
extreme example of
romantic "immediacy."
"A Review
of
Contempo-
most
interesting, for
Futurism had
much
in
common
anti-Picasso, as
anathema
"No."
to him, so that
when Marinetti
Futurist,
him on
their
way
to
reply,
The
first
ap-
advocated speed,
("We wish
to glorify
War
the only
museums:
Wyndham
Lewis,
"I.
128
Art
We
crowds
in the excitement of
cities;
of the
stations
swallowing
smoking snakes; of
their strings of
gymnasts over
on the
screw
rails, like
huge
sound of whose
thusiastic crowd. 2^
Marinetti, better
known
in
London,
for Marinetti
was a
rich
man and
calls
it,
The
"epileptic rhetoric," as
Lewis
was
movement and
certainly im-
who heard them. When Marinetti lectured London on March 19, 1912, for instance. The
Marinetti used to imitate the sound of
Times
that
tells
when
Bowen calls Marinetti's "zoom-bang poetry," made a point of reciting poems now from subsequent collection called Zang Tumb Tuuum. These poems
at typographical painting,
or the Klang-
Hugo Ball later, a form best utihzed in our times by Cummings perhaps, and worst by Kurt Schwitters in transition,
25. I use the translation contained in the Catalogue to the Futurist Exhibition
p. 4. p. 52.
129
is
as "a
flamboyant personage
rings,
The second
entitled
"Tuons
de lune!"
^^ It
open
fire
("Attention!
movement was
On
futuristi
and on March
8 a spectacular exhibition
at Turin.
and lecture
On
La
pittura
now
and Russolo
as signatories. ^^
La
Venice being
reviled for
its
gon-
On March
9,
Le Futurisme,
year
the
The next
their
Futurists
staged
it.
their
international
exhibition,
et Cie. in Paris
Douglas Goldring, South Lodge (London, Constable, 1943), p. 64. 28. F. T. Marinetti, Le Futurisme (Paris, Sansot, 1911), pp. 155-78. I base date on Luigi Fillia, // Futurismo (Milano, Sonzogno, 1932), p. 19.
29. Reprinted in
my
Umberto
130
Art
London,
Gallery,
March 1912.
In April/May
it
was on display
it
at
strasse in Berlin,
and
in
September we find
at the
it
De Roos
on the Rokindam,
in
Amsterdam, whence
moved
On November
17,
it
Dore Gallery
in
Bond
on April
30, 1914,
May
5, that fired
much
W.
Nevinson's
To
Gaudier-Brzeska,
T. E.
Hulme
(all
big
As
a big
the scenes to
affair,
accompany
but
Marinetti's poetry,
can we doubt
Thus
who
this lecture in
in the
Dore
Gallery,
at the
billiard
he does point up
on May 5, 1914, that touched off Vorticism. some one and a half months later. On September 1 8 Marinetti was arrested by the police in Milan for organizing a Futurist demonstration to try to get Italy to join in the war
that
was
this lecture,
on the
30.
p.
176.
131
of Futurist "thought,"
had been
anti-
Noi and
antiromantic,
the introduction of
thus,
to suffragettes. This
artist
was simply
Tot!
reiterated
by Boccioni
Tot!"
some of
Futurist,
good
though claimed
as a Cubist
by
Of
Lewis also
at this time.
hand
at the
The Cuban Cubist, Picabia, tried all styles. As that sensitive critic Gustave Coquiot, no more friendly to Cubism than Boccioni, was quickly aware, however, the Futurists criticized themselves. ^^ Even a sympathetic study like Rosa Clough's Looking Back at Futurism can really find little to praise in the movement as a whole. Lewis himself challenged Futurism on two
grounds; as he fairly puts
violently combated,
it
later,
and had
Marinetti's anti-passeisme,
sees
and dynamism."
it
anxious to an-
This
an accurate
As we read
(Paris,
in Blast
Editions
No.
1,
31.
ciibistes
"Athena,"
1913),
32.
Gustave Coquiot,
1914), p. 93.
33.
132
Art
afraid of the Past:
it
has forgotten
its
existence."
^^
calls for
an
art to
look entirely
New
Epoch"), he
criticized
in all of
Futurism
us
is
the
machine." This
sonality
is
is
part of
time,
from
all
times
(he
is,
in fact, a vortex).
The
Futurists, then,
by overemphasis, were
of Impressionism. So in Blast
feeling,
No.
1,
much
figuratively speaking,
He
repeats this in
The
Caliph's Design:
"The
Futurists,
and
their
Their
dogma
is
on
its
Science, the
critique of
Futurism
is
best explained
by
what Lewis
disliked. Severini's
namism
in
Motion" shows a
woman
Duchamp's
in every
Staircase," or
an instructional picture
golf,
shown
No.
1, p.
147. In
One-Way Song,
102,
we
read, "give
me England
Give
me
"front" (future).
35.
(Sept.
1,
A Memoir
133
Resume
of a
Woman's Movements"
is
the same.
its
eyes. Boccioni's
"Muscles in
"plastic ensemble."
Lewis ob-
was an undeniable
in-
pneumatic
drill to
the
man
in his
Drill"
Benda
a horse in motion having twenty feet and attacks this kind of art
for assailing the very principle of art, the
eternity.
^^
still
absolute,
symbol of
Benda
du Bergsonisme, and of
calls his
just
what Bergson
"mecanisme
frequently
Boccioni
likely to
have been
it
was lecturing on
in the
the College de
itself to
France
us
in a constant
by a
series
graphique
est
done
tendant que
le detail
de la connaissance."
36. T. E.
^^
Critics,"
The
New
(Dec. 25, 1913), 251-3. This issue carries a reproduction of Epstein's drawing for
"The Rock
New
(Wyndham
37. Julien
Lewis, "The
Rock
le
The
New
Benda, Sur
UEvolution
creatrice, p. 332.
134
Art
intellect this).
The
Futurist aesthetic
was amenable
to this attack.
in 1919.^^
way
But Lewis went further than Fry; Futurism was too excitedly Latin
love of the machine. This was what he called Marinetti's
new
put
The
1
No.
"Elephants are
VERY
friend,
New
Marinetti has
come
on
modern
profounder to say on
this.
The
Italians
then,
artists
in Paris,"
and could
not, therefore,
make proper
use of
it
in art.
Although one
it is
only fair to point out that Lewis did their aims injustice. Several
Cezanne
as a
new
classicist in
Lacerba and
in
La
how
(like
critic
for example,
8,
1919),
p.
724.
135
angelo.^^
And
in architecture a close
In actual fact,
if
Wyndham
men
work
whose
early
//
diavolo al Pontelungo)
reminds one of Lewis, and Emilio Cecchi, the present encomiast for
La ronda
for February
La ronda was
Voce group,
its
parits
cultivation of latter-day
Futurism.'*^
In the second
number
La
Futurism with Bolshevism in a penetrating "Communicazione accademica," to most of which Lewis would surely subscribe, and in
the third issue the
especially
same
critic writes
I
perspicaciously on Benda,
on
U Ordination.
Rondisti,
who
Pound
(July
pp.
118ff.,
however,
the
Cubists as anti-Impressionist.
41.
may
La
No. 4 (Dec. 1952), 235-44. Meanwhile, amusingly satirical biographies of several contributors to La ronda may be turned up between pp. 92 and 98 of the November
1919
issue.
136
the linear in
Art
art,
home
town, Venice.
review of Babbitt's
in this
same
And
una
civilta italiana
autoctona"
is
filled
with as
much
was
"neoclas-
The
dis-
that since
romanticism
is
largely antiromantic,
a conscious return
we
find a
contemporary antiromantic
Manzoni and
Leopardi. Thus
La ronda
Lewis and
his ilk.
So
it
is
Pound Marinetti
is
a "corpse" in
Duce
to
Con-
account for
stantly attacking
it
as
Futurism in practice
to peace."
is
the habit of
mind and
conditions of
if
war applied
I
How
one knows
Why
he saw through
have no answer.
More
in
recently,
in matter. In
The Caliph's Design but not nearly so excitingly original The Demon of Progress in the Arts, put out in 1954 and running quickly into new printings, we are told that the visual
form
to
arts are
137
is
being dupli-
cated in our
organic,
is
artistic
life;
instead of being
being
artificially
Everyman");
ologic
^^
and
"he
is
probably
least free
There
is
more
that
is
equally stimulating.
When
Lewis reports
hard
to struggle just as
...
as formerly
we had
^"^
to
do something
'extremist,' "
a pertinent
comment
is
made on
the decline of portrait painting in our time. Lewis cannot feel that
the "aesthetic excursionist," as he calls the extremist artist today,
is
able
figure con-
...
is
upon a canvas or
of
paper." There
is
and a dig
at the
Museum
Modern
dis-
America,
cussion of Malraux,
industrial revolution
who Lewis
on
But
is
The Demon
disappointing. There
this
squib
fizzle out.
is it
true,
Wyndham
Demon
1954), p. 50.
43.
in his
Man (New
York, Devinartist
"The more an
he becomes."
44.
Demon
of Progress, p. 40.
138
families"?
Art
On
much modern
realization that
(if
so, as
would a
they are)
Lewis
for this
sees art
The weakness
of his
is
chiefly
its
(deliberate?) unfairness to
Cubism
its
from which,
its
after
all,
so
much
own
art derives.
mystique
indeed, boasted of
and
What is more,
in
anticipate Vorticism
by Matisse
1908) but
easily
as
art
we
well know,
it
and cannot
be categorized. Like
movements,
resists classification.
However
Du
two
erratic
many
of the Cubist
room
in the
Independants,
is
Moreover,
by
all
all
is
century pantheism
45. Ibid., p. 33,
Here ApoHinaire
"trop
Sir
in reaction to nineteenthles
d'artistes-peintres
Herbert Read
and passim.
may be
perately disliking
Benda
139
^^
Fonde ou
les
was
The
last
made by
this
man
far
as
new
art
was
from
presenting a given
moment
moment
poured a
moments, from
and
future.
of
as anti-Impressionist,
linaire.
As
a good
Frenchman
criticized in the
un non-sens par
:
de
la
couleur
il
et
les
il
et nul.
La
"^^
same high
praise for
Cezanne
as has
much
as Lewis,
he
and he
admires
way
to
exception.
mentions the
art of
mum-
and claims
that the
new
painters
he
is
"Nous
"^^
As he shows
in his
poem "La
was
46. Apollinaire, Peintres cubistes, p. 6. 47. Albert Gleizes et Jean Metzinger, Dii "Ciibisme" (Paris,
Eugene Figuiere,
1912),
p.
8.
140
Art
clearly looking ahead, and welcomed painters like Le Fauconnier, Andre Salmon, Georges Deniker, and Jacques Villon, but he still
and movements.
it is
is
at times unfair,
always
lively.
The
progress of this
observe.
demon in the arts is inevitably entertaining to The same may be said, of course, for his political criticism.
series of
critic for
On
however, as in
still
work
of Michael Ayrton, he
spoils
wholly
in-
terested,
some
of his writing
on
Greenberg,
who
^^
one
totally
opposed to
one
cannot ignore
the former
49.
is
it,
as
one can
Demon
The
New
Chapter
8:
artist to exist at
When you
have removed
is
all
that
is
necessarily
strident,
much
sound art-doctrine
to be
found
1.]
in this
On February
21, 1912,
in
Roger Fry
invited
Lewis to join
his
Omega Workshops;
at the
December
of this year
and founded
Great
Ormond
Street, off
Street,
center
(later to help
Lewis financially),
Omega opened
it
in July 1913,
letter,
from
is
given in a
WadsOmega Workand
at the
trick,
Mr.
Wyndham
Lewis." Fry
^
Lewis was
mural paintings.
He
own
center. His
famous "Cubist
house, at
Room" done
1.
London
Virginia Woolf,
Fry
lish
is
put,
Roger Fry, an Autobiography (London, Hogarth Press, The account Lewis himself gives visitors of this break with with an almost touching credulity, in John Rothenstein, Modern Eng-
Painters
1956), p. 26.
142
Art
40 Wilton Crescent, with its jet ceiling, ebony chimney glass, and Vorticist mirrors, was opened to an astonished public. Violet Hunt
has described Lewis' Rebel Art Centre alleging that Lewis even
advised the faithful on
his murals,
how
to dress.
The most
(
spectacular of
all
Golden
Calf,
owned by Madame
Strindberg
Strindberg's third
Beak
-
Street.
supported by Epstein columns, the walls (as Sir Osbert Sitwell puts
it)
Edgar Jepson
dedicated
this
"Vorticist dances."
its
whom Ford
tells
dance there those obsolete Vorticist dances, the Turkey Trot and
the
Vorticist assaults
on the drama."
at the
Cave
and "A
Hunt was reminded of "raw meat" by Lewis' murals here, and she goes on to describe them in a passage that strongly recalls the description of the "Wheelwright's Yard" in The Enemy of the
Violet
Stars:
pell-
affectionately in
Madame
who was
in
Church
Street,
Kensington, complains
his hat
November 1913
Pound
that a "bloody
there.
And
two
linking the
267.
Enemy
of the Stars, p.
Have This to Say (New York, Boni and Liveright, 1926), 6. The Wheelwright is Arghol's uncle.
p.
143
whose strange dances, accompanied by geometric shadows thrown on a screen, had been a feature of Paris nightclubs in 1908 and 1909. But it was here, chez the Golden Calf, so Violet
Saint-Point,
Hunt
will
alleges,
that the
its
evenings,
the
invitation for
art.
This
formation
is
The work
of this
group of
artists for
and structure of
showing a
exist
life,
different skeleton
Both Lewis
a letter
and Aldington say that Pound invented the word "Vorticist" for
this
tells
this, in
dated
March
10, 1916,
"The
man
or
it,
of the
the variety
skill,
it
...
It
is
is
whole of
is
if I
did find
it
my-
Gaudier-Brzeska,
is
who
work,
ever, places
Horace
be,
it
Brodzky;
5.
Pound
contests this.
However
Egoist, 1,
may
(Jan.
is
9.
Wyndham
Room," The
No.
1,
1914),
6.
Letters of Ezra Pound, p. 74. Cf. for similar enthusiasm, Pound, Pavannes
pp. 109, 110, 148, 245, 246, 250, 251, 254.
and Divisions,
7.
144
Art
(e.g. his love of the art of ancient
classes
Gaudier as
Writing to
Amy
Lowell,
is
Pound now
to
it
914. In Gaudier-
A Memoir
he writes that
was
Dieudonne Restaurant
on Wednesday, July 15, the Blast dinner was held at the in Ryder Street, St. James's a restaurant name (taken from the famous chef, Dieudonet) to reverberate
One trusts that it did not resemble ("We throw the table over ... toe toe toe toe He vomits. They vomit. They laugh" ^^), but it
affair for in the
Tower Restaurant
in Percy
that
The Carlow
evening" for February 23, 1916. But the Blast dinner was that of
July 15, 1914,
MAGENTA
title
on the literary and artistic scene. 9y2" and the Blast No. 7,12a ^i^^ ^ p^g^ ^j.g^ Qf 12"
angled to resemble lightning across the cover, appeared not long be8.
Hugh Ross
Dieu Donnes, and seems to conGlenn Hughes, Imagism and the Imagists
as
South Lodge,
Peter
in these murals.
p.
8.
Ezra Pound, Polite Essays (London, Faber and Faber, 1937), assailed the pompous dress of this Poets' Club in The New Age.
12a.
Flint
name
suggested by C. R.
W. Nevinson
(if
we
and
Prejudice).
The Puce Monster
fore the outbreak of
145
war and announced the necessarily short-lived Great English Vortex. To some extent, as Lewis tells us in Time and Western Man, it was aimed at the Royal Academy and thus
continued,
if it
New
new
In 1914 also
Lewis
on
its
gospel. In
March
Dore
May
as per Sir
Wads worth,
Lewis,
(who
Drill")
first
number because,
much
itself
liquid of that
at the
time
"BLAST
finds
name started in New York, publishing Wilamong others, while in 1954 H. M. McLuhan
pam-
phlet
final blast,
This pamphlet
much
making such
large
The
first
of "blasts"
"Damn
braces. Bless
J.
New
Hope,
2,
No. 6 (Oct.
1934),
146
Art
Roberts, H. Sanders, E. Wadsworth, and Lewis himself. Ford
in the first
W.
had prose
in
number, poetry
1,
in the second.
Rebecca West
anti-
No.
2.
we
Hairdresser'
the disorderly
him below under this head) " 'Bless the exalts formality, and order, at the expense of and the unkempt. It is merely a humorous way of
.
.
^^
in this
way, suggesting
Modern
British Literature,
1885-
1946. Certainly
context
Pound imposes
on the period
in
later, in
Pisan Cantos:
whom
hand on
the reins
Up
it
should
whom
pre-
Madame
who perhaps
The
sea
is
issues.
Moreover, No. 2
"birth-control,"
which certainly
is
to be
found
held
list
of "blasts"
This might account for the Catholic tinge, Ford being a "Roman."
14. Blasting
and Bombardiering,
p. 43.
15.
New
Directions, 1948), p.
57.
147
The
Hunt adds
some
of these
names were
deliberately misspelt.
Thus No.
blesses
The
first, Edward Wadsworth, who went into the navy World War, and later decorated the "Queen Mary," had a great love of the sea, and a volume he illustrated for Etchells in 1926^'^ shows the accurate and detailed knowledge of saiHng ships he possessed; second, there was the patriotic element of the movement. So Lewis writes in the prologue to The Egoist Ltd. Tarr: "we should long ago have been swamped had it not been for the sea. The habits and vitality of the seaman's life and this vigorous element
two sources;
first
in the
politically."
best. It
was a
in
The
nothing
"We do
GLOOMY
VIC-
1 aimed, Harriet
writes, "to
blow away,
of
an inch
says
^^
In // This
Be Treason Pound
cantihsm."
from
"We
p.
16.
self).
17. Edward Wadsworth, Sailing-Ships and Barges of the Western Mediterranean and Adriatic Seas (London, Frederick Etchells and Hugh MacDonald, 1926). 18. 19.
1,
No. 14 (July
15,
1914), 272.
Poet's Life
1938), p. 355.
20.
Ezra Pound,
// This
Be Treason
1948), p. 30.
148
Art
for the sentimental Future." If this
not
would seem
it
to conflict with
the Past
The Present
Art.
art forms, "this strange
it
and times,"
^^
as
Lewis called
in 1929, "the
Violet
Hunt
tells
us that Lewis
"You
At
is
the
is
the energy
the
concentrated.
And
there,
Vorticist." ^^
At
life
and of
what Pound
maximum
energy."
The
heroic place.
''IT IS
declaims Gaudier, as he
promises to "present
arrangement of my
on
will, in
SURFACES." Lewis
and the
last
Blast No. 2,
words of the
VORTEX.
This emphasis on energy and
vitality,
was
in direct opposition
art.
For Pound,
in
No.
1,
Vorticism
is
"vortex
is
The Listener
it
for
March
was principally
for
Lewis a
Wyndham
Lewis,
56.
Tradition,"
5,
Have This
149
associates with emotion,
and the
"Beyond Action
repeats this in
He
cannot
have to the
and
we admire
in the
man
of
and
sticks
hard to thought."
(or, for
him, intellectual)
And
it
is
to
be
aimed
phasis,
at trapping
"some
Pound, in
his article in
is
agrees: the
em-
he repeats,
on
is
on "second
he goes on:
it is
intensity": "Vorticism
has spread
itself
into flaccidity,
into elaborations
And
"The image
I
is
not an idea.
what
can,
call a
vortex, from
same
silly
which, and into which, ideas are constantly rushing." In his "ideo-
is
in the
Neither
Pound (whom
poet")
fucius
is
present in embryo,"
of 1914."
-^
it
is
Pound admires
in "the
men
as Blast
No.
1 called
England, does
all,
on and
off,
by now;
it
The Times seems glad that movement than Futurism.-^ How much, then, was movement worth?
and indeed, reviewing No.
23.
24.
p. 58.
is
this art
Pound sometimes
spells
Poetry of Ezra
25. "Blast,"
1914),
p. 8.
150
Art
Some Vorticist apologists, usually to be found outside England, make extravagant claims for the blasters. Hugh Kenner beUeves when a congeries that Vorticism was "the only time since 1600
of masters was doing things in EngHsh that had not been done better on the continent." ^^ Another critic, Av Teddy Brunius, has been equally enthusiastic, writing from Sweden. ^"^ To my mind Thrall
Soby presents the most balanced view, and one which Lewis himself
would not
contest,
liberating
main stream
discipline.
European
art,
but
it
was
far
from an exact
The
first
stated in
ator") and in
for the
same
art.
One should
his
Only by looking
period, Paul
efforts,
in
Nash
all
tells
New
represented
was most
typical of
modern
England."
^^
artists like
Roberts,
Wads-
worth, and Lewis himself showed with this Club before 1914,
it
had
fossilized.
began
in the
Marlborough Gallery
in
selection
It
Steer,
and
Sir
William Orpen,
No. 4 (Winter 1951), 603. 27. Av Teddy Brunius, Pionjdrer och Fullfoljare
71,75,89, 126. 28. Paul Nash, Outline (London, Faber and Faber, 1949),
an interesting
article
151
among
ship
others,
and was
for
George Moore,
in his
Modern
its
Painting
memberand
was
chiefly academic,
and
it
was the
and experimental
art.
By
School faculty
enstein,
D.
S.
Henry Tonks, Randolph Schwabe, William RothMacColl and dead hand had
the
fallen.
was a necessary
interim.
It
And
Modern
was here
machine
in flux.
its
we
energy.
rub-
to
make
a functional form,
and a form
mal.
which emotional
subjectivity, Einfiihlung,
was miniof
The purely
The Art
abstraction.
Later, in the
One-Way Song
these ideas as having gone too far in the thirties. Possibly these
realist painters,
like
Michael
line instead
(like the
American "action"
But they
persist
more
152
and, writing in
Art
The Architectural Review in 1934, Lewis admits that Vorticism was "a substitution of architecture for painting." ^^ On the whole, however, as Lewis later wrote, Vorticism had only especially some to Mctime to be a program. There are letters Knight Kauffer in 1919 concerning the formation of the "X" Group that show Lewis did not regard it as more at the of artists then time. Amusingly enough, it has found its place, in delineating a
Hay (which
is
mentioned
in
The Red
of
man
of genius,"
Hoop
show a
lot of self-pity
and an awful
More
itself
recently,
Attitudes concerns
with a scholar
who was
World War," most of which is to be devoted to D. H. Lawrence and Wyndham Lewis. If Vorticism, then, is regarded as a stimulant (and a much-needed one) rather
than as a logical aesthetic,
art.
it
has
its
And
to
round out
this
to call himself to
tion
29.
Where
Is
Your
Vorticist?"
76,
The
Architectural Review:
No. 456
p. 37.
Chapter
9:
The
Intelligent
Few
"Art always has been, and within limits must remain, the monopoly of
the intelligent few." ["The Credentials of the Painter
2,"
The English
Lewis
did
Hulme
as his
mentor
in art.
What
agree
we must
two
his
art critic
of his
when
in Speculations
Hulme
us he
is
giving
own word;
who
actually
Hulme
periods, reducing
them
is
arbitrarily.
Worringer,
in turn indebted to
Lipps (on
,
whom Hulme
man
"Der
killed)
primitive Mensch,"
all
prior to the
his
modern period
reader should
as
Gothic (though
this
the
first
man,
his art
was an abstraction or
man,
art,
As
154
Art
it:
Worringer puts
"Vom Leben
ihm
die
ihn,
Von
der
The
rigid line
its
"starr"
is
the primitive's
man on
man and
his
harmoniously.
No
Worringer!
nature.
It
is
man
wretch
that he so obviously
life
was
for
and, in his
art, to idealize
It is at this
und Einfuhlung that Worringer clarifies Einfuhlung, which both Hulme and Sir Herbert Read translate as
in Abstraktion
ovv^n
consciousness into
is
the enjoyable
recognition of one's
art,
the consequent
"Selbstgenuss."
It
is,
in other
is
Abstraktion
it
reaches
its
Hulme
is
still
seems
to be at
its
closer to the
primitive than
Hellenic man.
To some
extent he
has the
is
he
con-
tented with (rather than fearful of) the state of dualism, since he
1.
2.
Piper,
1948),
pp. 17-26.
3.
27-37.
The
Intelligent
Few
155
For
this Orieix'al
man
life
there
is
natural sources of
man
and he
feels
own
6,
an
art sharply
wedded
to the
hard
line:
"Wie
die
schen
ist
und gebunden
the ap-
Hulme
The
New
as
Age. So
on January
art,"
15, 1914,
Hulme
finds "a
new
constructive geometric
its
and
and Nevinson
sees.
practi-
tioners,
welcome
correctives to
Roger
Fry's post-Impressionism.
Hulme now
and
reacts quickly to
what he
elaborates the two kinds of art he finds before him, one "geometrical
abstract," the other "vital
and
realistic."
Hulme
word
not one
filled
with vitality in our usual use of the term but an art that takes
pleasure in the reproduction of natural things (Einfuhlung)
.^
Hulme
Lewis)
thesis,
which he
later (like
and
realistic"
and abstract"
Hulme, Speculations,
in its difference
p.
53.
art
is
characterized for
Hulme
"an austerity,
Byzantine
"vital,"
art,
from Byzantine or Egyptian art, and is unable to achieve a monumental stability, and permanence, a perfection and rigidity."
a separation-from rather than a joining-in, for
and expressed "a kind of contempt for the world." {Speculations, pp. 9, 57, 77, 92.) It is scarcely necessary to point out how Lewis would sympathize with
this view.
156
tradictorily holds
Art
up Cezanne
as a
model
yet,
linear as
Hulme seems
artist
with nature at some point, although nature need not be the source
of his imagination
("There must be
just as
much
fascinating tp
troversies so
much
in advance,
and
it is
he takes a
in
midway
own
mentioned above,
method.
is
So,
total abstraction,
Hulme
less
praises
7
)
,
Kandinsky and
its
links
him
No,
is
abstraction for
own
sake,
Hulme
says,
though he
likes
Enemy
of the Stars,"
Hulme
now
all
In an article on
side,
and
criticizes the
Bomberg Hulme moves further over to this Rebel Art Centre. The human mind, Hulme
the external
writes here, can only ''edit," not "create," forms; for the abstract
design to be valid,
world, for form alone does not produce an aesthetic emotion specific
to form. Rather, abstraction simply touches off "ordinary everyday
human emotions" by
T. E.
ii,
New
1914), 467-9.
14,
iii, The London Group," The New Age, N.S., T. E. Hulme, "Modern Art No. 21 (March 26, 1914), 661-2. iv, Mr. David Bomberg's Show," The New Age, N.S., 8. Hulme, "Modem Art 15, No. 10 (July 9, 1914), 231-2.
The
better than
Intelligent
Few
157
The New Age, while Epstein executed that noble head of Hulme by which most of us remember the philosopher today. Hulme does not seem to have allowed Lewis the period of
sculptor's defense in
how
long an interim
this style
was
to be.
Pound, on the other hand, is far more satisfied with art being a mere arrangement of shapes than Hulme, though Pound puts some odd interpretations on Lewis' art, calling it "nearly always emotional" and then going on to liken it to Bach. In general, what Hulme saw in Lewis' art was a healthy change to that "austerity,"
"bareness," "structure," which he hoped were characteristics of an
entire cultural change.
As he put
it,
organic (Einfiihlung) into the nonorganic (Abstraktion). Yet however persuasive the Worringer-Hulme aesthetic
may be
in
its
obdid
the
it
who why
human need
in art, as in Einfiihlung,
must neces-
was
In conclusion, Lewis'
own
aesthetic
haunted by
his sociological
static,
and
must
remain apart. ^^
9.
It
Hulme, Speculations,
is
where we read,
is
"We
art
never
set
79).
For Lewis,
tional.
One should
and
may
his
simply be a cloak for prejudice {Apes, pp. 125, 259). Lewis takes up this point in book on Shakespeare, and I have confined it to this note because it does not
really touch his
is
really saying in
the
Fox
(pp.
284-91)
entirely uninterested in
and uncommitted on the problems of his age; but the artist must remain apart from the action involving these problems: "Artistic creation is
always a shut-off
and
that
is
to say a personal
p.
286).
158
or (in a much-quoted sentence) 'It
of the purest
is
Art
a constant stronghold, rather,
^^
human
consciousness."
impose
all
laws of
dis-
value in
human
society. This,
we
shall see,
is
what sharply
religion.
is
religion
itself.
And
which he repeatedly
one of
asserts that
is
But not
all artists
wish to work
Wyndham
who
gives a generous
estimate of Lewis' graphic work, adds: "If ever the Fascist party
should
come
into
power
in England, I imagine
Wyndham
^^
Lewis
Ezra Pound."
The
association,
though suggestive,
is
has never directly attached his creative art to the service of any
Fascist, or indeed of
any organized,
politics.
But
like
Benda he
has consistently maintained that art cannot flourish in a contemporary democracy and that the artist must remain the obligatory
enemy
of that democracy. ^-^ " 'Our classifications,' " Tarr says, " 'are inartistic' "
Again Tarr
I
'
declares, "
'You
can't
ways and
"artists."
"
hand
in
fatally
makes Tarr
'It is
the
artist's fate
among
11.
12. 13. 14.
the slaves.'
"
p. 39.
Benda, Spreuve, pp. 134-6. Ibid., pp. 58, 137, 162; Benda, Trahison, pp. 25-6.
PART
III:
TIME
And make
One-Way Song,
p. 123.
Chapter
lo:
The Many
against the
One
"On
life
is
recommended and
life
Many
In HIS
attack
on what he
its
calls
"time" Lewis
is
simply criticizing
romanticism in
singles out as
dis-
is
criticized in
the whole
is
literature,
Time and Western Man is the principal English document in the whole neoclassical movement to arrest the attrition of what was considered to be "Western Man." Eliot's fear of the "hooded hordes,"
which he connects by footnote with Hermann Hesse's prediction
of Philistinism overcoming of a general fear of
after the first
Europe
was part
European dissolution by many intellectuals World War and the Russian revolution. Indeed, Henri
as
Time and Western Man. Of course, there is much in Massis' work with which Lewis would disagree. "Asiatisme" and "bolchevisme" are the main forces weakening Europe for the Catholic convert Massis. Lewis would be unlikely to
concede Massis the former
ism,
peril (especially not as
German
orientalto
by now), because
162
write well of the Orient.
its
Time
And
evil influences
Still,
meres de I'Occident."
Lord Carlow,
and confessed
Man itself,
that
he was exposing
on the plane
this
of
And
in the
canker
on "time" on
literary side
first,
philosophers" to "time-philosophy"
At bottom,
there lies
Lewis' conviction that time and motion are synonymous, and that imperfection
says this.
is
this;
Lewis
And
Yeats too,
who approved
of
also seems to
as the same.
The
is
to
be found
in a passage
summary
of his attack:
"The Time-doctrine,
is
first
in
its
essence, to put
^
and pro-mental."
But for
we should
The "mind,"
what he imagines
he
is
stars,
and
1.
exist
on the same
vital
it
were the
2.
mobilite
(Paris,
Mercure de France, 1913), p. 6. 3. A. C. Ward, The Nineteen-Twenties (London, Methuen, 1930), 4. Time and Western Man, p. 449.
p. 68.
The Many
against the
One
is
163
alive:
and, in
mental."
This
le
is
"C'est
changement, Fabsence
is
de toute
static
on the
objects
today constantly
under
scrutiny,
and
in
actually
scientist
demands
And
become popular,
Lewis:
The Art
of Being
Western
Man
Lewis
manipulating
mob
reducing us
in, say,
all to
difficult to
ignore
contemporary America.'^
devolves on the
it
"anti-physical,"
it
artist to safe-
guard the
literature
intellect
("consciousness"). So
in
interested
it
depicting
subconscious
must be
shunned;
technique
is
especially treacherous
the stream-of-consciousness
is
is
stability,
and a
which he sees
as the area of
sensational
man
is
only
an individual when he
with
all
the
more
intelligent neoclassicists; in
Messages, Fernandez
psychologique."
writes,
"L'image esthetique
And
5.
thus
we reach
James Joyce.
Now
admittedly
6.
Benda, Sur
le
7.
164
Time
in the
Lewis reviews
no space
attacks
on such diverse
Hemingway
("the
dumb
ox") in
Men
without Art
an attack on
Lacking in
will,
the
whom
things happen"
is
to things). It
cuslight
tomary
of
it
in his
of Promise Cyril
books
it
dumb
way
to
Sacred Geese."
Even
so,
it
is now made on Hemingway, such attack, that is, as dares to raise its head today. Actually, far more than Joyce, Hemingway is the total
is
Hemingway here an
would be a
better
faits
word)
as
pour agir
Cyril Connolly,
Enemies of Promise
et
(rev. ed.
New
p. 66.
9.
memoire
10.
Uinvolution
creatrice, p. 321.
The Many
against the
One
165
Lewis
is
common-sense world of
instincts,
anarchy of the
work
of Stein and, to
some
extent,
You
is
when you
see a tree
tree." Stein
and him
said
"The spurious child-language of Miss Stein, cadenced twice over in the form of the hebrew recitative," leads
which
it is
to torrents of protest,
like a confused,
stammering,
can figure
just the
and Fiction he
and
stick-
ing out at
style,
political
in effect:
For by
matter
this
is
method, the
to
dogma,
made
The
is
last is
hand
p.
with propaganda for the intuitional, mystical chaos" (Time and Western Man,
352).
166
Time
ally of a
wider anarchy,
when
^^
in the
hands of
sets
women
or "meteques."
Benda
up
"la superiorite
du vagissement
entend
s'ex-
classiques d'aujourd'hui,
classique
non
ou
le
hoquet
des sanglots."
^^
Because of
"time."
this,
name
of
We
shall find
satirical
hades.
work
One-Way Song,
ii-viii
of this
section of the
splenetic,
I
I I
and frenziedly
anti-intellectual,
and stanza
ix concludes:
me
is
all
on
their backs.
am
the master of
all
half-uttered
Return with
me where I am
ogress,
"The stammering
mental
stutter," is
its
Trudy'
shares in
twin, imbecility.
He
work
to the
and
is,
in
full idiot
it is
that Stein
often defended
by her champions,
darhng
Edwin Muir
or Laura Riding
12. 13.
who
priest of cultured
Benda, Le Bergsonisme,
Gonzague True, Classicisme d'hier et classiques d'aujourd'hui, "fitudes fran^aises," dix-huitieme cahier, l^r mars 1929 (Paris, Societe d'fidition "Les Belles
Lettres"), p. 3.
14.
Childermass, p. 200.
The Many
against the
^^
One
167
Nor
the idea of Stein as a representative of transition (which he continually throws out) be tolerated. It
is
hshed Stein
the
in
a rose
a rose
is
a rose." But
proval of
number of French contemporaries to express their disapher in a manner scarcely less disobliging than Lewis' own.
however, played a principal role in the controversy bethis
transition,
our time,
it
would be best
in detail.
p. 189.
Chapter
ii:
Windy Nous
short.
bolshing
in
ers
fist
Lewis
in
first
met Joyce
in the
summer
of 1920, taking
him
as a gift
to appear, incidentally,
Eliot,
took place
and resulted
in the
reproduced in Blasting and Bombardiering. Both writers had previously published with
of both Tarr
The Egoist
from
him on Ulysses
for
And
Time
and Western
Man
printed in
of January 1929.
For already,
in transition for
it
in Progress" (or
"warping process," as
"spatialist"
Wake) had featured the famous lecture by that Welshman, Professor Jones, and in February 1928 the
Woman
is
ridiculed.
But
in "spice
and
169
Time and Western Man) Lewis had concurrently jibbed at "the gathering material of a new book, which, altogether almost, employs the manner of Nash" ^ by Joyce. In June 1928 Lewis published The Childermass: Section i (or Part i, as it is the American edition), from which point on it can fairly be
westend
woman"
(or
it
the
importance.
In his admirable
in
pointed out that "Joyce has stuck his tongue out at Lewis in
Finnegans Wake."
About a decade
later
went
Wake
little
more
but
it is
still,
rather obvious
The Human
Age (touched on
critics in
end of
this
general have
become aware
it,
Hugh Kenner,
had
and
is
he,
one observes,
worth
appears rather as a
is
men
in-
Already
satirizing
by the two
writers,
and a glance
at the
epigraph to
is
this
chapter will
months before The Childermass, Shem answered "the first riddle of the universe when is a man not a man?" with "Shem was a sham." ^ Yet
. . .
1.
p. 122.
2.
3.
New
Hugh Kenner,
Dublin's
Joyce
(Bloomington,
Indiana
University
Press,
170
this
Time
mention, so often used by Lewis against Joyce in The Childer-
mass,
may
in
in turn
likely to
this
work
which Lewis
refers to
main charge, in both The Art of Being Ruled and Time and Western Man, that Joyce had merely copied Dickens' method
of presenting the thought-stream of Alfred Jingle in Pickwick Papers.
(Paul Shorey thought that Joyce's technique came from the battle
soliloquies of
Hector in the
Iliad. ^)
Now,
in "Juan before
St.
Bride's,"
Shem
(as Joyce)
is
called
"Mr. Jinglejoys," suggesting Lewis' Jingle of The Art of Being Ruled and Time and Western Man and Joys of The Childermass.
This reference appeared in the
is
summer
before
The Childermass by Joyce as much as a year for August 1927. The word "innocent," in the passage relating to The Waste Land and beginning "Premver a promise of a pril," is now closely followed by the word "massacre,"
a likely reference to
this, in transition
this
word "innocent," and lacked "massacre." Thus between this 1 927 Joyce saw fit to add the latter word and give the passage one of its obvious present interpretations, namely the
year and August
one on
in
through Bloom
same thing happened in reverse, and here the problems of dating become fascinating. In The Apes of God (or "massacre of the
insignificants," as
5.
Lewis called
it)
1933, p. 64.
111
James
work.
this
when
the absurd
nai'f
Dan Boleyn
(who has a father called Stephen in Dublin, by the by) meets him, we read: "He had never seen a Jew before and he hoped from the
bottom of
humanism,
Sir
Thomas
in this
that Ratner
I
is
editor
Man
X, which
"official"
take to be Lewis'
photographer (and
Man X).
puff
Man Ray (X
ray
was possible
for Juliusjimmie to
and fan
wan
And
so on.
Now
Artist,
Portrait of the
in
he had not seen Stephen Hero and could not have seen
moment
of
fairly
arcane
in the Proteus
would
the clue to a
Ratner's
method of composition). Yet we can at once see that method of writing is thoroughly Joycean, for Lewis at
described as "auto-parley," or "automatic writing,"
any
rate. It is
and
"thrilling
words
sham-experimental, second-rate
cabotinage."
What seems
to
me
some
oral connection,
is
or unpreserved
writers
"A
Two
freemasons.
cloud
of the serpent.
little
172
not.
Time
She
lifted a chalice. It
was
there.
remains to add, in
is
Lord Osmund's
all
filled
with associations
detestable
"My
HCE's
Book
i,
chapter 2 of the
His
Wake ("HCE
said to have
is
Agnomen and
own
name
Ratner!"
my
specimen passage as
to the
huge
"SHUT"
it,
appearance of The
Childermass, while
we
equally
wonder
had earlier given to Shem. makes no pretense to academic standards when judging Joyce in Time and Western Man, but rather immediately classes him with all he dislikes most. He is guilty of what Professor Jones in the Wake calls "Demonocracy." "The method of Ulysses imposes a softness, flabbiness and vagueness everywhere in its Other "time-philosophers," however, must bergsonian fluidity." be found for the genesis of this hateful work, and so we read, "This torrent of matter is the einsteinian flux." Bergson and Einstein. Well,
the "Solvitur!" Shaun, in Joyce's work,
Of
course, Lewis
'^
either
gift of
lecture
we now have
in
(as
common
Apes,
name
in
Wales
as
Jones, as
many have
already
7.
173
and Hopkins.
When
like
...
the
bhnd
blighter,"
he categorically
refuses.
He
is
apparently
my
goulache of
lecture
who
life
La
man
is
obviously as he supports
(or "Allswill")
''when." Jones,
on the other
in love
hand, in company with Professor Llewellys ap Bryllars, F.D. (another pseudoscholarly Welshman), finds "the
as war."
^
all is
where
It is
interrupts
aspiration,
of Irish literary genius by English critics as in "that most improving of roundshows, Spice
and Westend
Woman
By
implication, then,
Lewis here becomes "the beast of boredom," thus jibing with that
other Shaun persona
Brawn, Jaunty
1928), whence
The important thing, for us, is Jones's reply to the initial question put. As Tindall has told us, Joyce was impartial on the subject of time versus space. ^ In the caricature of himself he made as Shem it is now clear that considerable concessions were made to Lewis' charges, for Finnegans Wake, alone among Joyce's works, shows him taking cognizance of criticism (including that of Rebecca West ) Time and space came to represent for Joyce here one aspect of that duality by which modern life is haunted; in the Wake every
8. 9.
W. Y.
Tindall,
174
Time
has
its
Shem
Shaun
Cranly, or
whomever
Stanislaus,
De
Valera,
is
become almost
a full
HCE,
is
Shem
had
image
to
be pre-
artist
may presumably
ALP
in a
come
to terms with
Shem. In
his
lampoon
of
fair as
Mind
it
of
James Joyce"
is
unities of time
much an
"He
to
little
inventive intelligence as an
is
executant," cares
specialist that
it
little
for matter:
matters very
pages later Lewis affirms that Joyce possesses "an appetite that
certainly will never be
in his composition."
matched again
Nor can
draws be very well reconciled with the notion that he has a "herdmind," other than by some such philosophic perversity as that "The
authentic revolutionary
least rebellion." (Will
.
.
will
not
in
Lewis' charge
that "There
is
not very
much
reflection going
on
at
Wickham
The Impuritans ("Joyce never did much conscious thinking"), but it in the Wake: "There was not very much windy Nous blowing at the given moment through the hat of Mr. Melancholy Slow!" Windy might here be used in the English sense of scared, while nous of course comes from the Greek word for mind.
Kenner has shown how Joyce put
No,
at first glance
all
this
175
is
to
temporary
his
letters."
In 1935 he
is
In 1950
work
is
"o/
its
kind a masterpiece."
Still,
on
and
in that
mark
of fashion
mind." Lewis
mass.
fictionally
implements
this criticism in
The Childer-
will
be shown
how Joyce
is
Master Joys, a
sly,
definite
"A
cute
little
Cyclops
with his one sad watery glim," he has "Vico the mechanical for
guide in the musty labrinths of the latter-days to train him to circle
true
is
and make
orbit
upon
we pops
The Bergsonian
Baihff of this work quotes Joys as follows: "Then as for that crossword polyglottony in the which I indulges misself for recreation bighorror, why bighorror isn't it aysy the aysiest way right out of
call the
postoddydeucian
I've bin
dam
misself
there's
and
all,
since
s'
help
me
Xo
this
rephes,
"Oh
capital
sir! I
recognize him!"
hard to
giltie
conshie of a play-
boy of westend
10.
letters,"
who
is,
"half
Wyndham
Lewis, "Martian Opinions," The Listener, 14, No. 340 (July 17,
1935), 125.
11.
Rude Assignment,
p. 55.
12. Childermass, p.
175.
176
apple
Isis
it
Time
is
and a
knew, but
god
is
Chance and
in
that as
is
mine so
you
up
Targums,
set to the
not hard when we recall that in Time and Western Man Lewis compared Joyce's technique with that of Nashe thus in the Wake Professor Jones scoffs at "his craft
title,
we
knew
in
which
is
"What
the Public
Wants"
on
and Westend Woman, wearing an Eton collar, opposes Irish upstarts in such terms as, "you must, how, in undivided reawlity draw the line somewhawre."
From
with Ulysses,
"Work
in Progress," and,
Por-
as a
do not
was a deliberate misunderstanding, one with the attack on Eliot as a "pseudoist" in Men without Art. Few if any critics, however unfriendly to Joyce in the intention (as
Rebecca West
in
The Strange
Most
critics realize
"The
'Work
Joyce aspires
p. 355.
111
is
[sic]
seen as essenit,
the
The
simultaneity
woman
in the
"men
was
^^
mony
month
of change,
by
Eliot, while
Pound
In short, unless
we
of Joyce as a "time-philosopher"
indeed,
it
is
dealt
by Taff
in the
Wake,
and so
in Ulysses.
We
notice that
it
is
who
is
belligerent: thus
of Lewis' attitude in
Kev (whose police element reminds one One-Way Song) strikes Dolph, Chuff wrestles For critics have by now arrived at some agreeand Lynch
in
ment
own
early aesthetic.
Apart from
the more obvious autobiographical elements, comparison can be made between Stephen's statements to Lynch and Joyce's own
Stephen
refers, in fact, to
corded questions
Stephen
calls the
home" in which he has reand answers such as Gorman publishes. Here aesthetic emotion "static": "The mind is arrested
"a book at
desire
and loathing."
^^
He
art for
is
we
find
S. Eliot
S. Eliot:
p. 159.
(New York,
James Joyce,
Press, 1949),
178
terror
Time
and
pity
What Stephen
calls
"an aesthetic
stasis"
work of art. He then goes on to Lynch and to elaborate his idea of art
human
asthetic end."
interesting for in
them
reduced in
Portrait,
what
constitutes a
work
of
art,
and
it
becomes
is
necessary
"human
disposition"
(the
word
"stasis of the
intellect.
mind," must to a
is
by the
of
This
presented to
Lynch by Stephen
in
terms
men
own
in Ulysses,
first.
on the
intellect
from the
when reading this scene, with Aristotle representing the rock of dogma facing Plato the whirlpool. But although Stephen well knows which of the two, Aristotle or Plato, would have banished him from his commonwealth,^^ Bloom of course steers neatly between this Scylla and Charybdis. Again, although Stephen and Bloom merge at the end of the work (Blephen and Stoom), the idea of Stephen standing for
Surely Lewis must have sympathized,
the Hellenic, the intellectual, the artistic, as against Bloom, the
made
Lewis far
friendlier
he was incensed by
had
to
remain
Gorman,
Joyce, p. 97.
ed.,
1934), p. 184.
179
of epiphany, the
artist's flash
moment
had
be a revelation of
''quidditas, the
is
whatness of a thing"
exactly,
"The
mind which has been arrested by its wholeness and fascinated by its harmony is the luminous silent stasis of esthetic pleasure." ^^ And,
as I
have emphasized,
this
moment
is
of quasi-divine revelation, so
Stephen suggests,
or in time, for
is
it
may come
is
"What
audible
visible
is
no evaluative
differentiation
and
of
this
first
"Work
all diatribe.
And
this, too, is
has
known
proto-
was
itself
moment
in flux,
and appreciation.
And
in this
operate considerably
in
this
Stephen Hero (which, again, Lewis would not have seen before The Childermass) Here once more we find statements that Lewis should by rights openly applaud. For Stephen, who is to teU the
.
President that
"My
entire esteem
is
temper
in art,"
make any
facile association
between
classical
and Hellenic. So he
Classicism
country:
is
says:
it is
a temper
180
Time
so often and so grievously misinterpreted, and not
others than by
its
more by
own,
is
an insecure,
unsatisfied, impatient
fit abode here for its ideals and chooses them under insensible figures The
.
limita-
work upon them and fashion them that the quick intelligence may go beyond them to their meaning which is still
to
unuttered.22
Although we must
later
who
is
nonetheless in-
of
Hero Stephen toys "with a theory duaHsm which would symbolise the twin eternities of spirit and nature in the twin eternities of male and female." Shem and Shaun,
Dolph and Kev, and again as the comedians Butt and Taff (obviously Mutt and Jeff) who turn into Mutt and Jute and into Muta and Juva, these stand for time and space, ear and eye, and in some measure for Joyce and Lewis. The two are, of course, representative of a classical antinomy; Lewis himself was not neceschildren
sary to suggest
it.
to Joyce in im-
plementing
it
permanence
to the
elm of
There are a host of such uses throughout the book, from the
moment when we
in the early trial
first
as witness
and accused
sequence that
man
(Lewis replied by
making Ratner cheaply popular with women), it is Shaun who tells the fable of the Ondt (space and the philistine) and the Grace23.
New
181
in transi-
artist),
Here we begin by learning that the Ondt (Lewis) thinks the Gracehoper (Joyce) is wasting his time by writing works like
Ho, Time, Timeagen Wake!
"What
a bagateller
it
is!"
he says.
is
The Gracehoper,
"blind as batflea."
like
He
signifies
"chronic's despair."
But
he says:
''Your genus
its
why
can't
^^
"Windy
Nous" rather
Lewis
built
is
well.
theme of plagiarism,
Lewis was in
known how
if
Queen" (1936)
"keepy
little
is
is
"Premver a promise of
Kevin" (Lewis)
is
cusation
"Shem
the
Penman"
section there
many
The Enemy
of the Stars
for the
Wake
man
Whitebeaver of plagiarizing
hates
Shem
so
much, Shaun
"stolentelling" or "robblemint."
182
Time
in the
reality
Nathan Halper, meanwhile, beUeves he finds a suggestion Wake that the Time and Western Man attack is itself in
of schlangder, grows in the garden!
There
have
Wake
that I
modes"), and
is
further complicated
real-life
Common Reader (Norman, University of Oklahoma Press, 1955), to whom absolutely no reference is intended here, of course.
I
so.
Joyce seems
refusal, that
two men
in so
many
ways, should
cease to quarrel, for were they not both admirers of Aristotle: "were
we bread by
same fire and signed with the same salt, had we tapped from the same master"? Again, "we were in one class of
the
Nor
is this
And
in
Book
iv the Professor,
who had
earlier
("///
tempor") to be
drink.
killed, is told to
and have a
We
we
and Taff
at the
end of chapter
3 of
the
The two
touch
"equals of opposites"
183
as
words
as
my prhose
beyond
all
propriety.
life,
and then
"any
this
Shaun claims
time ever
that he could
do better
I liked" if
only
it
last reference is
modulation,
it
would
answer to Shem-Dolph's
when
the fight
is
Patrick (Shaun-space-day-
as
^^
Joyce
Even
Shaun,
at the end,
seems to relent a
man" he
to-
much
EHot (through
gether in the
really dislikes
whom
had come
first
freer!"
But Shaun
Even
in the
as cursory,
words of HCE,
"skirts
Joseph Campbell
Uhsses,
Skeleton
Key
to
once in the form of the vast period or full-stop omitted from the
edition (p. 722), but the
Random House
be borne in
more homely
mind
also.
Patrick's
"Punc" here, antiphonal to the usual Time, simply means 424 {transition No. 12).
Finnegans Wake,
p.
184
Time
are other aspects of the controversy, too, and that involving Lewis' attack
on verbal experiment
bitter?
in literature will
be considered below,
why was
Lewis so he knew
beauty
is
He knew
Joyce, and
have
tried to
prove that
elucidating these, H.
to reject the
way
of connatural gnosis
windows of
^^
the soul."
is
And McLuhan
how
"Compared
in
But
have shown
is
and
heroically generous.
for his
Above
all,
own sake, Lewis should not be judged by Roy Campbell or Hugh Gordon Porteus
his
(or
work as a superior correction of Joyce's. The point is that Joyce had written a "timebook," a symptom of a social malady, and it is behind Joyce's work that we must look for what Lewis is attacking in the "mind" of
even Geoffrey Grigson), have liked to see
James Joyce.
philosophy."
It is
"Bergson's doctrine of
2^
Time
is
He
the spokesman,
we
read, of the
way
of
life
of the typical
American
with "
*red' revolution." ^^
Pound (who
Communication," Shenandoah,
28.
29.
30.
sell,
McLuhan, "Wyndham Lewis: His Theory of Art and 4, Nos. 2-3 (Summer/ Autumn 1953), 84-5. Time and Western Man, p. 166.
p. 398.
One-Way Song,
p.
122.
185
are
all less
it
concerned, like
for
its
political
^^
here
call, in
German
rabid writers a
and Spengler.
Lewis adds
little
on du
^2
What Benda
calls "I'esthetique
du
^^ sujet" or "ipseisme"
tion in Bergsonism.
As he
puts
it
in
suggests leisure:
full
is
made
men, or
for
the old
mass-rule."
making events
world of
realm of the
say, over
Man
stutter" for
which Lewis so
one thing;
it is
When we know
how
is
far
more
eccentric his
to shout.
If
no one
listening to you,
you have
(Paris,
Felix Alcan,
Fernandez, Messages,
33. 34.
Benda, Belphegor,
p. 104. p. 412.
186
Time
is
to
make
Benda's Le Bergsonisme,
is
published in 1912.
Free-Willy
Man
Time and
unfolds everything
poeticizing intuition,
in Benda's milder
Benda
writes:
"s'il
est incontestable
la
etes
devenus
cette ligne,
vous ne pouvez
reste necessaire-
est incontestable
ment
'a
'installation a I'interieur
non moins necessairement votre des choses' a rompu tout commerce avec
all,
la raison." ^^
Let
it
be
said,
that this
is
the
summary
of
Time
and Western Man. It is a pleasantly open charge, under which Lewis manages to indict a number of writers, but is Bergson guilty of it?
hands of the
added
to insult
we
find
him considerably
indebted, as
we
shall, to
when Bergson's Le
Rire.
ability to attain
metaphysical
reality.
We
enough
England
^^
by Hulme:
dans une
de
la
intuition, tandis
is
que tout
effort of
le reste releve
de I'analyse."
an
and
35.
in fairness to
L'Evolution creatrice,
36.
et
187
merging
progres continu
du passe qui ronge I'avenir et qui gonfle en avangant." In Matiere "I'insaisissable progres du et memoire he calls "le present pur"
and memory
is
de la duree"
and
One can
is
see
it
certainly
an attack on what he
en lui-meme,
world of
common
sense:
is
"L'etat, pris
no
Lewisian
fixity.
identity in
The memory
to their
But here,
Bergson
in Matiere et
it is
fixity
carries with
it,
of course,
on space rather
in
than on time.
Still, if
UEvolution
and Western
in
he cannot be considered
anti-intellectual,
to the intellect as
Time
work, in
fact,
Bergson
may sometimes be
apprehending
it
denies
wants the
He
on
call this
play
For
37. Bergson,
UEvolution
188
Time
in
So Lewis,
common
is
she
is
by
its fatalistic
and disastrous
effects.
Bertha,
who
relies
"on
To
out of
some
fluid trap
where
it
like a
weighty body."
and Western
as Bergson's
Man
is
He
is
trying
much
a spatial-philosophy
Roman
faith"). It
is
Man" he
says he
setting
fails,
up against "Faustian," or
unlike Lasserre, to
make
self-
striving for
gratification. Since
liefs
what he means by
So the
'We are not Greeks the Lord of Hosts be praised, we are Modern Man and proud of it we of the jazz-age who have killed sexishness and enthroned sensible sex, who have liberated the working-mass and gutted every palace within sight making a
The Childermass:
"
we
Chapter
i2:
On
the Side of
Common
Sense
"I
it
am on
causes
the side of
commonsense
and
my
position,
inasmuch as
me
to
oppose on
.
. .
romantic,'
heading
'classical'
'Classical' is for
me
anything which
is
nobly
fluid
of
the Flux."
In AN ADMIRABLY dispassionate article published in La Nouvelle Revue frangaise for January 1, 1929, the centenary of French romanticism,
England.
Ramon Fernandez analyzes neoclassicism in France and He finds the classical-romantic antithesis factitious today
to the romantic
to
move-
enough
make
welcome
pre-
reappraisal of Proust from this point of view, pointing out that the
in Proust's
work must
from any
facile
condemnation
antithesis.
He
the neoclassicists
Whether Fernandez
classicism,
is
fair
he
is
by
after writer
on the
it
lessness of classical
and romantic
labels.
190
Spirit of
Time
Romance
and romanticism
tween
classical
to heresy.^
Elsewhere Eliot
fragmentary, the adult and the immature, the orderly and the
chaotic."
^
Although a declared
and
callall
good
it is
good,"
The
and September
this is
1927. In
Men
conthat
not nearly so
much
so as the civil
war
fulfilling
flays
Pound
Again
of the
...
"Those
silver-lip shells
and those
Smoky Beard,
Ocean
into
it
came
Eliot,
and
^
should be
one of
possible, like
my
friend
Mr.
were not
my
tastes a little
Ezra replied
in
Guide
one of
1.
to Kulchur.^
his greatest
And
same way Pound heaped scorn on admirers, T. S. EHot, both for his essay on
in the
p. 26.
Eliot,
2.
3.
The
Dial, 75,
No. 5 (Nov.
13,
1923), 482.
4.
Wyndham
Way
Song,'"
[sic]
New
Britain, 2,
No. 30 (Dec.
1933), 121.
The "fake
New
Signatures group
of this time.
5.
p. 234.
On
Jonson
^
the Side of
Common
Sense
191
and
for
The
Criterion.'^
And we
calls this latter work contaminated by the "Jewish Not to be behind, Lewis sailed into Eliot in Men without Art as "The Pseudo-Believer" (I suggest that this is largely a religious controversy, Eliot moving toward religion as Pound and Lewis move away from it). Here Lewis denies Eliot any sincerity;
Eliot's classicism is a
is
"pseudo
everything."
He
is
guilty of
is
to
to deplore "the
and
'revolu-
6.
Ezra Pound,
How
to
7.
8. 9.
Men
Ibid.,
without Art,
p. 77.
Agony (Oxford
reference to the
book
in
Men
it
August
tion
8,
1935. In the
more accurately in The Times Literary Supplement for Note Praz complains that Lewis calls his compilation a
under
my
direc-
by Professor Praz.'" In
Men
without Art
(p.
175), however,
we read
under
my
directions (cf.
The Diabolical Principle, etc.), by Prof. Praz." In revival in The Bookman for October 1934 Lewis
historical dossier for
his article
calls
The
my
ness to Lewis I should add that I have examined the manuscripts of this
my
directions"
in the handwritten
MS. The
show was
Art. Praz
which is indeed highly praised on p. 171 of Men without was obviously stung by the references to this matter in Montague Summers' The Gothic Quest and Stephen Spender's The Destructive Element. But it is
tion to read Praz's book,
hardly likely that Lewis would want to call a work like The Romantic
his
Agony
own.
192
Time
that this attack
on Eliot was
really just a
a "fantasia
...
as
d'oeuvre of polemic
honto
same
critic's
Ulysses).
The
attacks in
Men
Hemingway
said to have
been
infuri-
show
just
how
deeply
wounded
Enemies of Promise Cyril Connolly quite independently Virginia Woolf, after all, had referred to Connolly's "cocktail criticism"
called
Men
As
regards Joyce,
Harry Levin
book on
Wyndham
by Marvin
Wyndham
on Joyce's sources
ters
as "the
mat-
very much, however, for one can virtually say that in an article
at this time
in
The Bookman
Faced with
then,
mony, one can sometimes simply ask oneself if one is standing on one's head or one's heels. Yet this internal strife, matched in France to some extent perhaps over the Action Frangaise affair, does seem
Hugh Kenner may claim that "Pound, Eliot, Joyce and Yeats mark ... a return to the Aristotelian benison,"
to bear
Fernandez
out.
but
it is
Lewis would have agreed with Yeats that Aristotle was "Solider," ^^ but
10.
it
would be incorrect
"Among
tel
W.
B. Yeats,
On
quel
the Side of
Common
Sense
is
193
as well to
its
as exclusively Hellenic. It
mention
this since
by
Sir
Rome, and
his
XIV. Maurras,
for
whom
to
be a
Roman,
Hellenic,
and Catholic:
"Dans
I'ere
moderne,
la philosophie catholique se
la
haute hu-
que
celle
de
rally
Frenchmen
latinite,
d'esprit frangais
^-
here
is
to
men admired
Oriental
Massis,
finds the
civilisation." ^^
Maurras, Romantisme
et revolution, p. 270.
12. Lasserre,
Mise au
point, p.
100.
an excess
in this direction.
13. For a convenient definition of Hulme's terminology in this respect, see Murray Krieger, "The Ambiguous Anti-romanticism of T. E. Hulme," ELH: A
Journal of English Literary History, 20, No. 4 (Dec. 1953), 300-14. The definitive
study of
Hulme
to date
is
Columbia doctoral
14. Massis,
dissertation
on him by
Clifford Josephson.
194
ling
Time
interesting that in
little
combine these elements for Massis, and it is Time and Western Man Lewis pays relatively
attention to
what Lewis
his
does
is
Buddha swallow
Seilliere,
however,
la
morale
et
de
la politique ro-
is
antiromanticism. Consequently
it is
elas-
particular definitions.
The romantic he
ceaselessly defines
his
Men
The Bookman, he
number
of words in
Classical
objective
intelligence
emotion
flux
permanence
body
solid, defined, exact
psyche
misty,
muddled
common-sense
impersonal
Aristotle
undirected
dishevelled
Bergson
chaos
moralistic
order
rational
universal
idiomatic
feeble,
health
indifferent to originality *
static
gloomy, sick
In the sense that the classical spirit for Lewis interprets the Zeitgeist, rather
this for itself.
than forming
classical category
above
"my
with-
Spengler's." In
Men
On
the Side of
Common
Sense
195
Hulme
influence, but I
is
would
lenic classicism
more
men
like
Hulme and
At
first it
we be put
is
off
The two
have much
in
common
here.
And on some
St.
points Babbitt
joins them.
ture of
man." The
comprised
man from
is
Of
elastic,
Professor Haskins
Hulme
the
first
The
values, the
Hulme
this
period expresses
by the Turks
period
in
1453). Austerity,
rigidity,
living
Hulme
The second
the reverse of
to absolute values,
man now takes pleasure in an art and culture which reproduce human and natural forms, in which "all the emotions expressed are perfectly human ones," in other words the art
of Einfuhlung. For
15.
Hulme
Wyndham
196
Time
are, I think,
canons
demonstrably
false,"
hu-
manist wrong."
^^
art anti-
and
in fact
set in
with classical
man
of his
first
period. Classical
is
man
is,
thus, a "fixed
is
and limited
absolutely constant." It
to that of the
Ac-
words
one has
to
artistic (that of
Maurras).
two
parts;
horrible ("like
an ignoble de-
man
feels,
was
at least free,
Hulme
from
utilitarianism. It
is
this
distinction,
it
him
to
pecially in
what he
which
are,
more
For
me
plain
why his "humanist" period (leading to "the state of slush in which we have the misfortune to live") ever came about, if the
The most damaging
neoclassicist philosophy
on Violence Hulme
Hulme
On
the Side of
Common
Sense
that
all
197
of civilization by
man
is
by nature
bad or
we
"classical" in another
ist
dream
is full
And
how
Maurras,
in Vers I'Espagne
to
and a "besoin de
I'excessif."
But
if
Benda
on the
neoclassicists, the
Germans
like
classi-
horresco referens
men
cism.
And
more
flagrant
own
literature of the
"Classisch
ist
das
Nowhere
is
Lewis' ignorance
mere
German
literature will at
ment than has existed in England since Lewis took up his pen. The circle around Stefan George exemplified, as is well known,
a kind of neoclassicism
(including, in
some
of George's early
hero-artists,
and Padihas
shahs) that later proved far too romantic for most Anglo-Saxons.
B ewe gun g)
many
at-
respects
and
it is
Time
with some of Lewis'
first
198
affinity
satire.
The
dramas
of the
is
may
also
is
the great
work
of art
an act of
will;
its
he inveighs against
feeling, adulates
pares the
German
Roman
if
(as
Maurras
there be any
in
its
the romantic
tress
In one passage Ernst thinks with evident disto "die franzosische Revolu-
tion"
"Das
franzosis-
che conscience
other
weniger
One
work by
Ernst,
for
their
"form,"
is
their
application
to
understanding of what
But what
is
indeed
18.
paganism
(to
Don
Weg
Form
1928), pp.
Germans
19.
of this group.
Ernst,
Paul
Georg
this
Miiller,
word.
On
Carlos)
the Side of
Common
Sense
199
pre-
which,
of course,
Pound (not
who wrote
A usgang
fore
the
tide
of
romanticism.
Further,
Lewis'
sphere. ^^
One
here,
kreis
final
and
that
und
die
Formen
is
that
on Ernst
himself, entitled
this essay
breathes the
"ein poetisches
Dumpferste
stirring tribute
Drama. Das
Drama
Greek
grie-
und
Kleists
Tagen
von Sophokles
of a simple,
Samuel Lublinski, Der Ausgang der Moderne: Ein Buch der Opposition
cf.
on
"Politik," pp.
Georg von Lukacs, Die Seele und die Formen (Berlin, Egon Fleischel, 350-73. At p. 354 Lukacs momentarily confuses Kriemhilde with Brunhild, and there is virtually a direct quotation from Ernst unacknowledged
1911), pp.
200
Finally, for Karl Joel the classic of
Time
Goethe and
Schiller,
marked
by
health,
is
is
pathos. Forgiving
is
Lewis' classicism.
For above
is
flux of time.
He must be above
^^
time:
"Doch damit
sich der
The romantic
as the
spirit,
on the other
movement
fairly
Dynamik
classicism to Hulme's,
one has a
irre-
und Natur, Tragodie und Satyrjauchzen, Machtund Massenhingabe." As against this pathetic romanticism: "Wahrlich, der Idealismus der klassischen Epoche war keine Ausschweifung des Geistes, kein Schwarmen der Seele, kein schwelgender Selbstgenuss wie im Zeitalter der Empfindsamkeit, sondern
Kampf, eine schwere Selbstziigelung, eine ergreifende Selbsterziehung." ^^ Of course, I must not give my reader the imein ethischer
Germans
as
it.
In
Le Romantisme
And
is
Lasserre's catalogue
possibly evident here in
development
dislike of "unsere
"Nur
fiir
Menschen
347.
Menschliche moglich" (pp. 347, 370-1). 22. Karl Joel, Wandlungen der Weltanschauung (Tiibingen, Mohr, 1934),
ist alles
2,
On
the Side of
Common
is
Sense
is
201
of romantic characteristics
as a breviary of
classical:
all
similar to Joel's. It
worth quoting,
"Ruine psychique de
empire de
ments feminins de
I'esprit
asservissement au
realite,
conception revolution-
de
.
I'art
pour masquer
la paresse et la misere
tion
."25
.
This, in a nutshell,
is
their convictions.
It is
For
his
is
"We
the past
anywhere out
who
And so he
writes:
Out
of the detestable
of quacks
illumines, coueists,
and psychologists
crowd
from
all
agents, lawyers,
money
on the Heir of
all
the
Ages,
we fly in
despair."
25. Lasserre,
26. In
Romantisme frangais, pp. 311-12. The Canadian Forum for June 1936 H. N. Frye
and
similar anti-Bohemianism
27.
p. 25.
Chapter
13:
"It is as thieves
sites
only
that
we can
exist,
or as para-
Lewis
all
it
would not do
summary
without a mention of
gion as the chief point differentiating him from his French and English colleagues in the neoclassical
to
me
perfectly correct,
religion,
we
see
why he
For Lewis supposes the presence, if not of a deity, at least of some supernatural power, whose representative on earth is the inspired artist, or "person": "The Sistine Chapel Ceiling is worthy of the hand of any God which we can infer, dream of, or postulate. We may certainly say that God's hand is visible in it." ^ The "sense of personality" ("the most vivid and fundamental sense that we possess") is delegated from the divine, and especially manifested in that feeling of separation and nobility felt by the
artist.
is,
Lewis'
God
is
God."
we may
see
construct
God
is
the intellectual,
"God is for us something to how he differs from the Christian for whom emotional experience may give access to God.
and
to this art has the prerogative.
^
At once we
1.
p.
401.
2. 3.
A
It is
203
intelis
lectual
and
artistic faculties
may
in
alone
fix for
our
lives.
And
naturally he must
merged
in everything, the
Kingdom
of
Heaven
running about
that every
man may
on Protestantism.
which
It is
hardly necessary
"common
amusing, in
made
chastity
is
Lady
in
Comus
that
is
prehis
end of
far
from favoring an
of Christian humanists.)
Milton "in
Comus
drive
Pound
^
what he has
to say,
tahty."
Milton,
Pound elsewhere
and
it is
"shows a complete
ig-
spirit."
found
in Lewis' fiction
principally
on
being
p. p.
157.
35.
299.
p. 202.
7.
8. 9.
p. 200.
There
is
suggests
204
tant code, in short,
Time
Lewis can find no "compensating beauty such as Lewis approaches the Catholic position.
you
This
as far as
"We
should support the catholic church perhaps more than any other
visible institution,"
might
still
how
often does he
is
"toujours
Man
called
"God
he categori-
he
too
is
that
it
looks
much
and
is
Thomism
.
juncture
Under this charge Lewis specifically "to rely upon St. Thomas Aquinas at such a would prove in you a meagre sense of the reality."
means advocates a return
to him.
Maritain
is
But
let
Lewis imputes
He
has openly
stated that
it
would be ridiculous
Middle Ages
clearly
again today. ^^
is
and
it is
shared, rather
more
intelligently,
by Fernandez.
For Lewis
I
seen
walking "as
the
August Byron Bunch "goes on toward the truck, walking like he had eggs under his feet." In passing, too, one might note a mention of Gaudier-Brzcska in Faulkner's recent
10.
Fable (1954).
Maritain,
Humanisme
integral,
pp.
Man,
p. 387,
205
world of matter and fixing them on the world beyond. This he calls "irreligious." He is able to do so, if we allow his view that our "godlike experience" results only
from a
which we duplicate God's relation to us. "We are surface creatures ... It is among the flowers and leaves that our lot is cast." Only
intellect
on the surface of
things,
Lewis
is
saying
we know
artists.
Natu-
God
reveals Himself,
if
He
wishes, to us
all.
He
does
not for
everybody
."Exactly.
this dislike of
Fernandez puts
level.
Thomism on
a far
more reasonable
He
"L'objet,
comme
I'ombre d'un
le sujet,
makes religion a "timetantot s'evanouit en philosophy" for Lewis. Maritain's humanism, though based on human dignity and the rights of individual man, is concerned to place
God at the center of our lives, to make God our sole court of appeal, a God to be apprehended for Maritain through the emotions as through the intellect. He is concerned, as he puts it, to make life
"theocentrique" rather than
"anthropocentrique."
For Maritain
and
Lewis' religion
is
God
on
as a sort of superintellectual
working out
tegral"
is
own
destiny
earth. Maritain's
"humanisme
in-
an attempt to put
man
in touch with
God
again, but to do
so by
in the
11.
means
Middle Ages.
206
In the recent Self
friend of
Time
Condemned
(i.e.
the hero
Rene
calls
himself "a
but
this
Farm may be
.
.
Street"
his
of the
"Laugh-
our
'god-like' attribute,"
far to find
him claiming
God is really a sort of supersatirist! Reference to the world of common sense, to known objects and facts, is essential to the workthat
it is
to
and so he refuses to allow a religion like the Catholic which removes our gaze from this world. We are most fully conscious, our
faculties as
human
its
we
are
And
itself
can
operate at
is this
best
is
common
life
sense. It
flashing
for
on the
at
world of
Lewis and
it
We
can
now watch
work
in his fiction.
PART
IV:
SATIRE
"Satire
is
the great
.
Heaven of
Ideas,
titans of red
laughter;
."
p. 235.]
Chapter
14:
may
also
and Drawings by
1921).]
Wyndham
Wyndham
Lewis'
first
publication, called
"The Pole"
in
The
May
tells
to find Ford in the bath, where he proceeded him "The Pole," not omitting to introduce himself as a man of genius. The story was instantly accepted. In fact, the last is the only part confirmed by Ford who says he took Lewis' story after
reading the
describing
first
him
and
Ford
goes
was produced
in manuscript
form from
all
He
on
tirely to writing,
at the office of
The Times
review. 2
1.
the
first
//
Hugh Kenner
gives us
Was
p. 323.
2.
210
at the start of his study of
Satire
Lewis; however,
it is
as well to
remember
And
New York
Public
from Lewis
to the
famous
literary agent
ary 1910.
He
sug-
later
his lawyer
on Pinker.
Certainly, however,
by Blackwood's) of Lewis'
and there
is
the story
May. From this date on the group of stories now gathered under the title The Wild Body began to appear in The English Review, Goldring's The Tramp, The Little Review, and Art and Letters. They comprise Lewis' earliest work. Pound, in fact, introducing "Inferior Religions" in The Little Review for September 1917, says that the entire collection was "in process of publication" when war broke out. They were not published in book form until December 1927 by Chatto and Windus, but two letters from Lewis to Martin Seeker in my possession, dated March 3 and 4, 1925, show him trying to make arrangements for publication of the volume under the general title of The Soldier of Humour. It is interesting to establish the fairly early origin of The Wild Body stories for in them we already find a theory and practice of satire from which Lewis never swerved. The later satires enlarge his
was printed
3.
David Garnett, The Golden Echo (London, Chatto and Windus, 1954), pp. (London, Heinemann,
. . .
p. 71.
Seltzer,
1920),
p.
135; and
cf.
Douglas Goldring,
211
practice contradicts.
first.
The
is
First,
it
"humour"
first
is usually satire.
humor. He
is
wrong; humor
"Quack
ENGLISH
Humor
in the
is
given
when
i.e.
as satire. Blast
No.
1 calls
enemy
of
REAL"
"The
is
the greatest
enemy
of England." This
this
head (a charge
Wood). And
Book
IV of
Bull, devoted to
"The Sense
learn here,
of
is
Humour,"
Humor, we
weapon
to
keep the
tells
Butcher that humor and pathos (Joel's Romance) are the same.
Satire,
It
society.
Many.
Shaw the perfect example of this kind of English humor. The many attacks he makes on Shaw boil down to the charge that Shaw evades reality and creates "safe" lovable characters that take the mind off any real social change. St. Joan is "the swan-song
Lewis
finds
Rude Assignment,
p. 48;
p. 104.
6.
p. 56;
and
cf.
Blast No. 2, p. 9;
p. 202.
One-Way Song,
Rude Assignment,
212
Satire
makes on humor
is
that
it is
an
game"). Tarr
tells
Butcher
this.
Calling
humor
the "inveterate
enemy
of anglo-saxon
that
is
mankind," Tarr
is
says: "
The
University of
Humour
means
what
it
England
first-rate
of evading real-
is
expanded
. . .
in the
by
their sense of
humour
in a phlegmatic
and
back.'
Lewis approaches
as well as of folly,
and
In short
"wherever there
is
satire."
"^
of satire, as of
graphic
art, for
Lewis
to depict reality.
satire.
princi-
Roman
and
feels
pilloried,
on
Although admit-
ting that
"humour"
to
is
of a
human
flaw
common
all. It is
attached to a
"classical"
form of
he
is
satire,
satire I think
book
as nearest
to classical satire. It
so, in that
"humours," endemic
to the
human
is
Now
it
will at
true,
Rude Assignment,
Ibid., pp.
p.
p. 46).
52-3.
213
Apes
is
way
that
If
The
asked
most Jonsonian
satire, I
The Apes.
satirist,
on both
rist's
abstract
and concrete
That
is
with whom
function
Lewis
the sati-
it is
to expose
Like Flaubert, he
says, the
mod-
ern
satirist
must show up
to.
more than
To
end contemporary
must be
and
cruel. It
must be
violently destructive. In
Men
and
Fiction,
Lewis
tells
us that satire
is
degraded
if
it
becomes
ethics, as
Throughout
But
ist,
satire
.
. .
Lewis constantly
I
asserts that
must be amoral.
so on.
"I
am
a satirist
is
am
not a moralist."
And
Yet of course he
status quo,
a moral-
change the
which avowthat
One presumes
is
Lewis
is
exposing the
evils in
satire in
an
effort to correct
that satire
Any
work
It will
soften
it
and make
in-
would
be inhuman," he
and, in passing,
writes.
I
To succeed
of humour,"
is
214
of reality;
its
Satire
characterizations
must be
vast, to
occupy space;
as
he
^
put
it
in
an
article in
for
Satire
Satire,
natural science
"satire
is
As
in a
first
sees
him-
self as
"an
artist in destruction."
newspaper
article: "there
was Pancho
is.
(When
read that
^^
put
is
my
is,
hand
to
my
my
stylo.)"
This
exem-
plified
we
notice, a soldier of
for laughter
al-
ways close
Don
it
Quixote.
He
ish
is
to
reality,"
and
when he
it
"to
make war on
It
and
to cherI
would
fly at throats, I
now howl
merely the
the grin
To
put
it
in another way,
it is
^^
is
What
transpires
that
"laughter," or satire,
an attack on
life,
("Any master
is
of
humour
9.
is
an
lib30,
Wyndham
London Mercury,
No. 180
11.
(Oct., 1934),
511-12.
"What
8.
It
Feels Like to
30,
1932), p.
12.
Wild Body,
p.
158.
He
uses
"humour" here
215
and
pabulum
of satire, for
by contrast the
intelligent
It is
thus sig-
is
Lewis' only
Subsequently
we
are
whom we
must agree
convictions.
to see as "things"
owing
But
ma-
appeared as factual
articles in
The Tramp
is
fined for
tragic
him certain literary values. This story "The Cornac and His Wife."
wound. That
is,
Ker-Orr explains that the primitive Breton peasant usually designs his laughter to
his
rise
above
his circumstances or
environment;
ne-
on
this life.
This
is
laughter torn out of a truly primitive state. But the educated man,
this
educated
man
a greater real-
than the
common
peasant, for in
standing, or imaginative appreciation (as in the artist), of the external world enables
him
feeds
on the primitive and, by revealing reality to him, removes him from the primitive condition. "It is a realistic firework, reminiscent
of war," Ker-Orr says. Like a firework,
it
transcends the
human
it
at the Col-
to his entire
mind and
216
Satire
body
tial
is
it;
for
it is
upon
that essenis
separation
^^
the
theory
of
laughter
here
proposed
based."
we
find in Matiere et
memoire,
is
be-
man
finally,
tion of the
tells
us
it is
"The Meaning of the Wild Body" Lewis impossible for us humans to leap this gap between being
work
would
entail
might be disastrous:
"We
"No
person, of course,
it
would damis
in this
is
"The root
of the
Comic
to
we
we have
Bergson's words in
Le
Rire: ''Nous
chose."
^^
Because of
McLuhan
Body
claims that
is
the exact
is
As
his chief
in this sense
picture of a
man
catching
it
in time, the
being produced by
the sight
as funny,
Lewis
to
be sought in
anomaly." ^Mt
is
the
16.
Bergson, Le Rire,
p.
59.
17.
Wild Body,
p. 247.
217
man
coolly spectator
we know
main mass
of
mankind
as things, or "Appropriate
dummies,"
^*
we
can also say that the comic comes equally from a "person" behaving
as a "thing" (though
an element of tragedy
is
The Wild Body; the comic result arising "because the man's body was not him" is a reciprocal affair. After all, the "person" finds himself provided with a body in this world.
at times
He must
like
watch
this
own
manipulations. In
is
That
is,
dichotomy
is
God
are
be "persons," or
artists.
Yet, although
fulfills
Ker-Orr has
then, he also
all
stories
some
man
Ker-Orr,
of
who lends an added dunension to the scene and by means whom we are enabled to communicate: "To introduce my pupall, I
pets,
and the Wild Body, the generic puppet of fanciful wandering figure to be the showman
strange delight."
must project a
the antics
to
whom
to
be a source of
calls
Ker-Orr "ringmaster of
stories in the
this
book conis
cerns a circus.
18.
We
the Not-
One-Way Song,
19.
218
Self. If
Satire
to
communicate
through him.
He
is,
human
being,
tells
a sort of detachment
intellect,
midway between
and
rolling marbles
bull's-eyes full of
its
"I
hang somewhere
Ker-Orr
is
in
midst operating
with detachment."
^^
So
own nature, unlike the others. Unlike them, but like showmen Lewis creates. Thus Ker-Orr talks about his two selves, his two "me" 's; Lewis has done the same. Rene of Self Condemned "lived in two compartments." Tarr also has this theory of the two selves in man (which we find, again, in Bergson's
"thing" in his
all
the other
have to
hide.'
"
Ker-Orr
is
the
first
of Lewis'
early
have
found
this
to write, for
the indiof
is
at the
of the
showmen
Arghol
is
the
showman
The Enemy
of the Stars,
Zagreus in The Apes. Pierpoint, the master mind behind the scene
in this latter satire,
is
more
act as
showman, conjuror
at
Lord Osmund's,
spiriting
Dan away?
Don
Alvaro Morato
the
first and is a sort of showman, with his "clowns," Communist prisoners. This "socratic turnkey," like most of Lewis' showmen, is gifted with strong eyes. Percy Hardcaster calls him " 'a lynx-eyed old devil,' " ^2 and he sees through the first "false
20. Ibid., pp. 3-5.
22.
false, in
Revenge for Love, p. 19. Hardcaster threatens my theory by calling Alvaro one place. But he may be lying here, as he later lies about Alvaro to
he says that Alvaro wsls " 'rather a
p. fine
Gillian. Eventually
man
in his way.'
"
203).
219
bottom" in the book, the peasant girl's basket. Don Alvaro's eye, likened to a "bull's-eye" in one place, is reminiscent of Ker-Orr's
"marbles." Snooty Baronet, yet another showman, also has eyes
that shine like "marbles of freshly polished glass." Snooty fre-
showman,
Humph
as his "puppets."
The
is
extent,
leges,
al-
Here
is
Arghol
Arghol. Existence.
Loud
feeble sunset
ish savage clown, alive with rigid tinsel, tricked out in louse-
upon the
trestled
... a showman gramme of a thousand breakneck sports who bellows down to penniless herds, their eyes red with stupidity,
their sixpences. ^^
23.
24.
Enemy
The
the
first
influenced Joyce in
(e.g.
Lewis suggests
127), and
this
p.
Hugh Kenner
is
p. 75). I
any
no copy of Blast No. 1 in Joyce's extant library as exhibited in Paris in 1949, though Joyce owned a copy of The Caliph's Design. Mr. Frank Budgen kindly tells me that Joyce lent him a copy of Tarr in ZUrich, but that he never saw any copy of Blast No. 1 in Joyce's posserious entertaining of this notion.
There
session.
In a letter to John
finished
Henry Quinn, dated January 7, 1921, Joyce says "Circe" is is a memoir in support of this from Mr. Sykes, Special Collections of the New York Public Library). The
Slocum-Cahoon bibliography refers at p. 141 to the Circe MS as being in a notebook, and the Paris La Hune Catalogue confirms that this notebook was bought in Trieste (See No. 259 under "Les Oeuvres"). Yet, as Joyce tells Quinn that he wrote this
episode nine times over, the notebook
is
likely to
it is,
My own
Joyce's part to
verbal vitality
no real indebtedness on The Enemy of the Stars, though both writers have in common and a certain distortion of presentation. Joyce could equally be
220
Satire
We
do
not,
it is
true, find a
this
showman
is
(unless
it is
Hyperides) in
satire
exceptional. In
The Vulgar
many of these characters, violently Arghol is stabbed by Hanp, Hanp ending by drowning. The showman's function is the central
one of observing and putting on the platform for us "things," puppets, or "wild bodies," creatures of
more than animal machines. The life of these creatures is so rigid, circumscribed, that it takes on the character of religious ritual.
resembles the dance of an inferior religion.
Ellis
We
recall
Havelock
high
claiming that
Homer
tried to
life at
tide as a dance.
The
cryptic
called "In-
ferior Religions,"
most important
is
document
that
in 1917,
to
be interpreted
this
us
it
explains his
title,
The
says
is
condemned
to
go through a routine of
life
is
tells
us that he
to
and writing
Lord
Carlow with the Chatto and Windus edition of The Wild Body he
explains this
more
clearly.
an obsession.
And what
interesting,
however,
is
to find Joyce's
by Jarry's Ubu Roi. Who knows? V^at answer to the charge of plagiarism in
my
supersocks
my
of siderodromites and to the irony of the stars" (Joyce, Finnegans Wake, p. 160).
effects."
William C.
in Transition
221
is
we
number
of fanatics possessed of
is
obsessions, to
the
.
meaning of the
. .
men machines
till
involved in
some
"set
way he
They Ro-
man
res
was a
mercy of
would present these puppets, then, as carefully selected specimens of religious fanaticism." ^^ So the Frenchman, of "A Soldier of Humour," is intoxicated by, and enslaved to, his desire to be more American than Americans (a prescient critique, perhaps). The "Poles" are clearly at the mercy of their particular state of life, exile
is
en-
commonplace wildness" of his crude appetites, Zoborov of the same story to his fight with Mademoiselle Peronette for the Beau Sejour pension. "The odious brown
slaved to the "stupid madness, or
person of Bestre"
is
fare with the painter Riviere, while the Cornac, with his wife
and
to
"Inferior
Re-
The
stories at the
end of the
ciety,
collection,
levels of so-
do not refute
this analysis.
is
"You Broke
at the
My Dream"
Self
(a skit
on
a,
J.
W. Dunne, who
wakes up and
mentioned
end of
No.
"The
is stifled
to a charade.
novices, or Tyros
25.
They
they are
pun
is
perhaps intended
Wild Body,
p. 234,
222
here.
Satire
in short
...
voice underneath."
And what
else
comic character
in
Le Rire than
this?
mouvements de pantin," is what Bergson thinks funny. The laugher looks on at his comic character as at "une marionette dont il tient
les ficelles." ^^
There
is
ma-
it
on hand than
it
today! Hazlitt, in
Writers, finds
a failing in
Ben Jonson
ter
Lewis
finds
can free us from the spurious philosophies of our day, for Lewis;
man
as
he truly
is:
"Laughter
^^ It is
shows
us, as
can nothing
else,
is
not, apparently,
qualities,
reality.
on Lewis'
lows:
satiric gift
and which
is
seen at
its
most endearing
in
The
is described by Bergson in UEvolution creatrice as fol"Ce qui constitue I'animalite, disons-nous, c'est la faculte d'utiliser un mecanisme a declanchement pour convertir en actions
Wild Body,
'explosives'
tientielle
accumulee."
In
Le Rire
many
might be expected to hold: the idea of the indifference ("insensibilite") of satiric laughter as
opposed
to the benevolence of
humor,
26.
Tyro No.
1, p. 2.
27. Bergson,
Le
28.
Wild Body,
29. Bergson,
UEvolution
creatrice, p. 130.
223
some human
And
and Bergson here; when Bergson writes of our laughter being the
laughter of a group, Lewis would probably say this was
rather than satire. But Bergson
is
than
he suggests,
is
a social gesture
which
who
is
comic
readily
by being antisocial
more
Beyond
is
a primer of Lewisian
For Bergson
man becomes
when he
vital" runs
down
in him, or
deliberately arrests
at
When
effet
this
happens
"un
de raideur" or
la souplesse
This rigidity
the basic comic
"Automatisme, raideur,
pli
contracte et garde"
for
It is
human awareness
a lack of conscious-
est inconscient"
which
le rire
en
est le chatiment." ^^
machine,
it
is
fully in
Le
Rire.
One example he
is
an assassin getting out of a train and thereby infringing local comrules. It is interesting that
pany
illustrate his
comic theory
is
in
for laughter
summarized
oil
have already
Le
224
Satire
classic!
So Bergson lends
Lewis
his
comic
"Le
un cote de
la
elle
ressemble a une
chose, cet aspect des evenements humains qui imite, par sa raideur
le
mecanisme pur
^^
et simple,
I'automain
mouvement
Bergson
sans la vie."
rigid
mechanism
human
to that
affairs,
says, also
produces a comic
personality.
effect similar
produced by
rigidity in the
human
What he
calls
As
well as informing us
paintings, ^^
"little
Lewis
tells
monuments
even mentions
Don
Quixote, with
whom
.
Ker-Orr
"Toute distraction
est
comique
^^
Une
distraction systematique
comme
celle
de
Don
is
to restore awareness
to society. It
them
rel
living in dreams.
The only
sociability.
with
castigates
too
much
to disrupt the
group-rhythm
and
out of
it.
So
all
"Wyndham
Le
Rire, p. 148.
225
If this
found in Bergson.
shows anything,
it
surely shows
once again what an inspiring teacher Bergson must have been, and
how
artists as dissimilar as
Lewis
and Proust.
may be
that
it
Bergson owes
this
comic theory
to
Kant
minor exceptions.
Chapter
i^:
Failure of Energy
"A comic
type
is
standardizing of
creating, that
is,
pp. 235-6.]
In Rude Assignment Lewis admits that his later Bestre and Brotcotnaz of The Wild Body, and if
stories of the
satire
grew out of
so this
must be
in
the development of the comic type, for there are few hints in these
ever, the
served in
Le
Rire.
The
satiric
The comic
type
is
for "All
difference
is
energy." Nearly
most
men do
"A Breton
Innkeeper," "never
Francois, in the
Le Pere
name used
equally has his "role'' to play, as again has Pringle in "Unlucky for
Pringle."
^
To
is life,
the
seem
to
be a deformation,
reality, is exactly
what Benda
1. Wyndham Lewis, "A Breton Innkeeper," The Tramp (Aug. 1910), p. 411; Wyndham Lewis, "Le Pere Frangois (A Full-Length Portrait of a Tramp)," The Tramp (Sept. 1910), p. 518; Wyndham Lewis, "Unlucky for Pringle," The Tramp
Failure of Energy
227
deformation
is
rigidity required
by
Le Rire and on Cartesian animal automatism. I have mentioned this above. Animal automatism is one aspect of the seventeenth-century war between the mechanists and vitalists and it is well covered by Leonora Rosenfield in her From BeastMachine to Man-Machine. Descartes was not the first, as Miss
Rosenfield shows us, to be fascinated by the regularity of animal
behavior, but under the growing pressure of scientific discovery in
his age, especially of physiological discovery,
to
it
is identified with reason. The sum meant that we exist inasmuch as we reason consciously. Descartes came to deny such conscious reasoning, and so free will, to animals: "Ex animalium quibusdam actionibus valde perfectis, suspicamur ea liberum arbitrium non habere." The perfectly mechanistic physiology Descartes observed in beasts made it seem unlikely to him that they were capable of
thought; and although he did not apparently deny that beasts "existed," as
and matter,
spirit.
than to
la
human
beings,
and
Discours de
differ-
methode
that a
machine
in the shape of
an animal was no
itself,
ent,
in Descartes' eyes,
and he actually
Gassendi, and the early Henry More, was that beasts evifelt
dently
yelped. Descartes
met
in kind
2.
felt a pain that was different from human pain, being merely corporeal and therefore
piiblies
Adam
228
still
Satire
Vdme he
idea that perceptions are of two sorts, from the soul and from the
men
certainly
had bodies,
cir-
its
shown by Harvey
(to
condemned him
for
how
on the
in this controversy.
And
which
Thus the
sense "visual," a
stupid a
man
the
is,
the
more
stupid he becomes.
is;
And
the
more
is
man
is,
more
primitive he
primitive,
one
we
Of
it is
prob-
La
Mettrie, author of
all
eliminated nearly
nonmeof be-
man
much
it
La
body
was scarcely a
spiritual possibility.
La
Mettrie, in short,
man-
respect lie
La
Mettrie
supposed
mechanical puppets
who parade
in clock-
Failure of Energy
229
work packs through Lewis' fiction. In connection with the hero of Self Condemned, incidentally, Kenner notes that Rene means reborn; it is more to the point to observe that this is Descartes' name and that Lewis' Rene "was inclined to furrow up his forehead a la
Descartes."
No
the
trived
man-machine
"The froth-forms of
air,
these darkly-con-
in our legitimate
in
and
"me-
liveried
chanical spasms."
What
is
machine?" Kreisler
"machine-like"
an "even more
Q. and
called
T.,
X. defines himself
as
an "animal,"
locutor:
my
words, as
I utter
machine.
to
ask questions."
X. "The only
But
dijfference
is
that I
am
a machine that
I
is
con-
structed to provide
I
am
alive,
however.
^
am
beholden for
a "love-machine."
in ourselves!"
Kemp
exclaims,
'We must
many
machine
Humph
himself like a
wound-up
toy." It
would be possible
to instance
the
3.
man-machine
Tyro No.
No
single
2, pp. 48-9.
230
Satire
work deploys
Apes, of which
this characteristic as
it
rewardingly, however, as
might be
said, in Lewis'
is
own words
in
a miraculous mechanism."
facsimile in real
La
a similar animal-machine.
The whole
cast,"
is
of
was an all-puppet
we
described at
"dummy";
Shaw
family,
Dan
Lord Osmund's,
caricatures.
is
of
The same
idea
of
intellectual
puppet,
or
The Revenge
Tarr
is
the
human
mal-machine.
He
is
Roy Campbell
The ape
fulfills this
is
the Teu-
what Luther called "Affenspiel." Then, the ape is the animalmachine most nearly related to man and, as Lewis wrote in an
entertaining essay
begins right
book
is
Apes, pp. 65, 87, 108, 146, 349, 603, 625, gives some examples. Tarr (Chatto), p. 62 (it is as Tarr rises from being close to Bertha that he
Satire
and
Fiction, p. 15.
A
hand."
^
Failure of Energy
231
Further, he
get a
^
is
"Whenever we
and famihar."
characters in
this sense
it is
good
its
it,
its
ape
the
all
The Apes
artists.
In
Mauriac using a
simi-
Le Romancier
titre
et ses
personnages of 1933:
lis
ne
les
emules de Dieu!
la verite ils
en sont
Martin
Jarrett-
Kerr, in his brief study of Mauriac, translates the last part of this as
"emulators of
the
God
And
it
finally,
Lewis uses
word "ape"
in the sense in
which we
find
in Hazlitt's essay,
is
men-
"Man can
from the
hardly be
facilities of
lash
is
laid
This
is
idiotic pretension, or
artistic,
"humour,"
that
and these "humours" are symptoms of a sick society boils Lewis lances. Two characters, however, stand somewhat apart
in a certain passivity,
Dan Boleyn and Horace Zagreus. Dan "an authentic naif," and in The
nai'f as
Caliph's
"a doll-like
dummy
on sentiment pushes in front of him in stalking the public." Here he goes on to explain that there are two chief types of the nai'f in
8.
Wyndham
London Guyed,
by typographical
ed.
Hutchinson, 1938),
Freudian lapse, that Lewis called the famous "animal man" Mr. Cess Smith throughout this article? 9. Art of Being Ruled, p. 225.
168.
it
Was
error, or
10.
Templeman, 1841),
232
Satire
the contemporary artistic world, the lover of the primitive and the lover of the child. In fact,
is
criticism of this
pamphlet
for
original
makes
some
The
do
Doom
him
of Youth. Zagreus
is
the
showman. Some
is
critics
have seen
frequently ridiculed. In
The
when he
first
myth."
^^
He
is
anyone
is,
may be
and he
is
Hugh Kenner
hangman of him as
in
of the public
England
moribund
re-
Lewis
spells
One
obscurities, but
more
to
my
and Otto
have certain
traits
puppet in Lewis'
only.
Compare,
Agnes Irons
The
Revenge for Love. Agnes, golf champion of Malaya, is straight out of The Apes in type (she belongs there in Part viii perhaps). In
The Apes
this
suits the
theme
side Hardcaster,
Agnes
do
is
fairly uninteresting.
is
so.
At
the beginning of
The Revenge
for
Love
Wyndham
p. 100.
A
it
Failure of Energy
is
233
appears that he
communism. He
judgment
dis-
agrees with
Don
better
(his intelis.
we
learn he
At
to
me
entirely unsympathetic,
But on returning
of Chelsea
to London he undergoes a purgatory in the sham communism. For a while he plays with these political buffoons, "to whom a communist workman was distinctly an alarming notion," but he reaches a turning point when he confronts the shallow, treacherous, vindicative, and entirely phony Communist,
Gillian. Typically, a
woman was
chosen for
this role.
Margot, Hardcaster's
Communists,
this.
He
tells
and upon
kicked
this
is
when down,
it,
Now
this
kicking seems to
as
me
pretation of
The Enemy
We
from the
illness
changed
is
inside. ^^
What
We
is
now
poshis
and indeed
Forged
is
now
^^
He
is
Hard
his
earlier.
At
the end he
down
13.
cheek in the
may be
p. 271.
234
it
Satire
is
to agree here)
^^
far
more
subtle
and
significant,
written:
than 'Tarr,'
Kreisler
is
who
is
a secondary figure."
Most reviewis
the
"hero." In fact,
we approach
Bohemian Paris, a part of Paris possessed by Germans. His name was that of a famous cricketer of the day, thus introducing the recurrent "play the game"
Tarr
is
an
motif to which
I will
return below.
He
^^
is
Tarr has
just
broken
an
off
At
German
girl in Paris
before the
intellectual
effort
to disengage itself
izes the
from the German and sensual which characterare explicitly told that Tarr's intellect resented
is
whole.
We
his
continually asso-
man,
art
" 'strong
i'
uncomand
monly
is
swarthy,' "
is
senses,
ciate
between
art
life.
And
surely
we
in
Wyndham Lewis
the
Rude Assignment,
p.
p.
151.
18.
Ezra Pound, Instigations of Ezra Pound (New York, Boni and Liveright,
217.
p,
1920),
19.
Rude Assignment,
151.
A
Artist
Failure of Energy
235
him
at this time.^^
is
this
further. In passing,
Lewis
I
names.
Few
of these,
think,
make complicated
numerous minor name changes Lewis made is Knackfus becoming Vitelotte, in the second edition of Tarr for which I cannot acPfeifer becoming Kreutzberg, and so on
surely backed by the
Mont-
superbly made,' " stands for the senses. Like Kreisler, her character
preda-
"An
Tarr "found
it
diffi-
At
the start of
the
book
this personification of
is
Romance
is
And
at the end,
He
Pound
kissed her, Tarr adjusts his glasses (inteflect) and leaves her. Before doing so, he puts her in her proper, female place by treating
her as a prostitute.
all,
He
we
is
are told that her child resembles him), and she hopes that
he
at last
so.
to another girl
shows that he
is
not.
would
say, she
ought to
have seen
Thus Tarr
Wyndham Lewis
236
Kreisler, however, with
Satire
whom
duel,
all,
is
rather
more
not
many
of us are artists.
But
in Kreisler critics
have seen a
is
Rude Assignment Lewis re-emphasizes that Tarr is a novel about Germans and Germany, saying that "Otto Kreisler represents the
It is
criti-
cism of
the
first
this
World War,
Kreisler's roots
first
part
of this study.
Pound
is
The
rela-
There
was
tively uninfluenced
which
to the
first
is
all tie
it
Lewis
enlisted,
first
i.e.
1915.^^
We
From
philistine of
come across Kreisler, as we do another monumental modern fiction. Buck Mulligan, in the act of shaving.
on he
it
this point
is
cafes; as
Lewis puts
in
enjoys drifting
with time, until they should reach the brink of the cataract."
the
first,
From
he
is
"Doomed Evidently."
character
is
This
up.
suggestively built
to his "Schicksal"
and
It is, in fact,
upon
society or a kind of
"revenge for love." For the same fatality combined with erotic en24. Sir
William Rothenstein,
Men and
Failure of Energy
is
237
hinted at in a brief criticism of
German
spirit in
tastic
ture.
He
is
also a
Samurai." Surely
this is Kreisler.
We
severity of countenance,"
fixity of
on Bertha with a
"fatal, martial
in
Rude Assignment,
'he converted
"When
them into love.' " Bertha and same ban of the world's law"
mantic nihilism that
has "
is
is
German rowho
'a
And
Kreisler, constantly
referred to by the
tually
Liepmann
ladies as a brute
[sic]
:
and a
beast,
is
ac-
its
trap in the
Germans would
Kreisler,
who
is
called a pure
to
German,
is
fascinated by suffering,
is
we
read,
and demands
make
admirably
But
is first
shown
in action at the
Liepmann
party.
We
in
though
it
is,
is
do
this
from
different starting
points. Kreisler
of course, the
man
sense.
He boasts
up a dun
in Italy.
He
has
we
or to suffer by them.
stiff
He
ideals of the
german
stu-
him
here.
238
In Kreisler
Satire
(Conrad's Schomberg, with his "grotesque psythe best example of "pantin" in Lewis' satire.
chology")
we have
For
in this character he
found a
above the stereotypes of The Apes. Lewis' comic type here engages
with a wide
reality.
is
"round,"
bohemian, the young genius, and so on); the apes are from Theois
also "round."
He
only minor,
flexibility.
And,
like Kreisler,
he
is
close to the
tragic.
automatism of
Le
choses."
"^^
which he
tries to
make
the
world conform to
in Fathers
and
But
Kreisler's rigidity
is
such that he
logical destiny
self at the
(we are
have
killed
him-
for
Lebensraum: "He,
insulted:
he
is
denied equality of
existence."
Hitler in so
What a compelling parallel this character makes with many ways! Kreisler, who craves discipline, wishes he
pistols, in his duel.
Blood
is
what he
would
suicide
He
kills
Soltyk "in a
that
silly
accident," bolts
final
like a criminal
is
Love
(and
prison
slightly duplicated
by Penhale's suicide
end of The
both realize
their respective
self-pity,
25. Bergson,
Failure of Energy
239
dream. Kreisler, however, unlike Hard-
been
living a
and
he was
conscious of his tongue," organ of the senses, while the last organ
of Percy's that
Kreisler
is is
mentioned
is
the eye.
and
life.
when he
says, "
'I
believe that
made was an
was on the
many Eng-
for
September 1918, T.
S. Eliot
it
on
to praise the
book
highly,^^
if
not quite so
highly as
Pound who
called
^^
it
book were by no means entirely eulogistic. Nearly every reviewer had some reservations, generally over the long talk between Anastasya and Tarr at the end. On the whole the good reviews did come from the more intelligent papers (Morning Post, The Manchester Guardian, The Scotsman), the poor reviews from the popular press (Daily News, Observer, Aberdeen Journal) and, as was to become customary for a work signed by Wyndham Lewis, from America. The New Republic for July 13, 1918, for instance, found the work guilty of "inhumanity," and "an example of exasperated
,
self-consciousness, of
called
it
town-mad
art."
a "too-smart-to-last novel."
on
p.
further described
is
German
No.
when he was
Munich.
30, I
and
II Str.,
5,
No.
Pound, Instigations,
Hugh Gordon
Porteus,
"Wyndham
2,
No. 7
(Sept., 1931), 5.
240
"dull rigmarole," while
Satire
Henry B.
Fuller, in
The
German element
book!
30
Eliot
was referring
to a
number
of references to Dostoevsky in
He
method in the book by means of the ingenious suggestion that Kreisler and Tarr alternately imposed their own method on the narrative. (What happens, one wonders, when a stupid and insensitive character imposes
Literary Supplement's view of the lack of balanced
Can
it still
though by no
means hostile. But Tarr was for The Times a document, rather than a work of spontaneous art, and a document that in its utter nihilism
out-Dostoevskyed Dostoevsky.
to Eliot's notice,
Two
New
Wit-
to
be Dostoevsky,
He went on: "it will become a date in literature, not on account so much of the book's intrinsic value (though that is considerable) as because here we have the forerunner of
manner that is to come, a prose that is bare and precise Here the new writer takes definite and lasting leave of the romantic movement, not as in Mr. Joyce's Tortrait of the Artist as a Young Man' (also published by the Egoist Press) with a regretful wave of the hand, but with a most decided shake of the fist." ^^ Nor has Nichols been alone in this large claim for Tarr, A. J. A. Symons writing in 1937 that the work was "the
the prose and probably of the
. . .
first
^^
One
critics
30.
as a
Henry
"A
1918), 261-2.
31.
New
1937), unpaged.
Failure of Energy
241
were thinking of the author's scant respect for the usual narrative
sequences and the deposing of the "hero" from a central position.
Certainly the text
in a
is
way
that reminds
is,
one
slightly of
author, that
ment the drums began beating to warn everybody of the closing of the gates. They had dinner in a Bouillon near the Seine. They parted about ten o'clock." In a similar way there is more narrative
in the last
As Lewis has
composed
abstract sympathies.
One
that
depiction of Kreisler as
appeared in 1912. The anonymous reviewer in The Nation (London), v/ho Lewis
tells
and
whom
critic
at that time," ^^
ical perspicuity
shown
too
is
was here
and because
is
it
worthy to
not
stand by Stavrogin."
^^
of
The Possessed
is
is
an
aristocrat,
He
and
is
of cash. There
spectable society.
33.
some extent his actions are impelled by lack same duel business and boorishness in reBut Stavrogin is married when the story opens,
to
the
34. "Tarr,"
Rude Assignment, p. 148; Blasting and Bombardiering, pp. 92-3. The Nation (London), 23, No. 19 (Aug. 10, 1918), 506-8.
242
Satire
Nihilists
a Kreisler-like
as the critique
satire.
many
aspects of
of godlessness,
Even so, it is odd that critics have not pursued this comparison, made by Pound and Eliot as well as by Rebecca West; but Kenner,
Tomlin, Grigson, and Porteus
all
(perhaps wisely)
It
avoid men-
at the
Modern Language
"Wyndham
in the Arts"
The Demon
of Progress
(unpublished as
this
goes to press).
On
Tan
German artist-novel, and observes the borrowing of Kreisler's name from E. T. A. Hoffmann. "Tarr reads almost like a parody on German romantic artist novels, a
parody that
is
adding: "But
novel."
It is
manner of The Notes from the Underground, The Possessed, which is continued in Lewis's The Revenge for Love, Bergel feels, that is really Lewis'
it is
criticism of
Western "progressivism"
dilet-
Verkhovensky)
is
tantes,
in this connection
some very
close similarities
for
between the two books, as there are also between The Revenge
Love and Gide's Les Faux-Monnayeurs. "Gide's novel," Bergel suggests, "may well have served as an inspiration to Wyndham Lewis." The possession by Hardcaster of a genuine Juan Gris is made in the same context, Bergel shows, by Werfel, Gide, and Mann (Leverkiihn): "The sections in Werfel's novel Barbara that deal with the Viennese Boheme of 1918 read like a preview of The Revenge for Love." In sum, Bergel supposes that all these writers
being themselves
of the avant-garde
Failure of Energy
243
irresponsible toying with ^advanced' ideas for the thrill they provide,"
and "the symbiosis of sham culture and nihilism." Carlo Linati, who has a laudatory section on Lewis
tori
in his Scrit-
is
Milan"
in
One-Way Song,
his inability to
come
him
incapable of realism
(of "the
and we are
up
short,
So Linati
writes:
"La
e magnifica.
Questo
artisti
non raggiunto,
di
le
vendette
ha Fenergia devastatrice
un Jago
." ^^
Personally,
future. Lewis'
way
Joyce's has.
But
who
as envisaged
by Lewis achieves
No
character he has
satire presupposes.
The Apes,
And in
any case,
But
it is
as a nationalist
symptom
that he
makes an
especially
With
his hatred,
bellicosity,
Kreisler
is
is
Goebbels or
also.
Hitler.
And
myth
in
him
p.
244
promising race meeting
immobility in
life,
Satire
its
obsession by
means
of an unparalleled
among whom
37.
Kreisler
at
home."
edition.
^^
Tan
first
Chapter
i6:
is this.
Under
the
camou-
monotonous
and
intrigue he points a
permanent opposition, of
exalts Life into a
outstripped,
art
Tragedy. Art
is
"Tragic Humour," Lewis wrote in Blast No. 7, "is the birthAs he put it in The Enemy of the Stars, there is a "unique point of common emotion from which these two acright of the North."
tivities arise."
So Socrates,
at the
tragic
is
and comic
also a
poets, to acknowlartist.
tragedy
comic
he
is
For Lewis,
And
defining his
satire,
own
when he
writes: "Satire,
some
does unIt
may
it
it
may be
a grinning tragedy, as
felt this
his career. In
The Wild Body we read, "Laughter is the representative of tragedy, when tragedy is away Laughter is the emotion of tragic de.
.
light
Laughter
is
is
laughter
and
Fiction,
manifestoes confirm
The
1.
satires
themselves are
p. 21.
full of
such references.
We
are told
2.
246
that Bestre
Satire
Cornac
and
Frenchman
first
In
Tan
Bertha's
face hghts with a "happy tragic resolve," the farcical duel takes
on a
comedy
the "embryo"
of tragedy
on one occasion.
Lewis writes
It is in
"We
are
tragic beings,"
in
surely
means by
"pantin"
is
man
acting as a machine or
a sad
affair.
On
his
comic theme
is
based. In
of tragedy
of course,
as a fall
book on Shakespeare Lewis accepted the definition from high estate (only one of various forms,
most important to
his purposes).
Tragedy
is
very
little
of his satire
is
life.
of his butts have a lot to lose; they are usually characters puffed
down
like ninepins
by
Shakespeare book,
it is
interesting to find
him
little
purest art"
is its
means
of the
is
man
not a
But
do not mean
Far from
it.
that
Lewis wants us
is
tragedies.
The Apes
is.
Shakespearian tragedy
If
The
from high
estate of
Dick Whittingdon,
move
us to tears, nor
intended to;
it
is
meant
and
move
3.
automaton,
who
Wyndham
Wild Body,
]pp. 8,
247
As we read
satiric
in
The
"The
terrible processions
pity."
The tragedy
is
behind the
presen-
without
ceasing to be art."
He would
The
who made
but vanished.
becomes the
truest
Apes
it
illustrates this.
The Apes
is
a merciless exposure of
as social
from
this
was about
"the social decay of the insanitary trough between the two great
criticism
is
to
be found in
it.
He
calls
book an inferno
its
"A
society has
premonitions of
edges.
They began
to stink. I
stink."
Homo-
sexuality, the
unforgettable picture of a
moribund
society.
is
arranged against
artistic
is
(literary
is,
hurt,
namely the
artistic
literati
the
"lettered herd."
is
amateurism
tarian tradition
which
today.
The longing
and im-
Lewis
in a figure like
Gertrude Stein)
is itself
a social
phenomenon
Apes
is
Rude Assignment,
171.
p. 199.
5. Ibid., p.
248
aligned against
artists; it is as
it
Satire
such that
it
is
remembered. This,
in this
far better
The Apes
ness
is
may be hinting
at this
weak-
when he calls the book his only "pure" satire, but the work does show us the tragic fall from high estate. To cling to my original
example, Dick Whittingdon
successful, wealthy
cars,
is
amateur
and with
his servants,
motor
or should be
united in
him
as
genuine
satiric effect.
is
He
is
a "sham-man."
"
The Apes
Zagreus
Rivieras.'
We
The
amalife
now
since
us,
The
Enemy No.
1927
is,
2, that
Man
with
attacked "the
moneyed throng
is
money
like of
to be a cubist, that
at his
was
(And Lowndes
dis-
once looks
Hobson
and
that
rotted
him.
The
easiest
p. 132.
249
and a condensation of
all this
Pierpoint."^
The
satire of this
moribund
society
now
dead?
begins ap-
"The
like
Then
the society
is
exposed,
the
man by man,
is
or
work
of
the existence of
many
whom
subjects have
bell says
he
sat for
described as
a "disgusting beast."
its
Salonfdhigkeit
his
in
Quad),
on the
himself,
He
later kicks
Dan
trick
We
Worringer's desiderata
for art.
The destructive side of the book presents no difficulty and may more or less satisfaction. It is on the work's constructive side that I find divergence among critics. Who, for instance, is StarrSmith? Who is Pierpoint? How much may we take it that Lewis
give
man
though a confessed
Fascist.
we
name but
tells
Lord Osmund's he
7.
8.
Dan he
knows the dying society well: at has a " 'map of the house.' " From
as
was dead
mutton"
(p.
43).
250
his lips
Satire
we hear many
of Lewis'
own
criticisms;
Old England
is stifling
is
true
Osmund,
is
Blackshirt
is
" 'masculine
to a fault!' "
However, Blackshirt
out.
have pointed
with
He
he hands to Dan;
this is filled
conceit, of wanting to
all
Lewis' productions.
From
its
vast, beautifully
an edition that
drew with
it
wake
mous
letters,
by an airman!
Montagu number of congratulatory letters from Augustus John, H. G. Wells, Montgomery Belgion, Richard Aldington, and so on. In The Referee Aldington called the book "one of the most tremendous farces ever conceived in the mind of man," adding that "The novel contains some of the
Mitchison, L. P. Hartley,
Cecil Roberts, and others, as well as a
Naomi
most
committed to paper."
J.
D.
for
Beresford and Augustus John saw genius in the book, while Yeats
wrote that
it
all literature
a generation
wisdom.
We
had
in
one
man
in St. Patrick's
now
recently,
Pound has
work
as "a
Yeats, Letters, p. 776. This praise, often quoted, occurred, however, in the
it is
drawn Yeats
is first
and foremost
251
a place beside Smollett or Fielding
it.^^
Elsewhere,
Swift. ^^
many
to
The Apes,
England.
of course,
The Times
far
more
usual.
The
in favor, while
Apes
of
God
is
Bookman
for
March,
went even
further:
it is
"The
far produced,
a third takes
its
place
among
is
we can
this
surely
grand manner
way The
Apes some
It is,
is
time.
Of
all
Apes has
for
me
the greatest
artistic integrity.
Hugh Kenner
it
here at
it
its
peak. In this
seems to
approaches
10.
11.
it.
Pound,
//
252
Indeed,
of a
it is
Satire
interesting to see
few years
later,
seems beside the bigger book. Some reference has been made to
this
unpublished
satire.
W.
but one
is
title. ^-
Kenner probably
(According to a
rightly takes to
be a
skit
similar to those of
the farce
equally ludicrous.
still
letter to
dining
marred by
silly
puns
a confusion of
names. At
"The Roaring Queen" reminds one of the early Waugh, which Lewis would call damning praise. In theme the novel lampoons the London literary coterie, with
its
best
its
and nepotisms: reviewers "puff" works from pubthey read, others "plant" anonymous reviews of
in
lishers for
whom
their
own books
London periodicals, and so forth. There is little book that was not better said by Q. D. Leavis
The
in
by a Mrs. Wellesley-
Crook (who, we
Shodbutt
that
is
to confer the
much
of
who
union
on the
virtue of a
is
on the
estate, a lout-like
gardener called
Tom who
The
title is
253
palpably a parody
Lady
Chatterley's Lover, a
book which,
in fact,
Baby
carries
The
fantastic
Mammie, an Austro-Czech
is
undisguisedly
Lilli O'Stein,
a Mrs.
just
won
The
plot
is
complex and
is
Mrs. Hyman
young
awarded a
from
and on
the successful
gives evidence
how strongly Lewis, Wyndham, felt on these points. Eventually, after much jockeying for position and what the eighteenth century called "place" among the literary aspirants, the young hopeful
Butterboy
is
Kenner here
in his
thinking this death "as meaningless as a cinder in the eye," for there
is
it is
criticism of
of Lewis' satire
comic
type, however.
The theme
The Apes
S.
is
"Mr.
Wyndham
upon
my
genera-
tion (in addition to his other gifts), often squanders his genius for
invective
objects
which
seem un^^
worthy of
V.
couched,
his artillery,
S. Pritchett
it is
when he
13. Frank Arthur Swinnerton, The Georgian Literary Scene (London, Heinemann, 1935), p. 477.
254
guns and tanks skewed on the abandoned
fantastic without their thunder."
fatal limitation
is triviality
Satire
field,
they stand
still,
Of The Apes
^^
of subject."
This
of
it.
is
It is
that in the
lot
("Vitagraph
camp"
Satire
is
changed
"Hollywood camp"). In
that
and Fiction he
that there
is
answer
it
on the grounds
Dryden
in one's
mind
more
The Apes
its
lack of
For such
universality
is
matter;
it is
D rapier s Letters,
we can
share,
the period
it
condemns,
even (as
of the
The
first
drafts
book appeared
The
whom
the satire
is
more obviously
LA.
"mean" or
"little" age,
Lewis describes
it? Where are the big targets today, he would own words: "Art will die, perhaps. It can, however,
life
one."
^^
when we
once realize
V.
S. Pritchett,
Books
248, 252.
16.
Men
255
The
first
owes considerably
to
The Apes;
satire.
it
is,
as
it
were,
Literary
London
again the target, but there are somber notes which announce
for Love.
The Revenge
to
The book
is
told in the
Bt.,
first
person by
an author attached
concerned
and
is
of his
literary agent
Humph
these last
Val
is
younger
sister of
Fredigonde. Fredigonde,
we
recall,
was "A Veteran Gossip-Star." Val is an "old imitation-society'piece' " living in Chelsea and flattering herself she can write; she
is
been mentioned
ape of
The Childermass as "an ageing gossip-column and gorgon-eye." Val is a total amateur, or
seriously to be
God
("It
is
doubted
...
if
any longer
become
to
wnV^it").
(Snooty,
his
however,
intellectual of the
Tarr type;
it is,
and Rous-
Emile
is
the
owing to his head wound received in the war. At the end of book he takes revenge on Val, treating her with utter callousill
be marred forever.
Humph,
of his
17.
in a continual dime-fiction
atmosphere
is
own
invention; this
man, "insufferably
up-to-snuff,"
the
256
best character in the
Satire
own
devising,
him
in the back, in
an acte
just
gratuit,
when Humph
isn't
look-
when he
is
many
of Lewis' characters,
his
Humph
overblown "humor," in
his case a
huge
is
chin.
an admitted misanthropist,
his
With
mechanical
leg,
and
watching a mechanical
which
more real, this puppet Strand. This moment, incidentally, "Hatter in the Strand" (Past and
is
the
him
in the
famous
Present,
Book
iii,
chapter 1),
same
reasons.
He
is
and
win
in
Moby Dick
Ahab represents the herd. Thus his actions at the end are consistent. He shoots the man who has befriended him and leaves his woman,
suffering
brief
from smallpox, in the hands of a Persian bandit. These comments do not at all convey the disturbing note of the
Humph.
But the
haps the
tragic element concerns the fate of
Rob McPhail,
per-
first
attribution
of McPhail).
McPhail
authentic poets
now
and fisherman,
257
way
to Persia.
mention of Bloomsbury.
of honor in the book, and
the
man
McPhail
a heroic,
"struck
down
to
whom
It is
by those he
is
trying to help.
The bullfight scenes are powerful, even at their most ridiculous (as when the toreros fight each other, the bull looking on), and the symbolic manner in which the absurd catches McPhail in its grip
is
excellently achieved.
The same
note of the macabre at the end, pervades The Vulgar Streak. Indeed, there are similarities between Martin Penny-Smythe of this
work and Humph. And Vincent Penhale here has a Clark Gable smile, like Victor of The Revenge for Love. The narrative concerns itself with a type of sham, a Gidean counterfeiting of bank notes. The work is overtly a protest against class snobbery in England, against "the relentless pressure of the English class incubus."
Vincent
at the end.
is
a class
is
traitor,
He
a working-class
man who
girl.
upper
The moral of the story is classes the regenerating power of love, but as in The Revenge for Love the central character learns this too late. And, in fact, a tear slides down Vincent's cheek at the end, rather as it does down Hardand marries an upper-class
caster's.
is
or that love
no other end
for
is
him but
class,
he has by no means
sister
left his
family in want.
He
his
and supports the rest of family, sending back money, most of which is spent by his
into the
class
new
258
Satire
was
book was published Lewis theme to counted the word "pseudo," "sham," or
this
is
Further,
a critique of "action."
The
cult
is
but
it
same charge
at
and Camus
in varying degrees of
up rather
FUhrer
is
suits his
Hitler, the
praised as a
man
dislike.
(actually the
word
comes
The
Hitler Cult.
The
sent
by
his
mother-
we
it
more "action"
can do
and
the less
The theme
is
driven
home by an
easel,
a "great
and the
intellect,
its
Thames. Unused,
It is
Lewis'
satires.
and changed, so
19.
259
We
sees
Humph and
re-
bottom.
And
end
is
The Revenge
for Love.
we have
May
-^
1937. Earlier
same
And
he was
The theme of false bottom is continually mentioned throughout The Revenge for Lover^ First, however, it provides the frame. The
book opens with the warder's discovery
peasant
girl's
of the false
bottom
in the
it
basket
false
war
is
seen in this
work
and
as
everywhere a "foreign
freedom" that
Love, and
in the
as in
into
Old Spain
it
end
form of
might be added,
as
we now have
it
describes the
first
Don
. .
Alvaro, on the
.
page:
Ve
That
is
when
at last
we
gaze into the bottom of the heart of our beloved and find that
it is
false.' "
Sham
is
here the
love therefore an
and the C 3 Mind," p. Revenge for Love, pp. 49, 162, 177,
260
act of complicity with falsification. Hence, the
Satire
warder
is
saying,
we
ment
and
is all.
The
thesis of the
is
The
rest
odd exception
like
we
minded
were
Hulme wrote
of socialism:
"it
has
the pathos
of marionettes in a play,
alive." ^^
as
though they
are "wax-
The Communists
The Revenge
for
Love
of an hysterical,
half-conscious,
underworld," in
brief,
"sham-
underdogs
athirst for
when
sohd and
is
Nor can
it
fairly
be objected that
this criticism
sham
socialism Lewis
Prater Violet where the hero, called Isherwood, thinks back on his
But
care as
much
as I said I did?"
^^
The
Invisible Writing
Arthur Koestler
is
fake.
Even
Victor
is
a sham, a "deluded"
is
man who
described as "vomit."
no surprise
when he
22. 23.
joins the
1945),
104.
25.
1954),
p. 384.
261
Margot with whom he has been living, he improves. Every other minor character is bogus (not Tristy). Sean O'Hara, who betrays his friend, has earHer absconded from
company
of
DubHn
forger,
who
helps
Hardcaster escape,
is
funeral of an anarchist,
lantly, in action,
we
woman
spits
on Hardcaster when he
intellectual (that of
Hard-
and emotional
(that of Margot,
is
an element of make-believe
Virginia
'period'
WooK
of her
is
avidly,
and we are
own manufacture." At
of this love
not the
man
to
a true passionate
game.
We
it
is
to
is
also Percy)
"playing the
game"
He
as
humor
"that maudlin
and
at
he was writing The Revenge for Love he also wrote, " 'playing
the game,' as too hypnotic a slogan, has perhaps rotted the sense of
26.
Wyndham
London Mercury,
32,
262
reality of the average Briton." ^^ in
Satire
man
am who
Corcoran of America,
his guide
Presume
also; so
learns that
claims " 'You unspeakable cad!' " Lewis himself was educated
briefly
at
game," but
he put
it
in
"I rapidly
all."
came
satire
to
The
on
"playing the
game" occurs
Rugby cap
Priest
(like the
Mons
really
would
in
like to
have been in
life.
Father
fatal
Card
of
The Red
is
mistake
to "play the
game"
honest, like
communism with
them
it is
when
down,
itself
Finally,
we
approached
by the
hand,
sinister
himself once
it
Abershaw and the corrupt O'Hara and asked to mix more in the game. As Percy agrees and holds out his
in the
grows dark
paralleled for
as hostile
Margot
as she
feels
nature
and unsympathetic.
honor
in the
comes out
suffer.
Margot
calls
and
must pay.
When
28.
263
that.' "
And
he
is
taken
which
her.
it
does,
is
if
only temporarily.
Margot
upon the
intellectual,
first
Hardcaster.
At
the end he
prison,
where we had
found
to
He
it
The Revenge
certainly a
{The Times Literary Supplement has seen The Revenge for Love
as Lewis' finest work. )
logic imparts
The
inflexibility,
nihihsm
is
it
seized
gives
and mercilessly
But
upon him a
is
interpretation, as there
The
act of belief
has been
pitifully
prisoners, spat
on
by a beggar crone,
tellect" at last lets
man
fall
a tear
down
his
poker
face.
No
physical
only
the thought of
Margot
to
whose kind,
is
weak and
the
context of the
be
briefly
will only
first,
be
briefly
mentioned,
critic
however,
due
to
two convictions:
in these
works the
has least need to act as interlocutor; and second, for one has to take
one's stand somewhere, they
29. Ibid., p. 377. I
do not constitute
his
important con-
am
do not
my
analysis here.
It is,
to claim, with
Margot
at
Marvin Mudrick, that Hardcaster "cleverly betrayed" Victor and the end; he did the reverse.
264
tributions to literature. In asserting this, I
Self
it
Satire
am
Condemned is
human
called
novels. T. S.
spiritual
it
agony." E.
W.
F.
Tomlin has
which
sive
concession to
my own
calls
it
estimate,
is
not high,
would add
that
much more
cautious:
Walter Allen
Httle
more, while
some
for
of his opinions
on Lewis, writes
to occasional
Condemned
is
not a well-made novel but a slow and terrible wind, gathering force
doldrums
in
of habit."
first
me
is its
surprise
and inventive
by
the
same author
of interest
in Self
The Red
Priest
which
fol-
lowed).
Why
must we,
Rugby in this novel when we can read more coherently expressed, in The Times Literary Supplement a few months later? Too heavy a judicum should not be imposed on a work merely because it is
polation on Arnold of
predictable, however,
in this
For
England and
exiles himself to
Canada
is
his wife
Hesther
know
was the
For there
265
to find
a pun in the
fire
title.
of
and
is
ice in the
an inferno
Rene
falsely
unregenerate behavior"),
who winks
at a
bust of Bolingbroke,
is
way
mance
sical
is
conception of
is,
woman and
Tarr. Hesther
head
'Erotics,'
"
Rene
later calls
to a shudder" that
Rene
is
"He always
ter-
much
the
Woman." Rene,
duction of the species," and the two get off the bed where they have
"like
two
flies
One level
is
Canada, then,
to lose
something of
from
this
wife
who shows
room the room
in
eyes, eyes which indeed "hung open like a gaping mouth." In this
manner
the hotel
which most of
Self
Condemned
his
takes
place repHes to
of Barbusse's L'Enfer.
Hesther
live
Canadian
city of
Momaco,
"the never-
never land
of which
It
...
no speck of pleasantness or
critic
come."
probably intended by
("twenty-five feet
this
McLuhan to observe that Lewis name Mom & Co. Here, in Room 27A
H. M.
"lethal
by twelve"), a
chamber"
as they find
it
in
The two
it
are
were,
by the magic of
total
For a
the figures of
Old
"
266
Satire
England
cast their
We
Momaco
fairy,
a throwback to
sits
The
Apes (even
too,
in
for Lytton
this time,
Around
by "a
certain novelist of
my
who
I
Waugh's own
Waugh
Condemned and
at
Vorticism
in Vile Bodies,
an infatuadrives
Rene
of this
employment and
him
Momaco
is
Hardcaster,
Rene
this cliuntil,
as
Hugh Kenner aptly observes, "he becomes the thing he rejected." He begins selling his books, he "modifies" his earlier "perfectionist"
theories (expressed to a character called Rotter
and paraphrasing
until
we
read: "Even, he
had developed
microcosm")
their eyes
negation of
life,
and a
Room." Eventually
at the
window:
all right.
Leave nothing.'
Nothing
is
Rene
Momaco,
the very
in
mind deranged,
kills herself.
At
To resume
justice to
Self
Condemned
in this
summary
some
really
memorable minor
characterizations, especially
267
London
is
Lamport,
sham
liberal,
a subscriber to
The
New
Con-
demned
in
the answer
is:
And
For here
is is
Condemned? in Momaco,
you ceased
to think,"
a characterization
depicted as vulgar
its
and
sterile,
with
its
its
smug
feel
philistinism,
its
inbreeding,
"anti-
British
bias,"
detestation of "Pea-soups"
more
Condemned, if not of Rotting Hill, who announces Lewis' recent The Red Priest. The Reverend Robert Kerridge, engaged in the "god-business" in Self Condemned, prepares us for Father Augustine ("Teeny") Card, a skit on the side perhaps of both Donald Soper and Norman Vincent Peale. The satire begins briskly enough. Poor Mary Chillingham is
It is
dumb
Card
is
There
is
gerated
juvenile
or
"mildewed
mews
as
of
it
London. Card and Mary marry and the story gradually bogs
progresses
of
all
too obviously
toward
power and
is
final
The work
contains
at
The prose
slowly becomes
banal.
268
This
is
Satire
may be
intentional, of course;
and
it is
self-parody in
whom
The
tion
...
certainty of touch,"
a parody
probably
we read
of
Woolf
"a
heroine of
romance," as she
as stock
other's
is
called,
who
and
each
arms
as never before,"
of
Mary and
Augustine,
"enemy," a "stone-age
in his life
we remember, is another contra mundum man" who has committed one grave blunder
of
the
murder
Makepeace.
And
this
J
he himself
is
killed
"The
Siberia of the
Mind."
Chapter
17:
manner of
supreme."
there
the
eye
is
and
Fiction, p. 52.]
The technique
calls "the
his satire is
what he
an eye-
is
How many times has he told us this? "I am an artist, and, through my eye, must confess to a tremendous bias. In my purely literary voyages my eye is always my compass," we read in The Art of Being Ruled; "I go about and use my eyes," in One-Way Song; "The ossature is my favourite part of a living animal organism," in
man.
Satire
and Fiction; and so on. It has become a commonplace by now to remark Lewis' external approach, both in his graphic and literary work. He is a "visuel," Montgomery Belgion claims. Pound
Cummings
me-
in this respect.
W. G.
Constable, in a not
and external
both to an
obsessive anxiety to
make
has claimed, "no book has ever been written that has paid more
attention to the outside of people."
^
its effects.
"The
cortex, massive
and sharply
have always
in his
Lewis wrote
1939 autobiography.
1.
W. G.
Constable,
"Wyndham
Lewis," The
New
367
and
Fiction, p. 46.
270
Satire
^
For
of things,"
as
he
mud,"
as
he puts
it,
match
its
then, I
am
method
of external ap-
proach, for the wisdom of the eye, rather than that of the ear." This
is
closer
was
in
Man
that
Lewis
first
adumbrated
at
man
by the "darkness" of
sense placed the world of common-sense reality as directly as possible before the intellect.
In
fact, the
eye
is
human
organism.
may be found
also in Belphegor.
the eye"
is
deliberately anti-Bergsonian.
ception travels from the periphery to the center (the real self)
accords
it
Lewis opposes
this view.
in practice in Proust;
though by no
means an
too
much
"une maniere de
Fernandez considers
Lewis goes
course.
3.
He summarized
Jews, p, 41.
Blasting
4.
5. 6. 7.
and Bombardiering,
p. 9.
ff.
271
is
Man
thing.
as follows:
"A world
of motion
a world of music,
if
any-
No
visual artist
The
comes from
^
may
All this
is
fertile in the
and Woolf at this time, the "philosophy of the eye" must give us some positive suggestions concerning literary technique. Lewis pretends to give these in Satire and Fiction. Before approaching them, however, I would suggest that the vital distinction between Lewis' "philosophy of the eye" and the interior monologue, or Strom des Bewusstseins, is a metaphysical difference. Lewis' work is a retraction from, rather than mingling in, experience. Bergson stands
for the opposite approach, that of Proust,
et
when he
says, in
Matiere
memoire,
that perception
affection. Satire,
Lewis
replies,
*happy'
good
art,
since the
there
is
no other way
As
for satire
"it
number
To Ratner (James
The
Bailiff
Joyce, after all) Zagreus says, " 'To be a true satirist Ratner you
existence.' "
says,
The more
8.
9.
...
the
more
the
p.
not therefore
272
exterior world
is
Satire
himself go.
The "unpunctuated"
large debt to Joyce
own
on
"merely a device
...
Men
is
equally derided.
stands for "the art of the 'soul' " instead of ''the art of the
"New England
victim.
more
eccentric
we
turn to
its
An
Episode, originally
pubhshed
fiction, in
in
ally hints at
The North American Review for January 1865, actuthe "inside" and "outside" methods to come in modern
stresses action
fact,
James here
and
description.
The "philosophy
says,
however, since
aim
is
to cure
man
of vices
and
of course,
psychiatrist
who
Yet Lewis
will,
he says,
him what he looks like from the outside. allow the interior monologue to be employed
the very aged, (2) the very young,
my
opinion
^^
it
should be enClass
1
would
is
cer-
like the
mentally
know.
has been
Jules
Romains
Men
without Art,
p. 120.
monologue to these four categories in his interview with Louise Morgan. Louise Morgan, Writers at Work (London, Chatto and Windus, 1931), pp. 43-52.
273
for obvious
monologue may be used, it is apparent, as a parody of the interior monologue. The "Stein-stutter" is the chief of these. But there are other parodies, too. There is a deliberate skit on Virginia Woolf's style at the beginning of Part vi of The
The
interior
Revenge for Love, when the highly feminine Margot is being characterized. In Snooty Baronet there is an obvious skit on the style
of the maid's novelette. This occurs in the
first
the
London
Lily
is
London
whom
I see
my
my
an
idiot's tattoo."
type of Ethel
bell,
M.
Dell
is
Roy Camp-
who
book
fine lyrical
prose in Light
of course, a
mishmash
of bulls
first
cult.
In The
kiss
described in cliche-ridden
offspring, so far as
he came to be con-
we
find Babbitt
sciousness school in
On
Babbitt writes,
rational
reality,
human and
Dan
is
guilty of
^^
The
On
Apes,
p.
114. Zagreus
Dan
thinks the
way
p.
Stein
alphabet'" (Apes,
420).
274
the inane Fredigonde,
palling Satters of
Satire
who
"Steins
.
a matter of
ever.
The Childermass The Stein-stutter is not merely Lady Fredigonde's thought-stream in The Apes, howit
As
is
the Finnian-
Shaw family
"I
Lord Osmund's
train right off!"
do believe
Lady Truncheon's
cried.
"I think
"How
terribly careless of
me
will excuse
me,
it
was
1
*T shouldn't
if
bayed
at herself.
know!"
I
"You must
"I believe I
Lady
Truncheon was
must Phoebus!"
^^
The effect is to freeze the action into a sort of unholy stasis. After Lady Truncheon is standing there in her underclothes. The same effect is achieved when Ponto is booted in the behind by
all,
Blackshirt.
He
flies
through the
air
and
air,
Ponto
area.
is left
The
point
of verbal anarchy
and purposelessness,
in the inane
is
yawn,
this
Condemned,
462.)
where an exchange
13.
Apes,
p. 488.
(Possibly there
275
went
to the
window."
retorted, in
what
quoque.
do not go
I
to the
"Well,
window
if
perplexed,"
Rene
remarked.
"You went
to the
window?
Why
dow, Professor?"
It
is
acter
who
is
really a leftover
And
there
is
Norwich
The Red
Priest.
So page
is
after
perfectly functional.
Nothing could
be effectively subtracted.
(in
in
And
in passing I
rhetorical
vigor
makes the hollowness of the more absurd. But the most obvious satire the of Stein is to be found in The Childermass in the person of Satters. Satters continually "steins ... for all he's worth," either by a direct stammer (" 'Y-y-y-y-y-you howwid blag-blag-blag-blag-blagcharacters talking
blag-blag-blag-' " )
as this: "Pulley has
such
been most
terribly helpful
and kind
there's
no
use excusing himself Pulley has been most terribly helpful and kind
most
he's
terribly helpful
and
he's
terribly
kind and helpful, there are two things, he's been most kind and
been
^^
terribly helpful,
he's
he's
terribly."
It is interesting
to
is
a parody of Stein,
a serious
moment
in Faulk-
276
Satire
nef s
capable of pity and compassion for the weak and orphaned and
helpless because
it is
pity
helpless
But Joyce
so chameleon-
When
the
out to his men, " 'Net Fret Tet! Tick tear, ant Mick!
commenting on the
in
"Work
in Progress."
More
explicitly,
mind
that
in presenting
way
turrer plar
lovely ladies
the best
never
take no denial
beautiful bilgewater
say die
o'
once!
putter
rights rain
of
top
the
cats
very!' " ^^
In Finnegans
Wake Joyce
when
here
boredom"
an
"Eating
^^ S.S. collar."
in Lewis'
work. There
is
a brief
is
16. Joyce,
Finnegans Wake,
p.
may
be
Samuel Shodbutt,
277
of
in
"The Roaring Queen." Some reviewers saw a parody of Spender One-Way Song. If so, it must be in something like the line "Ah
ah!
Ah
ah!
The Business
that he
New
Britain, ^'^
and
it is
certainly not
an extended one.
From
proach
by now a platitude
it is
interesting to
in the early
compare
some characters
The
idio-
reminiscent of the
German
bit,
Expressionist
school
in
painting.
it
may have
I
woman
manner
at the start of
The Revenge
for
Love
But
in principle
we
find a feature of
Imagism
one of the
Some
One might
Hobson
at the
of
"A
Soldier of
Humour"
suit are
window
in his des-
perately
American
outlines. Carl, of
We
notice
same
hat),
17.
and we
Wyndham
which Tarr is built up (white collar, black same when Potter enters the Bailiff's Court in
New
Britain, 2,
No. 33
278
The Vulgar
Streak, to
name
is
What
is
the
way
to
in
scriptions of
human physiology.
is
For
senses.
So
"like a burst
plum
cigarette
mouth
like a
"plum," again, while Matthew Plunkett in The Apes has "plumlips." Satters
lips like
his
mouth
is
"like
Gillian's in
slit
The Revenge
scalpel."
roll
Love
this
is
something
is
open with a
just
That
imagery
not accidental
surely testified
I
by the
call of unpleasant,
emotional characters
have
enumerated.
we
expressly
is
it
is
who have
we
these
like
War
^^
while of Anastasya
in the
read: "Her
no emotion
if it
p. 1;
Snooty,
mouth
like a
"muzzle"
(p.
225).
Wyndham
Lewis, "The
War
n.s,, 2,
No.
(Winter
279
we have
all his
already seen
how
was
that the
quently nearly
showmen,
some
socialist
Priest.
Rymer
seen
one place
as
an "infuriated animal,"
in another as a "cabotin,"
ham
and Gartsides,
(See, too, the
art teacher
condemned players. Of
hale,
to act a
show
life,
my introduction, the mask may some sympathetic character like Tarr, Penor Penhale's sister Madeline. ^^ But it is also used to indicate
course, as suggested in
the condition of
human dummy,
this?).
or fathead. Anastasya
is
thus "a
mask come
witch-mask" (can we The mask is used in the imagery of The Apes throughout,^- while the masked party at the end is itself a symbol of Lewis' purpose here. The word occurs continually
to life." Harriet has a "waspish
in Self
Condemned.^^
in contrast to the soft
But
is
this
mask
the eye
Even
is
likened to some-
thing hard and metallic; often they are like discs, an object that has
meant a
lot to
Lewis in
his graphic
"The Mud Clinic" as "discs," -* and elaborates on Lewis' graphic style from this point of view. The Frenchman fixes Ker-Orr with his eyes "with the blankness of
two metal
Kemp
stares at people
21. Vulgar Streak, pp. 106, 160, 166, 208, 224, 235.
22. Apes, pp. 195, 246, 250, 252. 23. Self
Condemned,
24.
Handley-Read, Art of
Wyndham
Lewis, p. 57.
280
''with his
Satire
eye.'* ^^
Condemned we
But the
disc, a
hand
is
"pudgy
hieratic
Deborah
.
(in "Sigismund")
disc of face
waitress, in her
My
Dream,"
is
seen
a disk
a marble table
and
hood."
27
Interestingly enough,
Val once
sits
down
at "the
metal
One
could give
my
disk to him." ^^
comment on
It
Matthew Plunkett has a "hieratic stiffness of limb," while the peasant girl in The Revenge for Love walks "with a hieratic hip-roll." Hieratic means consecrated to sacred uses Lewis even describes himself with the word in Blasting and Bombardiering
imagery.
it is
generally a
word Lewis
Dorothy
Pound once
"hieratically
rigid." ^^
much comment. H.
Gaudier working on
S.
this
Condemned,
p. 322.
Wild Body,
p. 287. p. 408.
Finnegans Wake,
T. S. Eliot.
A Symposium
281
it
to
in his
Putney Bridge. ^^
still
which braved
weathers (and
snails,
according to
Iris
Barry
^^)
was collected by some of Pound's admirers and erected at Rapallo. Possibly this controversial bust, to which Pound refers in his poem "Moeurs contemporains," ^^ meant something to Lewis
thirties it
word
"hieratic."
some
is
stage or other,
may
take
it
Lewis
likes
them. "Clock-
work"
Ponto "
The peasant
girl
Josefa
(like Doris,
one of Jack
who
we
are
designed
on
stilts
to bustle
Down
paths
lit
by our
eyes,
of clockwork muscle
One can
smokes
blinkers
actually hinged
composed of
To
develop one
example, here
bud
of tongue
still
show-
lip
down
31. Epstein,
74,
No.
2 (Oct. 1931),
166.
34.
Ezra Pound, Quia Pauper Amavi (London, The Egoist Ltd., 1919),
p.
17.
282
Satire
from
pull
down
only
down
if
this
monkey-on-a-stick mechanical
and again.
will "pull
We
is
find
Arghol with
lip
"upper
lip
her upper
face
under one."
Humph's
it.
seen once as
shutters
like
mouth opens like a latch in "Cantleman's Spring-Mate." La Mettrie would exult in this imagery.
metal shutters."
It
would be redundant
to
go on
in this fashion.
Only the
"shell"
satire,
Lewis wrote
London Mercury
it
article,
Of
.
the characters in
. .
The Apes
is
he wrote, "In
come
first."
He
quite
who owns
for Love),
all
are at
some
shells.
Uncle Thad,
"Doppelganger,"
left
Harding of
Condemned ends
this
as a "glacial shell" of a
man.
How much
literary
literature.
has
method? This
In answering
problem
at the heart of
modern
minor syntactical
effects.
These are
Style;
by Bonamy
in
Dobree
in his
Modern Prose
though finding
^^
Lewis "an
Dobree admiringly
t
and ck)
an
effort,
Dobree
feels, to
goad
Style
1934),
103.
283
study of
Wyndham
Lewis called
Master of Our Time, Geoffrey Grigson takes his stand in the externalist camp, and pleads that Lewis' method in fiction has revitalized
modern
prose:
later
pronouncement:
side of things,
have defined
of things"
life
{The Art of Being Ruled, 1926). In art the real was, paradoxically, the deadness, the permanence, de-
warm
no
art.
in
no proportion, no
In
the
no
simplicity of
grandeur,
captured; in the
stiff.
Obviously
.^^
And
Man,
first
formulating this
method
for Grigson,
is
is
which
generosity
it
Finally
we
"Pick up a sentence,
means,
this
prose
demands reading:
cording to Stanley
it
cannot be absorbed
here as
little
monologue
"monotony of
.
style,
is
Stephen
so
only recognizable at
all
by being made
arrives
"fiction
11-12.
284
Satire
The
fact
is
that
internal
disorder,
by ruggedly
sides of things,
who
sure
to
seem
One
is,
in a
word, merely
dis-
asserting that
one
is
afraid of the
likes in oneself,
and more
that
on the external
It is
and what
but fascism?
saying that
we must
members
we must
we must
I
drive the
am
it
not prepared to argue out Spender's political parallel here, not hard to support his contention concerning the inart.
but
is
is
states,
"The sense of reality is inevitably connected with that of space." Yet Bergsonism, which Hulme championed, liberates for Lewis "a sightless, ganglionic mass." In Canto xlv (beginning "With
Usura") of the Cantos, Pound goes so far as to suggest that the kind
of hard-outline, external art he requires opposes usury. Lines 18
tell
us this clearly:
no
clear demarcation
to the neoclassicist, for
it
Nor
is
this conceit
uncommon
seems to
in Lewis'
to
do with
art of
any
sort,
^^
214.
Wyndham
No. 298
285
this.
deeper than
Of
all literary
forms in the
strong
is
not
M.
up
this
matter and
however, con-
cludes:
in
its
ruin
"The time-sequence cannot be destroyed without carrying all that should have taken its place; the novel that would
Joseph Frank, writing in The Sewanee Review in 1945,
Frank
number
definitions
form" in
their
work.
As he
is
puts
"the reader
is
spatially, in a
moment
This
cultures,
and ideas
latent in
as his "image."
privilegie."
It is also to
39. E.
Novel (London, Edward Arnold, 1927), p. was written shortly after, and possibly in response to, Percy Lubbock's equally brilliant The Craft of Fiction (1921). It was followed, in 1928, by Edwin Muir's The Structure of the Novel which takes pretentious issue
M.
with Forster (pp. 7-16, and Conclusion); Muir's third section deals with "Time
thesis
is
significant that
to
experimental writers in this section; his work concludes with a bitter fulmination
against Ulysses,
tionable." Joyce's
is
whose "design is arbitrary, its development feeble, its unity quessymbolism for Muir is "hardly to be taken seriously." Ulysses
stillness."
Form
in
Modern
Literature; Part
i,"
The Sewanee
286
Satire
A
to
number
come
like
Frank
tion of the
chronological time-flow.
This
helped
may seem obvious enough to the reader, but Frank's article me to understand Lewis' real dilemma as a writer. As
out, in
deahng with
this
problem
A Key
new
to
Modern
on a com-
pletely
no
'^^
relativity,
and wishing
did, in
to
be
artistically honest,
Lewis
One could reject Time and Western Man, but one could
not
now
The
comment on
one which
this.
And
it
crisis for
Lewis as a
Frank
cites three
minimal extent on
Ulysses.
One
at
once notices
two of these are poems and indeed Frank admits that the best
reorientation of language
fruitfully achieved,
demanded by
"spatial
form"
is
most
41.
he
feels, in poetry. It is
Lawrence Durrell,
A Key
to
Modern
British Poetry
versity of
Oklahoma
287
Yet
Frank's thesis that the chronology of the psyche (which need not
at all
moments
characters
still
unfolds in time.
Our
it
eyes travel
down
the page.
We
read on, to
seems to
me
if it
obtained in the
would cease
to
come
a poem.
It is
most cogent.
/,
And
on Faulkner
in Situations
Jean-Paul
makes one
feel that as a
the Fury.
By
Faulkner
it is
centered
is
on a
lunatic.
felt to
it
is
by
technics,
"technique
pean writers of
century have
is
felt
as discovery"
Mark
Schorer
in the
quandary of
disliking everything to
do
independent of
dislocation of language.
Satire
is
his attempt
new
highly dependent
on innovations
and punctuation
too, that
were the
it,
As Spender put
not
just
only did the classical Greeks have fine ears, but "the ossature
as
is
much inside an animal as the intestine; and the intestine of a human being is also just as much on the surface and affects the shell, as does the backbone." ^^ As a consequence, there is a clash
taking place in Lewis' imagery. In The Wild Body, and in parts of
Tarr, he arrives in the literary arena beside the genius of the pica-
human
began by seeing
life
he himself
is
simply
an
of affection, which
we never
1920 a lack of
stinctively,
intellectual elasticity,
in-
begin to weigh
ebullience.
He
sees life
The Apes,
this actually
first
helps,
half
of this century.
satirize himself in
The Apes,"^^ as Joyce was able to satirize himself in Finnegans Wake. The imagery atrophies. It becomes montonous, hectoring. The vocabulary shrivels. I took the liberty of documenting the use of favorite words in Lewis' imagery in The Childermass, for instance,
and even a cursory inspection revealed the following:
Shell: pp. 3, 6, 14, 29, 41, 44, 231, 233, 262.
Mask: pp.
3, 30,
Some
critics
289
The majority
of these references,
it
will
first
part of the book, the descriptive part. In the ensuing dialogue characters are called puppets, automata,
third page. Indeed, we heard you the first time! is perhaps common criticism of Lewis' work I have come across.
Yet
rank.
it
would be churlish
to
this
writer, at least
the
name
for a Breton
commune and
I
a belch (in
bawl,
drink")
word
that
combines
One-Way Song
and
is
represents death
to die.
The
we return to Rot, here a disease affecting when Rymer arrives with a patch over one eye in this work and eructates, he is halfway to Ludo and an ironical comment on his creator who was rapidly going blind during the
In Rotting Hill
writing of these stories. For there the fate that has
is
now
comwith
ment,
lady
"My
my
eyes,
and
like a
bold young
it lolls
this fate
characteristic courage.
have to
light
a
^^
in
my mind
to
keep
at
Wyndham
Lewis, "The Sea-Mists of the Winter," The Listener, 45, No. 1158
(May
Chapter
i8:
Time
Stands
Still
'Time stands
'I
still
in this land.'
said
it
was England'
In 1928 Lewis published The Childermass, a fictional satire announced as the first section of a trilogy whose second and third parts
were shortly to follow.
opinions as to
It
has been
it
left to
contains so
many
it
of Lewis' critical
make
it
fall
an exception
tells
in his
canon
in
Rude Assignment.
"It is
about Heaven," he
us there,
"the politics
Human
title intended to subsume what has now turned into four The Childermass, Monstre Gai, Malign Fiesta, and The Trial of Man. (A revised version of the first section. The Childermass, appeared in 1956.) A writer in The Times Literary Supplement, praising the work in terms alluded to above, surmises that the earlier extensions of the 1928 book have "either been scrapped al-
Age, a
parts
may
well be so. E.
W.
F.
volume:
An
important clue
may be found
structure in which he
sits
is
Time Stands
Still
291
signs, chief
Maha-Yuga.
Now
it
the
name
in
human
Yuga
in
nadir.
The
repre-
(repeated on the
Bailiff's
banner
in
to
its
is
difficult to the
who
letter to Olivia
of writing
known
me."
Reviewing The
Human Age
(contain-
The Sunday Times for October 30, 1955, Cyril Connolly was appalled by "the immense tedium of the whole." Parts he found "disgusting and aesthetically wrong," and his conclusion was that "such a prosaic tapestry of
ing Monstre Gai and Malign Fiesta) for
banal dialogue, so
much
in the ears."
Perhaps because
it
is
such a
by
Thomas
Carter in The
Kenyon Review
Age.
an
Human
complex and
1.
E.
W.
F. Tomlin,
2.
3.
At the
start of this
Human Age
is
sequel.
acknowledged
it
New
1928,
may
be
292
"Heaven." This
plain where
celestial city, lying to "the Satire
we
begin,
"human age"
at the
only
we we
And
it
first
is
later called,
In
of
whose court
massacre of the
Herod (Matthew 2:16) from which the book takes its name. The second and third sections become increasingly Swiftian, Miltonic, and Dantesque: there are references to Gulliver and the absurd names are reminiscent of Swift; in Monstre Gai there is an exchange of epic insults between Pullman and Sentoryen which is
children by
only one of
many such
Ma-
connection
of Paola
we have what
this
how
"the
little
404 we read
pages
(my italics). Three we read that their posture is "lips to lips and sex to sex." However this may be, the action of the whole opens, then, in
exactly placed to facilitate sinful love"
later,
man
4.
Childermass,
p. 317.
Time Stands
Still
293
all
day, glittering
madly upon
To
lies
This
is all
On
camp on
whom
in
The manner
and Pulley
recalls yet
come
to
they stumble,
and
like Satters
and Pulley
they are nearly torn apart by the hostile birds at the beginning
(the river peons in
in
The
Nightingale's chorus
as half- alive
a general atmosphere of
which
is
to be
found
in the Bailiff's
Court
also.
is
This
is
There
also a hint of
The Frogs
in the
Meis
naechmus
I in
Plautus'
to
The
likeness
294
equally suggestive, but equally superficial.
point,
in his materialist reading,
I
Satire
La
is
Mettrie,
and
in another place
doctor,
Childermassian.
Bouvard
et
Pecuchet
"j'espere cracher la
far
dedans
the
work and
is
more amenable;
two
philistine,
pathy, indeed so
much
detest,
and should
is
from the
start.
Flaubert's
universal. It
plores.
Satters
and Pulley,
on the
plain. Generally,
is
He
is
a "guide"
and
"little
He
is
Pullman or
as a governess or "Nannie." In
him.
He
is
^
me to
eight,
lead
Apes
in Hell.' "
Actually,
we
is
learn that
James Pullman
is
but he
dressed in a far
more
adult
way than
to
whom
is
we meet
entitled.
in football kit
which he
not
Satters
is,
I think,
meant
to
be the
two,
is
woman
he
who above
the
5.
all
characters in the
work makes
us think longingly of
is
title,
obviously meant
Time Stands
to represent
Still
295
as,
on one
level,
James Joyce.
Thus
I
Pulley,
to
identify
tells
Satters: "
'When war was declared I was in Trieste in Spandau, should say, at the BerHtz, teaching.' " A few lines further on, he
me
over,
and
my
The
Satters,
meanwhile,
present on almost
is,
we
learn Satters
turns out
To
communism (and probably of what Lewis saw as transition communism at this time), the two return in time to various ages and
on one occasion stumble across a
in
Lilliputian
Tom
Paine. Speaking
Tom
Paine
lout,' "
and when
Satters seizes
him
bites his
Man
to death
The two
acterizations.
As Monstre Gai
"Pulley,
opens. Pulley
is still
referred to as the
off.
. .
.
"steins"
wha
what!" and so on
but not
wha
wha
nearly so
much; however,
baby
afflicted
Satters ap-
mask
"^
of a
with wind,"
and
at the
Pullman
is still
likened to Joyce
in
and we are
cated by Jesuits,
had once grown a beard, had been eduand "had not come out of a top-drawer." He once
life
in Ireland. I
am
a Catholic."
There are
is
re-
Ibid., p. 94.
Human
Age,
205.
p. 455.
8. Ibid., p.
296
ferred to as "yellow"
Satire
"Didn't he run
de-
nounced him!"
He is
called a "hero-rat" in
violently
named O'Rourke
two places
(the
Mino-
in the sequels
this is
no longer
in
who
becile low-average
mind"
writing.
The
is
attitude to
Pullman
both
far
more
pleasant; as regards
names,
it
may
name
mean-
Pullman
while,
is
recalls a sleeper,
"pulley,"
may be
Pullman corridor.
be, these
two then,
across
identity,
come
way
They have various mirages, mostly returning them in time; thus Satters comes across a schoolboy called Marcus Morriss with whom he had had homosexual relationship. They also meet literary characters, like Bill Sikes (murderer, and the Dickens connection for Joyce). They have a hallucination of Old England, which is identified by ladies' underclothes; following this skit both on the oversentimental idea of rustic England (the work is extremely Anglophobe) as well as on the politics of the English Puritan movement, they see a "righteous phalanx of incestuous masculine matrons" with Eton crops and "revolutionary cockades." These are
,
deriding above.
new woman of the twenties we have seen Lewis They turn out to be on the side of children, comits
munism, and
"he
is
indiscipline in all
movement and
of female emanci-
way
papas"
who
Time Stands
Still
297
war
films,
^
to
"La
sans cesse,"
^^
this
section from
UEvolu-
tion creatrice.
flux,
The
objective world
is
ment
Le
le
bornons,
Macrob, a
Scottish ap-
becoming and
to pieces
is
Bailiff
and
is
one place he
says, "
This
static
degradation
^^ partial.' "
In
in time the
make
their
way
to the
Yang
gate;
we
is
woman
wander around
in
From
As
in this
I.
one
spot,
becoming
puts
it:
at the
end a
series of
dramatic speeches.
A. Richards
flung wide
is
sets
we might today
damaging the
criticism).
10. 11.
p. 226.
298
not to
it
Satire
let
or,
merely, put
fairly."
This Bailiff should not be confused with the somewhat autobiographical Bailiff "billed" in the
despite the fact that
first
is
section of
One-Way Song,
we read
that his
whose
tells us,
habits,
we
He
it
advocated the
has
machine
now
'You said
^^ It
New
Signatures group
The
Bailiff of
The Childermass
and proud
is
mob
Wrongs:
the
" 'Primitive
that's
my
motto.' "
He
is,
of
course, idolized
by
Satters
whom
Lewis himself
Yet the
emblem
and
will. If this
means anything,
is
think
it
an
intellectual traitor,
office.
seen
he
starts to deal
We
later learn
nonhuman (Monstre Gai) and yet "Oriental" {Malign Fiesta). A number of arguments take place and the Bailiff becomes characterized as repressive, arbitrary, and Bergsonian. Some of these
I.
A. Richards
writes, "to
10,
New
York, November
4, 1951. Typescript.
One-Way Song,
pp. 11-12.
Time Stands
Still
299
it is
all
about.
be, of course,
what
it
is
all
about." I
is
about
mind
the
maxim,
"
'Nothing
is
so' "?
At
But
espe-
Lewis about this time). So Richards writes: "By these means the book disowns a doctrine. Of course, plenty of Pulleys will become completely and perfectly positive what its doctrine is, and what they think about it. They will tell us it is an attack on Bergson, on Christianity, on the time cult, on the child cult or on homosexuahsticism [sic], and so forth. Good. Let them. That again is what Pullman Pulleys are for. Fine little governess dons they
be."
i
is
This
let
about, and in
mass
is
attacking.
For
if it is
about nothing
and
not, rather,
then
all.
in the true
sense, a
book composed
The Childermass is about "ignorance" in the fonn of "timephilosophy." The Bailiff explains "space-time," the element in which
the purgatorial plain
is
cast,
as precisely
One can
from
the Bailiff's speeches to the critical works Lewis wrote in the twenties
16.
Richards,
loc. cit.
300
Satire
and
is
thirties,
and vice
versa.
To do
so here
would be
repetitive. It
much more
The
answer to an appellant,
who
recently
made
against Time,
when a champion
is
the
Greek Hyperides,
enemy"
of the Bailiff.
The two
and
later
we
and
principals.
The
first
question put
"
by the
direct
and
home:
'Would
is
it
not be true,
sir,
Time, that
it is
to say that in your magical philosophy there " essentially with Time that you operate?'
only
by
one
directly
opposed
and
it is,
and
Hyperides, however,
his faction.
is is
last
He
himself
carried about in a
the pose of
to
we read
that he has a
are told
"a mask
If
like Lewis'
crowds of faces."
Lewis partially
then this
is
the second
orator,
many
of
whose
last century.
For
So
at
it
is
moribund culture
Bailiff:
17.
Time Stands
"Is not
Still
301
all
Did not
the
human
moment from
that,
above that flux? Are not your kind betraying us again in the
name of exact research to the savage and mechanical nature That Time-factor that our kinsman we had overcome
. . .
the
its
that
to obsess, with
movement, everything
all
what
He
we read
is
that "action
is
moving
is
who
couldn't
keep
still" is
the
same
is
The
Bailiff's
position
is
is
conceives as
you habitually
the
see
and
of
am
becoming
Space
Space
is
mind
the
is life,
Time
all
good
things!
Time
Time is money,
this
is
God!' "
^^
To
philosophy
its
men
outriders
the youth cult, the revolutionary orthodoxy, and the sex war: " 'The
male principle
herd
is
is
concerned
where the human you would drive back mankind into the
an
protozoic slime for the purposes of your despotism where you can
rule
them
like
like
152-3.
The
in
latter
passage is similar to, and may be a parody The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft (London,
1914), p. 287.
302
insect-swarm
.
.
Satire
you are
drilling
to overthrow our human principle of life, not in open battle but by sentimental or cultural infection.' " Until the end of the first
worms
book, as
we now have
it,
Here the
Bailiff
The makes
how-
Greek
The Hyperideans he
that the
Bailiff,
calls "class-conscious
herd-midgets."
It
seems
at a loss for
argument,
is
"'You am no
The
Bailiff replies
and there
this
appeal.
One
of his
then objects
overdogmatic: "It
ears for instance
is
only
that
datum can
You
are so overintellect
your
all its
answers, "
'You of
In the sequel, Monstre Gai, Pulley and Satters enter Third (or
Bailiff
be
cultists:
"Perhaps
fifty
Mannock Money is
and
there
is is
ideal of averageness."
free; there
Time Stands
Still
303
The
city
is,
in fact,
criticized in
wing orthodoxy (Pullman discovers "there there would be no wings in a Bailiff-world except left-wings" ),2^ Negro-worship (some of
the Baihff's
henchmen
the
new
map
the book a
develops in intellectual terms between the detestable Bailiff (representing Hell) and an heroic Padishah (representing Heaven).
this latter
filled
Of
character
we
do with
Man
him with an immense fatigue," and he consigns women to a compound in which they are periodically tortured and brutalized.
is
seen kicking a
woman
prisoner
camp
after
is
looked
by Sammael,
a totalitarian Puritan
who
Thomas Carter
writes of
them
"Some
Blitz.
Even
so,
as he puts
in
a proposed
Pullman
is
at the
end of
this
what Tomlin
work
to
come
20. 21.
Human
Age,
p. 148.
Thomas H.
18,
No. 2
304
Satire
^s
out of the Cold War, and the climax of Lewis' literary career."
Here one
existence,
is
finally
is
the "nightmarish
real," of Monstre Gai and bad French and worse German) really
its
of humanity, as
no other works of
museum piece? Does own savage hatred Lewis have before? When we
realize with
him
to
communicate with," we
a jolt that Swift cared, and that Lewis no longer seems to do so.
Indeed, Lewis
tells
us at the end of
The Demon
of Progress in the
Arts that "talking about the alarming outlook for the fine arts
appears so
It is
trivial
a matter
it.
you are
in that
mood,
as
book
for
The
New York
Compare
of
Times Book Review of October 30, 1955, you mind for writing enduring
the nihilism of
that of
ends, then,
detestable philosophy.
The
Bailiff
had himself
But
own
lines,
reality,
a leading Hyperidean
real
who
'Who
is
to "
be
this hyperbolical
destiny!'
It is,
Yet already,
At
the start of this study I mentioned Lewis' claim that his criticism
Tomlin, Lewis,
p. 27.
23.
24.
Demon
of Progress, p. 97.
Time Stands
Still
305
work. But the
it
critical
now swamped
with propa-
called a "masterpiece."
is
The
story
"Time the
"a triumph
calls
it
considered by
Hugh Kenner
"a
story." ^^
There
will
always be debates of
^^
by Pound
seems
the
pun on Notting
not only one of
to
me
Lewis' weakest satires but one which shows signs of defending his
criticism.
And what
work was The Writer and the Absolute aimed to protect? The contemporary reviews of The Childermass presaged this crisis. Lewis claims, in Rude Assignment, that the book had a singularly quiet reception. In fact, it was widely and usually derogatorily reviewed. Of course, much of this was Blimpish disapproval of the difficulty of the prose. The Times Literary Supplement for July 19, 1928, called it "difficult and disjointed," and L. P. Hartley thought it "unintelligible" in the London Saturday Review for July 28. Raymond Mortimer, who has never been charitable to Lewis' work, was driven into what can only be called a venomous review in The Nation and Athenaeum for June 23. For Mortimer The Childermass was diseased; it contained "a posicreative
tively pathological
absence of
all intellectual
control.
No
doubt the
book
he
will
what
saying." Apart
far
was judged
Joseph
from this sort of review, however, the work more on its critical than on its creative content.
it it
Wood
in
1928, found
"The
War
Wyndham
Lewis, "Ezra:
The
Review
306
tion of the forces at
Satire
modern society." Two of the most interesting reviews of this sort, on either side of the Atlantic, came from Cyril Connolly and Lionel Trilling. Writing in The New
work
in
7,
and consider
it
brilliantly, the
whole neoclassical
Fascist.
attack.
He found
invalid,
Action Fran^aise, the neo-Thomists, nor even Mr. Lewis and his
virile
Humpty-Dumpty
together again."
-^
New York
ber 22, 1928, and writing with his customary perspicuity, was
even more severe in his judgment. Lewis' prose was "arrogant," his
ideas traditional.
And
Trilling concluded:
Lewis a quality that must prevent him from being the considerable
corrective
quality
is
that
it is
That
But
him from being granted the accord which he spirits. He had far better, for effectiveness and safety, have chosen the Olympian calm or the humor he has doctrinated in his own The Wild Body." If Lewis would object to this that he is seeking neither "accord" nor "safety," yet it is true that of all his works The Childermass has the least "Olympian calm." Philip Henderson equally criticizes
it
will prevent
much
is
as
criticism:
"Nor
vital
body of
our age
belief,
rejects,
offers
no
belief that a
man
his intelligence." ^^
munism
as anything but
an
Henderson,
7,
"Chang," The
New
1928),
427.
29. Philip
p. 98.
Time Stands
however,
robs
it
Still
307
Lewis' work
of creative power:
"The
Leopold
^^
Bloom and Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway vincingly human creations than any of Lewis's
But
it
are far
more conLewis
grotesques."
And
if
one
is
judgment on
cannot approach
Lewis:
in the spirit
seems to place
is
its
Not only
Lewis here
instru-
"more
serious
satire
ments of
more
perfectly than
of literature."
^^
it
What
so
is
say. It
is
many
levels of
achievement in
to the
Priest.
weak urbanity
There
is
of Rotting
an equal range
sallies
of
The
Doom
of
Youth
and contradictory
be
approach
is
just
temporary
Is
letters since
about 1920.
only his hatred creative, as Ernest
Stonier both suggest? Is he fatally
Lewis a great
satirist? Is
W.
what Pound
calls *'the
and amputations."
can only
We may
concede
Lewis the
to
first
and
me
limited because of
what
This
don,
32.
Hugh Gordon Porteus, Wyndham Lewis: A Desmond Harmsworth, 1932), pp. 195, 204.
Pound, Pavannes, and Divisions,
p. 225.
308
will be,
Satire
nay should
be, set
down
to
Rabelais
may
dignatio, through
showing us
literary coin
out hope.
In any final estimate of Lewis he cannot be called an affirmative
writer, yet
no
fully
committed
satirist
satirist
On
Dryden seems to oppose this prejudice and approve Heinsius' belief that satire must inevitably be severely destructive (and one thinks, too, of Dryden's pseudonymous references to living originals). For Kenneth Burke, Lewis is merely, however, a
writer of "burlesque," a
man
full
"manner," or
style. Is
coriations arise
words,
from
stant,
religiosity frustrated
by disbeUef"?
^^
There
is
in
any assessment
of Lewis' performance,
and
that
is
among
lem
no such probDetraction
as oc-
really,
is
all
on one
side.
does not
mean
much when
it
up
via V. S.
by W. Y. Tindall
in the case of
The
New
is
Republic
for
Lewis there
considerable
pubHc
itself.
gone up immeasurably
in
such as G.
S.
New
Republic,
1937),
Time Stands
Still
309
letters today.
Hugh Kenner
his
4,
agrees:
"No
The
New
For Cyril Connolly, Lewis' work now contains "some of the most
vigorous
satire,
original description
^"^
and profound
criticism pro-
"The man
of genius
who
pos-
no
talents,"
is
The New York Times Book Review for August 22, 1954, while compared him with Coleridge and named him "one of the few English men of letters in our time whose books
Russell Kirk has recently
if
from now."
^^
T.
S. Eliot's praise,
all
my
Marcus
refers to
Lewis
in
Commentary
as a
startling." Irving
Howe, author of some brilliant criticism in the contemporary field, writes: "when a charlatan like Wyndham Lewis is revived and
praised for his wisdom,
in the
it is
Hudson Review."
^^
Lewis
Enemies of Promise,
"Wyndham
No. 4 (Summer 1955), 521. 36. T. S. Eliot, "A Note on Monstre Gai," The Hudson Review,
(Winter 1955), 526.
37. Irving
7,
No. 4 No.
21,
310
with the greatest contempt, but
it
Satire
must be noticed
that
he
is
only
D. H.
and the
been
superficial
^^
romantic
illusion, as
is
hit on."
This criticism
may
perhaps be suggested
that,
if
Mr.
Wyndham
we
ordinarily call
Wyndham
classical
in these
pages as a contempothis
is
seriously to
be doubted that
neo-
approach
is
positive, especially as
we
find
it
in Lewis.
results in
most men
living in
an
We
satirize ourselves,
we do
we
are,
have been.
to progress.
We
non-
Only
this
man
is
fully con-
all
very well,
if
bind
itself
also insists
on continually
insistence
on
particularities,
all
time,
Much
of his
work
it
is
contemporary
and some of
The
it
only contemporary. Is
Pursuit,
38. F. R. Leavis,
Common
New
pp. 243-4.
39. F.
(New York,
Alfred A. Knopf,
1956),
p.
Time Stands
311
Still
may be due
to the "apriorist
it
it
may
be.
One cannot
say the
satires
if
show a
by Lewis, and
one earnestly
hopes
it
of a potentially
it
must
am
is
the true artist grows less important in society, so the pressure falls
by
his writings.
"men
of
1914," Joyce
to stand apart.
own
at
from Boileau
epitaph for his work when the Finnish poet Lord Osmund's Lenten party:
style, et
Muse, changeons de
C'est
quittons la satire!
celui
de medire!
Le mal qu'on
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Wyndham
Lewis.
No
attempt
is
made
to
list
such as his Fifteen Drawings (Ovid Press, Jan. 1920), his Timon of
Naomi
Beyond This
Sacheverell Sitwell's
Ford Madox Ford's Antwerp, or Doctor Donne and Gargantua, nor his many drawLimit,
and newspapers.
It is
an attempt to collect
work
only.
1909
"The Pole," The English Review, 2 (May), 255-65. "Some Innkeepers and Bestre," The English Review, 2 (June), 471-84. "Les Saltimbanques," The English Review, 3 (Aug.), 76-87.
1910 "A
Spanish Household," The Tramp: an
"A
411-14.
an Open Air Magazine (Sept.), pp. 517-21. "GrignoUes (Brittany)," The Tramp: an Open Air Magazine (Dec),
p.
246. [Poem.]
1911
"Unlucky
for Pringle,"
404-14.
1914
"The Cubist Room," The Egoist, 1, No. 1 (Jan.), 8-9. "Epstein and His Critics, or Nietzsche and His Friends," The
N.S., 14,
New
Age,
[Letter.]
316
"Mr. Arthur Rose's Offer," The
479. [Letter.]
Bibliography
New
"Modern Art," The New Age, N.S. 14, No. 22 (April 2), 703. [Letter.] "A Man of the Week: Marinetti," The New Weekly, 1, No. 1 1 (May 30),
328-9.
" 'Automobilism,' "
2,
No.
"Long Live
torial]
the Vortex!"
Blast
No.
Manifestoes
(June
Lane,
the
Bodley
Head,
[
pp. 127-49.
p. 150.
Harvard Uni-
1915
Editorial
'pp. 5-6.
p. 7.
Notice to Public
"War Notes"
and the War" "The Exploitation of Blood" "The Six Hundred, Verestchagin and Uccello"
"Artists
pp. 8-16.
pp. 23-4.
p.
24.
Blast
No.
2,
War
pp. 25-6.
Number
(July),
p. 26. p.
"Marinetti's Occupation"
38.
pp. 70-2.
pp. 77-82.
"
[1st Ver-
hyphenated on Con-
tents page]
Preface, "Mayvale"
Checklist of
Wyndham
Lewis' Writings
317
1916
"The French Poodle," The
"Serial
Egoist, 3
No. 3 (March
1),
39-41. [Includes
3,
No. 6 (June 1), 90-4; No. 7 (July 1), 107-10; No. 8 (Aug.), 122-5; No. 9 (Sept.), 139-43; No. 10 (Oct.), 155-8;
(May
1917
"Serial
4,
No.
29-30.
"Serial
StoryTarr," The
Egoist, 4,
(Sept.), 123-7.
"Inferior Religions,"
"Serial
The Little Review, 4, No. 5 (Sept.), 3-8. Story Tarr," The Egoist, 4, No. 9 (Oct.), 138-41. "Cantleman's Spring-Mate," The Little Review, 4, No. 6 (Oct.), 8-14. [The name Cantleman is variously spelt in The Little Review; the
spelling given here
is
by
Wyndham
Lewis, espe-
issue of
The
Little
Review was
thorities
incidentally disallowed
won
their case.]
Egoist, 4,
No. 10 (Nov.),
152-3.
"A
Soldier of Humour, l," The Little Review, 4, No. 8 (Dec), 32-46. The Ideal Giant, The Code of a Herdsman, Cantelman's Spring-Mate, privately printed for the London Office of the Little Review by Shield
318
Bibliography
hyphen
in this
title.]
1918
"A
Soldier of
Humour,
ii,"
The
[Vol.
5 appears, but
this
Little
Review,
"Imaginary Letters,
viii,"
The
Little
Review,
4,
Little
Review,
5,
4,
Little
Review,
No.
this
name.]
New
^"^>'J
Tarr." Ruthven
Todd
(^.v.)
maintains that the Knopf edition antedated the British edition by three
The United
ever,
title page of the Knopf Tarr. HowThe Times Literary Supplement acknowledges The Egoist Ltd. edition, on July 4, and reviews on July 1 1 while the American Publisher's Weekly only acknowledges the Knopf Tarr on July 20, as does The Nation (which reviews August 17); the New York Times ac-
Letters, N.S., 2,
No.
(Winter), 14-41.
1919
Foreword, Guns, Catalogue of an Exhibition by
Wyndham
is
Lewis, Lon-
dated Janu-
"The Men Who Will Paint Hell. Modern War The Daily Express, No. 5,877 (Feb. 10),
(Spring), 85-9.
as a
p. 4.
Theme
Letters, 2,
No. 2
"What Art Now?" The English Review, 28 (April), 334-8. "i. Nature and the Monster of Design," The Athenaeum, No. 4673 (Nov.
21), pp. 1230-1.
Checklist of
Wyndham
ii.
Lewis' Writings
319
"Prevalent Design,
p.
in.
the Eyes,"
The Athenaeum,
1404.
An
Appreciation by
Wyndham
Lewis
and Louis F. Fergusson, London, Chatto and Windus. Pp. 7-15. [No
The English Catalogue of Books. Reviewed mid-December in The Times Literary Supplement.] The Caliph's Design. Architects! Where Is Your Vortex? London, The Egoist Ltd. [Again no entry in The English Catalogue of Books. The Publisher's Circular acknowledges on November 1, but The Athenaeum notices on October 31, The Observer on November 2, and The Times Literary Supplement on November 13.] [The following lecture was given this year by Lewis: "Modern Tendencies in Art," Conference Hall, Central Buildings, Westminster, London. October 22.]
1920
"Prevalent Design,
iv.
naeum, No. 4681 (Jan. 16), pp. 84-5. "Mr. Clive Bell and 'Wilcoxism,' " The Athenaeum, No. 4689 (March
12), p. 349. [Letter.]
"Mr. Clive Bell and 'Wilcoxism,' " The Athenaeum, No. 4691 (March
26), p. 425. [Letter.]
Maddox
1
(Winter), 14-31.
1921
'Note on Tyros" [Editorial]
'Notes on Current Painting,
i:
p.
p.
2.
3.
of the
The Tyro:
Arts
of
Review of
1,
the
Painting,
Sculpture,
London,
The Egoist
Press, April,
Continental Mediator"
'Will Eccles"
320
Bibliography
"Foreword: Tyros and Portraits," Catalogue, Exhibition of Paintings and Drawings by Wyndham Lewis, London, Leicester Galleries, April,
pp. 5-8.
"The Coming Academy," Sunday Express, No. 121 (April 24), "Paris Versus the World," The Dial, 71, No. 1 (July), 22-7.
p. 3.
1922
"The Credentials of the Painter
33-8.
1,"
(Jan.)
2,"
"The Long and the Short of It," Evening Standard (April 28), p. 3. "The Worse-than-Ever Academy," Sunday Express, No. 174 (April
30), p.
5.
Editorial
p. 3.
"A
Preamble
for
the
pp. 3-9.
Usual Public"
pp. 9-10.
Review of
2.
the
pp. 21-37.
Our
^X.
London,
pp. 46-9.
"Tyronic Dialogues.
Time"
The Egoist
Press,
and F."
"Bestre"
[revises
"Some
Bes-
pp. 53-63.
Innkeepers
tre"]
and
1924
'Mr. Zagreus and the Split-Man,"
42.
The
Criterion, 2,
New
Checklist of
Wyndham
Lewis' Writings
321
22, No. 567
New Statesman,
(March
1),
"The Apes
of
God," The
191.
Criterion, 2,
New
(May 24),
1925
[Review of G. Elliot Smith, Essays on the Evolution of Man; G. Elliot
Smith and Warren R. Dawson, Egyptian Mummies; W. H. R. Rivers,
Medicine, Magic and Religion], The Criterion, 3, No.
10 (Jan.),
311-15.
"The Dithyrambic Spectator: An Essay on the Origins and Survivals of Art, Introduction," The Calendar of Modern Letters, 1, No. 2 (April),
2-107.
An Essay on the Origins and Survivals of The Calendar of Modern Letters, 1, No. 3 (May), 194Letters, 2,
213.
No. 8 (Oct.),
"The Physics
ed.
of the Not-Self,"
1926
"Britons Never ShaU
the Press],
"The
New
Be Bees" [review of Beaverbrook, Politicians and The Calendar of Modern Letters, 2, No. 11 (Jan.), 360-2. Roman Empire," The Calendar of Modern Letters, 2, No. 12
London, Chatto and Windus. March.
1
(Feb.), 411-20.
The Art
of Being Ruled.
New York,
The Art
of Being Ruled.
New
322
Bibliography
1927
"Preliminary Note to
Public"
"Editorial"
"What's in a Namesake?"
The Enemy: A Review of Art and Literature, vol. 1, London, The Arthur Press. January
(i.e.
pp. vu-viu.
pp. ix-xv.
pp. 19-23.
February),
pp. 25-192.
The Lion and the Fox. The Role of the Hero in the Plays of Shakespeare. London, Grant Richards. January. [Reprints "The Foxes' Case."] The Lion and the Fox. The Role of the Hero in the Plays of Shakespeare.
New
No.
'Notes
"The Values
1
The
Criterion, 6,
(July), 4-13.
Regarding Details of
pp. vu-x.
Publication
tion"
'Editorial
and
Distribu-
The Enemy:
Literature,
A
No.
Repp. xi-xxxi.
2.
Notes"
'Editorial"
'Paleface: or 'Love?
What Ho!
pp. xxxiii-xl.
Time and Western Man. London, Chatto and Windus. September. [Reprints "The Revolutionary Simpleton."] The Wild Body: A Soldier of Humour and Other Stories. London, Chatto and Windus. December. [Reprints "A Soldier of Humour, i," "A Soldier of Humour, ii," "Inferior ReUgions," and "Sigismund." Reprints and revises "The Pole," "Les Saltimbanques," "Le Pere Francois,"
and "Will Eccles." Incorporates and expands material from
ish
"A Span-
Household,"
"A Breton
Innkeeper."]
1928
The Wild Body. New York, Harcourt, Brace. March. The Childermass: Section i. London, Chatto and Windus. June.
Checklist of
Wyndham
Lewis' Writings
323
The Childermass: Part I. New York, Covici-Friede. September. Tarr. London, Chatto and Windus, the Phoenix Library. [Revises
edition.]
1st
New
1929
"Enemy
Bulletin"
pp. vu-vni.
pp. 9-84.
p. 90.
and Distribution"
"Editorial Notes"
pp,
91-100.
Tradition,"
5,
No. 32 (Feb.),
[Answer
p. 49.
to questionnaire.]
The
Paleface:
The Philosophy
Preface, H. Somerville,
Madness
in
The Richards
"***
If
_ _
***
fji^"
1930
"Sex and the Child," Daily Mail, No. 10,625
(May
15), p. 10.
"The Apes
of God."]
and
Fiction, also
to
Enemy
Pamphlets, No.
September.
1931
"Hitlerism
Man
324
"Hitlerism
Berlin
Licht!"
Bibliography
Tide, 12,
"Hitlerism
ler,"
"Hitlerism
"Hitlerism
Man and Doctrine: im Time and No. 4 24), 87-8. Man and Doctrine: The Oneness and Time and No. 31), 119-20. Man and Doctrine: The Doctrine Time 151-2. and No. 6 (Feb. Man and Doctrine: Creditcrankery Rampant," Time and
(Jan.
of 'Hitlerism'
of Hit-
Tide, 12,
5 (Jan.
of the BlutsgefUhl,"
Tide, 12,
7),
Time and
Hitler.
articles.]
"The Son of Woman" [review of Middleton Murry, Son of Woman], Time and Tide, 12, No. 16 (April 18), 470-2.
The Diabolical
Principle
and
the
Dithyrambic Spectator.
London,
Tide, 12,
No.
20), 738-40.
"Youth-Politics. Youth-Politics
upon
Time and
Time and
"Youth-Politics.
The Class-War
of Parents
"Youth-Politics.
"Youth-Politics.
How
Darks
into Whites,"
Everyman,
6,
No.
Everyman,
6,
No. 148
Checklist of
Wyndham
Lewis* Writings
325
edi-
The Apes
tion,
of
reproduced photographically.]
"Filibusters in Barbary.
6,
No.
Town," Everyman,
6,
1932
"Filibusters in Barbary.
The Mouth
of the Sahara,"
Everyman,
6,
No.
154 (Jan. 7), 793-4. The Apes of God. New York, Robert M. McBride. January.
"A
Tip from the Augean Stable," Time and Tide, 13, No. 12 (March
as an
Enemy
way
in
name
is
advertised as
The Enemy
of Youth.
The
"The
Doom
New
title
appears on verso of
Artist as
15.
The Wild Body. London, Chatto and Windus, the Centaur Library. May. "What It Feels Like to Be an Enemy," Daily Herald, No. 5082 (May
30), p.
8.
Filibusters in
Barbary (Record of a
London, Grayson
and Grayson. June. [Reprints the "Filibusters in Barbary" articles. Withdrawn after publication.] "Fenelon and His Valet," Time and Tide, 13, No. 25 (June 18), 673-4. "The Artist and the New Gothic," Time and Tide, 13, No. 26 (June 25),
707-8.
"Flaubert as a Marxist," Time and Tide, 13, No. 27 (July 2), 737-8.
The
Doom
of Youth.
July.
[Withdrawn
after publication.]
The Enemy
and
Self."]
of the Stars.
July. [Revises
reprints
"The Enemy
326
Snooty Baronet. London, Cassell. September.
Filibusters in Barbary.
Bibliography
New
[Also
New
"Notes on the Way," Time and Tide, 13, No. 41 (Oct. 8), 1072-3; No.
"A
Lang, Just the Other Day], Time and Tide, 13, No. 43 (Oct. 22), 1129-32. Autumn Book Supplement, p. 1154.
"Notes on the Way," Time and Tide, 13, No. 44 (Oct. 29), 1174-5.
Thirty Personalities
November. [Limited
Hitler
Three pages of
text.]
und
sein
Werk
englischer Beleuchtung,
einzig berechtigte
No
translator acknowledged.]
1933
The Old Gang and
January.
the
New
"Poor Brave
Little
p. 10.
The Apes
edition.]
of
So the
Man
You
"
Are,
One-Way Song,
Song,' "
Envoi.]
'One
Way
New
Britain, 2,
[Letter.]
(December
Christ-
1934
"Shropshire Lads or Robots?"
New
Britain, 2,
New
Britain, 2,
226-7.
"The
Dumb
Ox:
New
7,
No. 168,
(May
12), 709-10.
Checklist of
Wyndham
Lewis' Writings
327
"A
Letters, 10,
"The
3,
Dumb
Ox:
"Art in a Machine Age," The Bookman, 86, No. 514 (July), 184-7. [Abstracts an address delivered at Oxford University.] "Keyserling" [review of Keyserling, Problems of Personal Life], Time
and Tide, 15, No. 31 (Aug. 4), 984-5. "Rousseau" [review of Cobban, Rousseau and
the
Modern
State],
Time
and Tide,
Bookman, 86, No. 516 (Sept.), 276-8. Communist Abroad" [review of Dos Passos, In All Countries], Time "A and Tide, 15, No. 37 (Sept. 15), 1141-2. "Tradesmen, Gentlemen and Artists" [review of Eric Gill, Art], The Listener, 12, No. 298 (Sept. 26), 545.
"Nationalism," The
Men
"The
Artist
and the
Dumb Ox," "A Morahst with a New Gothic," and portions of Satire
(Oct.),
[Answer
to
an inquiry.]
New
"One
Picture Is
13), 1252-3.
"Plain Home-Builder:
Where
view:
Magazine of
Your
Vorticist?"
(Nov.), 155-8.
"Art in Industry," Time and Tide, 15, No. 45 (Nov. 10), 1410-12.
"Sitwell Circus" [review of Edith Sitwell, Aspects of
Modern
Poetry],
Time and
328
Bibliography
1935
"Wyndham
(March 9), 332-4; No. 11 (March 16), 390-2; No. 12 (March 23), 425-7; No. 13 (March 30), 456-8. "Art and Patronage (i)," The B.B.C. Annual London, British Broaddexed]; No. 10
casting Corporation. Pp. 184-7. April.
"First
Aid
for the
(May), 27-32.
"Freedom
The
Listener, 13,
793-4. [Broadcast
P.M., April 30.]
"Among
Art and
Literature,"
The
Listener, 13,
1936
"V," Freedom [by various hands]. London, George Allen and Unwin.
January.
Itself."]
[Reprints
the
broadcast
talk,
"Mr. Ervine and the Poets," The Observer, No. 7,549 (Feb. 2),
[Letter.]
How
to
Make
War about
Nothing. Lon-
"The Roaring Queen." London, Jonathan Cape. [This novel was withdrawn before publication. The Houghton Library at Harvard University has a re-cased proof copy. Crown 8vo, 256 pp., printed by the
Alden Press
marks."]
Ltd., Oxford.
The
1937
" 'Left Wings' and the
1,
No.
(Jan./April), 22-34.
Checklist of
Wyndham
Lewis' Writings
329
the
A New War in
May.
Style:
Making. Lon-
The Revenge
for Love.
London,
Cassell.
"My
Reply
to
Mr. Aldington.
Defence of
the
Newspaper," John O'London's Weekly and the Outline, 37, No. 952
(July 9), 555-6.
"Insel
xiii
699-707.
Blasting
"A
Wyndham
Wyndham
Lewis,
London, Leicester
Galleries,
1938
"Pictures as Investments:
Gold Mines of Tomorrow," John O'London's Weekly, 38, No. 985 (Feb. 25), 852,
Possible
A Straight Talk.
Some
858.
on T. E. Law-
translated
by Hans
Moias.]
(May
The Revenge for Love. London, Cassell. August. [Cheap edition.] The Mysterious Mr. Bull. London, Robert Hale. November. [In this book The Roaring Queen is announced as previously published "By the Same Author." This work, which Charles Handley-Read has picked
up, and mis-spelt, did not in fact appear.]
ed.
Die Rache
sanstalt.
fiir
Liebe, trans.
330
Bibliography
1939
The Jews, Are They Human? London, Allen and Unwin. March. Count Your Dead. London, Davies. March. [Cheap edition.]
"John Bright und die engUsche Aussenpohtik," Europaische Revue, xv
Jahrgang, Heft 4 (April), 358-64.
Wyndham Lewis
the Artist,
from
''Blast" to Burlington
House. London,
on the Objective
of Plastic
The Hitler Cult. London, Dent. December. Der mysteriose John Bull. Bin Tugendspiegel des Engldnders,
und
die englische Aussenpohtik."]
trans.
Hans
1940
"Picasso,"
The Kenyon Review, 2, No. 2 (Spring), 196-211. "The End of Abstract Art," The New Republic, 102, No. 14 (April
438-9.
[Letter],
1),
The
New
(May
20), 675.
America, I Presume.
New
New York,
1941
February
14.]
Canadian Weekly, 57, No. 4 (Oct. 4), 18-19. "Reasons Why an Enghshman Is an Englishman," Saturday Night: The
The Vulgar
Canadian Weekly, 57, No. 10 (Nov. 15), 34b. Streak. London, Robert Hale. December. [No entry
in
The
on
The Times
Liter-
is
as advertised
December
6,
Anglosaxony:
Press. [Dis-
by Bruce Humphries
Cult.]
Inc.,
Checklist of
Wyndham
Lewis' Writings
331
1942
"That 'Now-or-Never'
57, No.
Spirit,"
40 (June 13), 6. "What Books for Total War," Saturday Night: The Canadian Weekly,
57, No. 5 (Oct. 10), 16.
1944
[The following lecture was given
this
February 29.]
1945
"The Cosmic Uniform
of Peace,"
(Autumn), 507-31.
1946
"Canadian Nature and
29), 267-8.
Its
Painters,"
The
Listener, 36,
"The Art
of
Gwen
1947
"Round
the Art Galleries,"
The
Listener, 37,
talk].
"A
Crisis of
Thought" [broadcast
P.M.,
March
The
Listener, 37,
"Round
The
Listener, 38,
332
Bibliography
1948
"The Brotherhood," The Listener, 39, No. 1004 (April 22), 672. "The Pre-RaphaeUte Brotherhood," The Listener, 39, No. 1006 (May
6), 743. [Letter.]
"Augustus John and the Royal Academy," The Listener, 39, No. 1007
(May "Round
"Round
13), 794.
the
London Art
London Art
Galleries,"
The
The
Listener, 39,
10), 944.
the
Galleries,"
Listener, 39,
17), 980.
"Standards in Art Criticism," The Listener, 39, No. 1013 (June 24),
1009. [Letter.]
July.
by D. B. Wyndham Lewis
in Whitaker's
p. 138.]
Cumula-
Book
List,
Dec, 1948,
[Letter.]
"Standards in Art Criticism," The Listener, 40, No. 1014 (July 1), 22.
[Letter.]
"Early
London Environment,"
the
T. S. Eliot.
tions Poetry
"Round
London Art
The
Listener, 40,
14), 572.
"The Rot:
1949
A Narrative,"
at the
Academy," The
Listener, 41,
Listener, 41,
No. 1042
"Round
408.
the
London
Galleries,"
The
"Painting in America,"
The
Listener, 41,
colours by
Wyndham
May
5,
2 pages
unpaged.
"Round
the
London Art
Galleries,"
The
Listener, 41,
12), 811-12.
Checklist of
Wyndham
Lewis' Writings
333
Book
Illustrations,
and Designs
the
page unpaged.
New
"The London Art Galleries," The Listener, 41, No. 1063 (June 9), 988. "Edward Wadsworth: 1889-1949," The Listener, 41, No. 1066 (June
30), 1107.
"The London
The Listener, 42, No. 1068 (July 14), 68. "Bread and Ballyhoo," The Listener, 42, No. 1076 (Sept. 8), 407. "Round the Art Galleries," The Listener, 42, No. 1082 (Oct. 20), 686. "Round the London Art Galleries," The Listener, 42, No. 1086 (Nov.
Galleries,"
17), 860.
"Round
London Art
Galleries,"
The
Listener, 42,
1950
"Round
116.
the
London
Galleries,"
The
Listener, 43,
"Round
the
London Art
at the
Galleries,"
The
Listener, 43,
16), 298.
"Fernand Leger
"Round
522.
the
London
Galleries,"
The
Listener, 43,
"Contemporary Art
610-11.
at the Tate,"
The
Listener, 43,
"Round
685.
the
London
Galleries,"
The
Listener, 43,
"Round
the
London Art
Galleries,"
The
Listener, 43,
18), 878-9.
''RoundthQLondonGallQviQs;' The Listener, 44, No. 1120 (July 13), 62. "A Note on Michael Ayrton," Nine, 2, No. 3 (Aug.), 184-5.
"Round
the
London Art
Galleries,"
The
Listener, 44,
21), 388.
334
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"Ezra Pound," Ezra Pound. A Collection of Essays edited by Peter Russell to Be Presented to Ezra Pound on His Sixty-fifth Birthday. London, Peter Nevill. October. Pp. 257-66. [Carries the date "1948." This
as
An
New
The
Portrait
of a Personality."]
Rude Assignment: A
inson.
"Round
London Art
Galleries,"
The
Listener, 44,
9), 508.
"Round
London Art
"A Negro
No. 1135 (Nov. 30), 647, 650. No. 1136 (Dec. 7), 696; No. 1137 (Dec. 14), 745. [Letter.] No. 1139 (Dec. 28), 839. [Letter.]
Listener,
Artist,"
The
The
Listener, 44,
1951
"Nature and Art," The Listener, 45, No. 1140 (Jan. 4), 22
[Letter.]
No.
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[letter],
"Round
the
London
Galleries,"
The
Listener,
"Nature and Art," The Listener, 45, No. 1143 (Jan. 25), 145.
[Letter.]
"The Rock Drill" [review of The Letters of Ezra Pound}, The New Statesman and Nation, 41, No. 1048 (April 7), 398. "The Sea-Mists of the Winter," The Listener, 45, No. 1158 (May 10),
765. [Announces total blindness.]
Tarr.
edition.]
Rotting
1952
"Augustus John Looks Back" [review of John, Chiaroscuro], The Listener, 47,
Rotting
Hill. Chicago, Henry Regnery. April. The Writer and the Absolute. London, Methuen. June. The Revenge for Love. London, Methuen. June. [Reprints
the
1937
edi-
tion.]
The Revenge
1937
the
edition.]
Checklist of
Wyndham
Lewis' Writings
335
1953
"Imaginary Letters," "Cantleman's Spring-Mate," Answer to a Questionnaire, The Little Review Anthology, ed. Margaret Anderson. New
4,
1954
"Doppelganger:
Self
A Story," Encounter, 2,
No.
(Jan.), 23-33.
Condemned. London, Methuen. April. "Matthew Arnold," The Times Literary Supplement, Special Autumn Number, No. 2,740 (Aug. 6), p. xxii. [Review of Matthew Arnold: Poetry and Prose, ed. John Bryson.] "Meredith As a NoveHst," Time and Tide, 35, No. 39 (Sept. 25), 126970. [Review of Stevenson,
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1955
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7,
January], 502-21.
The Hudson Review, 8, No. 1 (Spring), 28-56. Self Condemned. Chicago, Henry Regnery. March. The Lion and the Fox: the Role of the Hero in the Plays of Shakespeare.
(ii),"
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May
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June 1955.]
"A Very Sinister Old Lady," Shenandoah, 7, No. 1 (Autumn), 3-14. The Demon of Progress in the Arts. Chicago, Henry Regnery. October.
The Apes
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336
1956
"Pish-Tush," Encounter,
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6,
Bibliography
Priest.
Human
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Secondary Sources
Lewis and/or
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list
The following secondary sources list direct references to Wyndham his work of especial interest. Ephemeral reviews, the more
text, are
not recorded
"bio-bibliography"
272-3.
Life for Life's Sake.
Allen, Walter.
New York,
New
York,
E. P. Button. 1955.
talk,
Home
1930.
Anderson, Margaret.
Armitage, Gilbert.
Verse,
My
(New York),
53,
Thomas
No.
(Autumn
Checklist of
Wyndham
Lewis' Writings
74,
337
No. 2 (Oct.
Barry,
Iris.
1931), 159-71.
Bates, Ernest Sutherland.
"A
Review
oj Literature, 5,
No. 11 (Oct.
1928), 181-2.
Verse, 6/7 (Nov./
Dec. 1937),
Bell, CYvjQ.
"The English Group," Catalogue, Second Post-Impressionist December 31, Exhibition, London, Grafton Galleries, October 5
1912.
5,
1920, pp.
311-12.
Benezit, E. Dictionnaire critique et documentaire des peintres, sculpteurs,
dessinateurs, et graveurs. France, Librairie Griind, 1952. P. 559.
Lo
spettatore italiano,
anno
viii, n.
Life.
London,
Collins, 1941.
War
London, pubhshed
New
Av
New
York, The
New
1.
The Georgiad.
1931.
Satirical
"A Note on W.
1953), 74-6.
338
Bibliography
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[A
little
known photograph
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Imagism.
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Constable,
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The
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"BLAST
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7,
No. 4 (Winter
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Lewis' Writings
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London, 1948.
Epstein, Jacob. Let There
to
Be
Sculpure.
New
Series of Conver-
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Doubleday, 1932.
Ewart, Gavin. "Note," Twentieth Century Verse, 6/7 (Nov. /Dec, 1937),
Vi page unpaged.
Fehr, Bernhard.
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"Five."
"Wyndham
and
Wyndham
"The History
of Imagism,"
The
Egoist, 2,
No. 5 (May
1,
1915), 70-1.
Ford, Ford Madox. (Hueffer)
Generation," The
Was
The March of Literature: from Confucius London, Allen and Unwin, 1939.
len and Unwin, 1938.
Modern Times.
Return
to Yesterday.
New
Thus
Eraser, G. S.
to Revisit.
schoyle, 1953.
New
Frierson, William C.
in Transition.
Norman,
Okla.,
University of
Frye, H. N.
Oklahoma
"Wyndham Lewis:
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1952.
Gamett, David. The Flowers of the Forest. London, Chatto and Windus,
1955.
340
Gaudier-Brzeska.
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don Studio (Nov. 1932), pp. 262-8. "Gawsworth, John." Apes, Japes, and Hitlerism. London, Unicorn Press,
1932.
Gilbert, Stuart.
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Goldring, Douglas. The Last Pre-Raphaelite.
A Record
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and
Writings of Ford Madox Ford. London, Macdonald, 1948. (PubUshed in 1949 as Trained for Genius, New York, E. P. Dutton.) Life Interests, with a Preface by Alec Waugh. London, Macdonald, 1948,
Some
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of a
"Propaganda" Novelist.
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York, Thomas
Seltzer,
1920.
Madox Ford
and
the English
Review
Circle.
Grigson, Geoffrey, ed. The Arts Today. London, John Lane, the Bodley
Head, 1935. [Includes praise for Lewis from Louis MacNeice and
Arthur Calder-Marshall, as well as Grigson.]
"Living Writers. 5:
Wyndham
Lewis" [broadcast
talk,
Studio
2,
November
1946. Typescript.
Wyndham Lewis,
with an essay on
With a
critical
Faber, 1951.
Hannay, Howard. "Photography and Art," The London Mercury, 5 (Jan. 1920), 301-11.
1,
No.
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Wyndham
Lewis' Writings
341
4, No. 20 (June 1921), 204-5. Hausermann, H. W. "Left- Wing Poetry," English Studies: A Journal of English Letters and Philology, 21, No. 5 (Oct. 1939), 211-12. Studien zur englischen Literarkritik 1910-1930, Kolner Anglis,
tische
Arbeiten,
Contemporary Attitudes.
Satire,"
Hennecke, Hans.
London, John Lane, the Bodley Head, 1936. "Wyndham Lewis: Vision und
Europdische
"An
Introduction to the
Work
of P.
Wyndham
Highet, Gilbert.
Press, 1954.
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New
Hueffer, Ford
Hulme, T. E. "The
Articles Contributed by T. E. Hulme to The New Age.' " Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the
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J.
Leddy
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Speculations. Essays
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Hunt, Violet.
of
My
Flurried Years.
New
Hyman,
1948.
Innis,
Stanley Edgar.
New
342
Isaacs, Jakob.
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1937),
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(Summer 1955), 520-34. [Reprinted
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7,
J.
in
Beyond
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"Plastic and Temporal in Art," The Nation, 105, 1927), Holiday Book Section, 643-4. ("Dilly Xante") and Haycraft, Howard, eds. Twentieth
New York, H. W. Wilson, 1942. Lambert, Constant. "An Objective Self Portrait," Twentieth Century Verse, 6/7 (Nov./Dec. 1937), 2^/^ pages unpaged. Laver, James. Portraits in Oil and Vinegar. London, John Castle, 1925. Lawrence, D. H. Phoenix. New York, Viking Press, 1936.
Century Authors.
Leavis, F. R.
The
Common
Pursuit.
New
1952.
D. H. Lawrence: Novelist.
Lee, Alwyn. "Henry Miller
Writing,
of Isolation," New World Second Mentor Selection, New York, New American Library, Signet Books Inc., 1952. Levin, Harry. James Joyce. Norfolk, Conn., New Directions, 1941.
Linati, Carlo. Scrittori anglo americani d'oggi. Milano, Corticelli, 1932.
The Pathology
New
The
Little
J.
Hoff-
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Wyndham
Lewis' Writings
343
The
Little
Review;
cago,
M.
The
Little
Review Anthology,
Margaret Anderson.
New
York, Her-
New
by Lewis in The Criterion for October 1924.] McLuhan, Herbert Marshall. Counterblast. Toronto, Canada, privately
printed, 1954.
of Industrial
"Wyndham
Shenandoah, 4, Nos. 2-3 (Summer/Autumn 1953), 77-88. Mallalieu, H. B. "Social Force," Twentieth Century Verse, 6/7 (Nov./
Dec. 1937), Vi page unpaged. Manly, John M., and Rickert, Edith, revised by
Millett,
Fred B. Con15,
temporary British Literature. New Marcus, Steven. "The Highbrow Know-Nothings," Commentary
Modern Movements
The Truth about
the
in Painting.
New
York, Scrib-
1921.
Melville, Cecil F.
New
No.
Party.
London, Wishart,
Lewis," Art
1931.
Melville, Robert. "Portrait of the Artist,
7:
Wyndham
7,
No. 7 (May
7,
1949),
1, 3.
Modern
British Painting,"
Envoy,
4,
No.
Monroe, Harriet. A Poet's Life. New York, Macmillan, 1938. Moore, Harry T. The Life and Works of D. H. Lawrence. New York,
Twayne
Publishers, 1951.
Morgan, Louise. Writers at Work. London, Chatto and Windus, 1931. Mudrick, Marvin. "The Double-Artist and the Injured Party," Shenandoah, 4, Nos. 2-3 (Summer/Autumn 1953), 54-64. Nash, Paul. "Modern Enghsh Textiles," Artwork, 2, No. 6 (Jan./March
1926), 83.
Outline. An Autobiography and Other Writings, with a Preface by Herbert Read. London, Faber and Faber, 1949. Nevinson, C. R. W. Paint and Prejudice. London, Methuen, 1937.
344
Bibliography
Newton, Eric. "Emergence of Mr. Wyndham Lewis," The Listener, 41, No. 1060 (May 19, 1949), 852. [See also under Handley-Read,
Charles.]
New
Knopf, 1922.
Selected Essays and Critical Writings, eds. Herbert
Read and
10,
Denis Saurat. London, Stanley Nott, 1935. Palmer, Herbert. "The Chaste Wand," New Britain,
2,
No. 34 (Jan.
1934), 227. Pelham, Edgar. The Art of the Novel. New York, Macmillan, 1933. "PersonaUty of the Week. Britain's Most Advanced Painter Leads a Return to NaturaUsm, But
Illustrated, 1,
tations.]
It Is
No. 8 (June
7,
Naturalism," The World of Art 1939), 6-7. [Interview, with direct quo-
NEW
Porteus,
Symposium. London,
Editions Poetry London, 1948, pp. 218-24. "Wyndham Lewis," The Twentieth Century, 2, No. 7 (Sept.
1931), 4-6.
Wyndham
Lewis:
Desmond
7,
Harmsworth, 1932.
"Portrait of the Artist.
1,
No. 7 (May
1949),
1.
Pound, Ezra. "Edward Wadsv/orth. Vorticist," The Egoist, 1, No. 16 (Aug. 15, 1914), 306-7. Guide to Kulchur. Norfolk, Conn., New Directions, n.d. // This Be Treason. Siena, privately printed for Olga Rudge, 1948. Imaginary Letters. Paris, Black Sun Press, 1930. Instigations of Ezra Pound. New York, Boni and Liveright, 1920. The Letters of Ezra Pound, 1907-1941, ed. D. D. Paige. New York, Harcourt, Brace, 1950. Literary Essays of Ezra Pound, edited with an Introduction (^.v.) by T. S. Eliot. London, Faber and Faber, 1954. Make It New. London, Faber and Faber, 1934. Money Pamphlets. London, Peter Russell. These consist of No. 1, An Introduction to the Economic Nature of the United States, 1950; No. 2, Gold and Work, 1951; No. 3, What Is Money For? 1951; No. 4, A Visiting Card, 1952; No. 5, Social Credit: An Impact, 1951; No. 6, America, Roosevelt and the Causes of the Present War, 1951.
Checklist of
Wyndham
Lewis' Writings
345
New
The Pisan Cantos. Norfolk, Conn., New Directions, 1948-. "Vorticism," The Fortnightly Review, N.S., 573 (Sept. 1, 1914),
461-71.
"Wyndham
233-4.
1,
No. 12 (June
15, 1914),
New
V.
S.
Books
in
General.
1953.
'
Review
Pryce-Jones, Alan. "Little Reviews and Big Ideas," The Listener, 43,
No. 1099 (Feb. 16, 1950), 285-6. Read, Sir Herbert. The Philosophy of Modern Art. London, Faber and
Faber, 1952.
Rhys, Keidrych. "Celtic View," Twentieth Century Verse, 6/7 (Nov./ Dec. 1937), 2 pages unpaged.
Richards,
transmission,
March
New
Rickword, Edgell.
writers, collected
"Wyndham
139-61.
Roberts, Michael. T. E. Hulme. London, Faber and Faber, 1938.
Roberts, William. The Resurrection of Vorticism and the Apotheosis of
Wyndham Lewis
Trubner, 1926.
at the Tate.
London, Favil
Press, 1956.
Rodman,
1931.
Selden.
The Eye
of
Rothenstein, John. British Artists and the War. London, Peter Davies,
2,
"Great British Masters 26. Wyndham Lewis," Picture Post, No. 12 (March 25, 1939), 47-50.
Modern
millan, 1956.
New
York, Mac-
Men and
Since Fifty. Men and Memories, 1922-1938. Recollections of William Rothenstein. London, Faber and Faber, 1939. Routh, H. V. English Literature and Ideas in the Twentieth Century.
346
Russell, Peter.
Bibliography
4,
Nos. 2-3
My
Evolution in
Modern
George
S.
Harrap, 1932.
Masterpieces.
Modern
An
Modern
Art.
London,
Some Contemporary
Savage, D.
Artists.
S. "Lewis and Lawrence," Twentieth Century Verse, 6/7 (Nov./Dec. 1937), 1 page unpaged. Scott, J. D. "On Re-Reading Wyndham Lewis" [broadcast talk, disc No.
SLO
25, 1951.
don,
Shenandoah, Vol. 4, Nos. 2-3 (Summer /Autumn 1953). Wyndham Lewis Number. Sickert, Walter Richard. A Free House, or the Artist as Craftsman, Being the Writings of Walter Richard Sickert, ed. Osbert Sitwell (^.v.). London, Macmillan, 1947. Sitwell, Edith. Aspects of Modern Poetry. London, Duckworth, 1934. [Reviewed by Wyndham Lewis above.] Sitwell, Sir Osbert, Bt. Great Morning. London, Macmillan, 1948.
Laughter
in the
"A
. .
Free House.
31,
The Sketch. "Look Here," The Sketch, 109, No. 1405 (Dec.
1919),
"Wyndham Lewis
20, 1921), 89.
as a Tyro,"
New
York,
Museum
of
Modern
Art, 1948.
1920), 138.
Stone, Geoffrey.
"The Ideas
of
Wyndham
2,
Checklist of
Stonier,
Wyndham
Lewis' Writings
Critical Essays.
347
London,
Dent, 1933.
London, Fortune Press, 1938. Swinnerton, Frank Arthur. The Georgian Literary Scene. London, William Heinemann, 1935. Background with Chorus. New York, Farrar, Straus and Cudahy,
1957.
Symons, Julian. "Notes on One-Way Song," Twentieth Century Verse, 6/7 (Nov./Dec. 1937), IVi pages unpaged. [It is more than likely that the one-page editorial to this issue was also written by this author.] Thieme-Becker. Thieme, Ulrich, and Becker, Felix, begriindet von, Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Kilnstler, 23 (Leipzig, Verlag von
E. A. Seeman, 1929), 164. [Contains a useful
list
of reproductions.]
Time Magazine, 53, No. 22 (May 30, 1949), 60. [Contains an extended quotation from Lewis on his portraits of Eliot. Probably written originally by Marvin Barrett.] Tindall, Wilham York. D. H. Lawrence and Susan His Cow. New York, Columbia University Press, 1939. Forces in Modern British Literature, 1885-1946. New York,
Alfred A. Knopf, 1947.
Way
of Interpreting the
"About Wyndham Lewis," Colour, 10 (March 1919), 24-7. Todd, Ruthven. "Check List of Books and Articles by Wyndham Lewis," Twentieth Century Verse, 9 (March 1938), 21-7. [A supplement of articles, announced as forthcoming in the note prefaced to this hst, did
not appear.]
"Comments on
6/7 (Nov./
Dec. 1937), 2^/^ pages unpaged. Tomlin, E. W. F. "The Philosopher-PoUtician," Twentieth Century Verse, 6/7 (Nov./Dec. 1937), 3 pages unpaged.
Wyndham
transition.
Eugene
Enemy,"
Wyndham Lewis
Double Number.
348
Bibliography
Tschumi, Raymond. Thought in Twentieth-Century English Poetry. London, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1951. Vines, Sherard. Foreword, Whips and Scorpions, Specimens of Modern Satiric Verse, 1914-1918, collected by Sherard Vines. London, Wishart, 1932. P. vii.
Movements
in
100 Years of English Literature. London, Duckworth, 1950. Ward, A. C. The Nineteen-Twenties. Literature and Ideas in the PostWar Decade. London, Methuen, 1930. Warner, Rex. "Extract from a Letter," Twentieth Century Verse, 6/7
(Nov. /Dec. 1937), Vi page unpaged. Alec. See under Goldring, Douglas, Life Interests. WeUington, Hubert. (Deutsch von Margarete Mauthner.) "Die neueste
Waugh,
Malerei in England,
ii,"
Kunst and
Kiinstler,
UAmour de Vart.
1"
annee (mai-decembre 1920), 223. Masters of English Painting. Boston and New York, Hall, Cushman, and Flint, 1934. Woolf, Leonard. "The World of Books," The Nation and Athenaeum, 40, No. 14 (Jan. 8, 1927), 539.
Woolf, Virginia. Roger Fry, an Autobiography. London, Hogarth Press,
1940.
A
Yeats,
Writer's Diary.
W.
B.
Vision.
1953.
The Letters
miUan, 1955.
of
Wade.
New
York, Mac-
Index
12
f.,
95, 98, 192, 196, 302, 306 Acton, Lord, 61 f. "Agathon." See Massis, Henri, and Tarde, Alfred de Age war, 48-51 Aitken, George, 308 Aldington, Richard, 3 n., 13 f., 16 f., 142 f., 145, 147, 210; Life for Life's
Atkinson, L., 145 Attlee, Clement, 64, 258, 289 Auden, W. H., Dance of Death, 71 Austen, Jane, 58 Authority, foundation of good society, 93 Ayrton, Michael, x, 126 and n., 140, 151
Babbitt, Irving, 40, 44, 80, 91, 93, 95,
Sake, 15; Referee, 250 Allen, Walter, 264, 308 f. American Bibliography (PMLA), xi Anaxagoras, 39 Anderson, Margaret, 15
97
f.,
Democracy
61,
and Leadership,
11,
107
f.;
Masters of Modern French Criticism, 119; On Being 8; New Laokoon, Creative, 9, 273; Rousseau and Romanticism, 13, 136
Bacchelli, Riccardo, Citta degli amanti,
f.,
78,
236, 306 Antisemitism, 75 ff. Apollinaire, Guillaume, 131, 138; "Jolie Rousse," 139; Peintres cubistes: Meditations esthetiques, 138 Aquinas, St. Thomas, 204. See also
Thomism
Arbuthnott, 145 Architectural Review, 152 Arendt, Hannah, Origins of Totalitarianism, 11 Aristophanes, Birds, 293; Frogs, 293 Aristotle, 178, 192 f. Arnold, Matthew, 91; Discourses in America, 36 Arnold, Thomas, 264 Art, 105 ff. See also Cubism; Futurism; Impressionism; Lewis, Percy Wyndham; Vorticism
135; Diavolo al Pontelungo, 135 Bach, Johann Sebastian, 105, 157 Bacon, Francis, 126 Baerlein, Henry, 147 Baker, Carlos, 164 Baldini, Antonio, 135 Baldwin, Stanley, 64, 81, 84 Ball, Hugo, 128 Balla, Giacomo, 129; "Speed of a Car Plus Light and Sounds," 132; "Leash in Motion," 132
Balzac, Honore de, 240 Barbusse, Henri, Enfer, 265 Barnes, Djuna, 286 Barrett, William, 304, 309 Barry, Iris, 16, 281 Bates, Ernest Sutherland, 307 Baudelaire, Pierre Charles, 94 f., 110, 118, 130, 183; Benediction, 107 Bechstein Hall, 128 Becker, Felix. See Thieme, Ulrich Beckett, Samuel, Waiting for Godot,
n., 83 n., 250 Arts Gazette, 116 Association des fitudiants de Paris, 129 Athenaeum, 116 f., 120, 122, 127
304
Belgion,
Bell,
Montgomery,
269
Vanessa, 254 Benda, Julien, 18, 35, 49, 66, 6S, 76,
350
Benda, Julien {continued) 79, 89, 94 f., 100, 111, 138 n, 157 n., 158, 162 f., 166, 185 f.; Amorandes, 52; Belphegor, 78, 109-10, 117, 197, 227, 270; Bergsonisme ou line philosophie de la mobilite, 9 n., 186;
Wyndham Lewis
Boileau-Despreaux, Nicolas, 311 Bolshevism, 135 Bomberg, David, 156 Bone, Muirhead, 151 Bookman, 191 n., 192, 194, 251 Bourget, Paul, 9, 11 Bourquin, Constant, 4
62;
Ordination, 52, 135; Philosophie pathetiqiie, 9; Reponse aiix defenseurs dii Bergsonisme, 9 n.; Sur le siicces dii Bergsonisme, 9, 133; Trahison des clercs, 13, 32 and n., 33, 42, 44, 48-9, 71, 78, 94, 95 n., 97 and n. Benezit, E., 5 n.
Bowen,
Stella,
16,
128;
Drawn from
Life, 17
Braque, Georges, 121 Brebner, J. B., 48 n. Bremond, Abbe, 23 n. British Council, 252, 290 British Fascist party, 259
British
Benjamin, Rene, 12 Bennett, Arnold, 14, 16, 252 Beresford, J. D., 250 Berg Collection, New York
Library, 210
Bergel, Lienhard, 242
19,
82.
See
Public
Bergonzi, Bernard, 36 Bergson, Henri (Bergsonism), 8 f., 11, 13, 76, 98 and n., 105, 111, 127, 162 f., 166, 172 f., 175, 184 ff., 195,
f., 230, 270, 274, 281, 284, 301; "snapshot" method of art, 133; WL's treatment of, 185-8; formula for laughter, 223; Essai sur les donnees immediates de la conscience, 110, 186, 218; Evolution creatrice, 110, 133, 187, 222, 297; Introduction a la metaphysique, 100,
f., f.,
200 298
215
Brodzky, Horace, 143, 280 Bronowski, J., 100 Brown University, 44 Browne, Sir Thomas, 52-3 Browning, Colleen, 151 Browning, Robert, 20 Brunius, Av Teddy, 150 Buddha, 194 Budgen, Frank, 219 n. Burke, Edmund, 11 Burke, Kenneth, 308 Burnham, James, 31 n. Burra, Edward, 126 Busch, Wilhelm, 7 Butler, Samuel, 27 Byzantine art, 195 f.
186; Matiere et memoire, 164, 216, 223, 271; Rire, 38, 110, 216, 222-5, 227, 238, 297
187, 186,
Pittura, scultura
Calendar of Modern Letters, 74 Cambridge Magazine, 116 Camden Town Group, 141 Camelots du roi, 11 Campbell, Joseph, 183 Campbell, Roy, 19, 48, 74, 83 f., 89, 184, 203, 204 n., 230, 249; as prototype for characters, 45 n.; Broken Record, 38, 65, 80, 88, 256; Flowering Rifle, 19, 45; Georgiad, 56; Light en a Dark Horse, 60, 66, 273 Camus, Albert, 258 Canadian Forum, 201 CardareUi, Vincenzo, 135 Carfax Gallery, London, 141 Carlow, Lord, 108 n., 141, 152, 162, 220 Carlow Collection, London, 6, 144, 191 n., 239 n.
WL
Index
Carlyle,
351
91; Past
Thomas,
and Present,
256
Carra, Carlo, 129, 134 Carter, Thomas H., 291 f., 303 Caspar!, Walther, 7 Cave of the Golden Calf, 142 f. Cecchi, Emilio, 135 Cezanne, Paul, 108 n.. Ill, 115f., 122, 134, 139, 156 Chatto and Windus, 210, 220, 236 Chirico, Giorgio de, "Classicismo pittoresco," 135
Christianity, leads to hatred, intolerance,
Dadaism, 118 and n., 135 Dahlberg, Edward, Bottom 118 Daily News, 239
Dogs,
an
an awful visitation from God, back of, 79; British type "egregious sham," 81; in Nazi
Germany, 81
Demorest, D.-L., 294 Deniker, Georges, 140 Dennis, Nigel, Cards of Identity, 56 Derain, Andre, 121 De Roos Gallery, Amsterdam, 130 Descartes, Rene, Discours de la methode, 227; Passions de I'dme, 228
sance classique, 10 Clough, Rosa, 134; Looking Back at Futurism, 131 Coffman, Stanley, 14, 211 Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 309 Color war, 46-8 Colquhoun, Robert, 126 Commentary, 75, 309 Communism, 69, 71 f., 260 f., 295, 306 Comte, Auguste, 78, 93 Conder, Charles, 151 Confucius, 136, 149, 194 Connolly, Cyril, 164, 291, 306, 309; Enemies of Promise, 192 Conrad, Joseph, 14, 66, 210, 238 Constable, W. G., 269 Constant, Benjamin, 200 Coquiot, Gustave, 131
17 Counterblast, 145 Cournos, John, 16, 143 Coward, Noel, 152
Criterion,
13,
Des
Imagistes, 15
n.,
Dial, 3
77, 150,
240
Dickens, Charles, 170, 296; Pickwick Papers, 170, 276 Discipline, foundation of good society, 93 Dismorr, J., 145 Dobree, Bonamy, Modern Prose Style,
282
Coterie,
DobHn, Alfred, 271 Dore Gallery, London, 16, 130, 145 Dos Passos, John, Grand Design, 62 Dostoevsky, Feodor Mikhailovich, 239 f.; Brothers Karamazov, 241; Notes from the Underground, 242; Possessed, 241 f. Douglas, Norman, 14 Dreyfus affair, 79 n. Drogheda, Countess of, 141 Dryden, John, 254; Essay on Satire, 308 Duchamp, Marcel, "Nude Descending a Staircase," 132 Dunne, J. W., 221 Durrell, Lawrence, Key to Modern British Poetry,
73
f.,
89,
93,
97,
170,
di
135;
Brevario
11
Cube
Press, 17
anticubism
of
the
Futurists,
WL's
unfairness,
138;
286
n.
f.,
Dynamism, 94
B.,
14
150
352
Ede, H. S., Savage Messiah, 280 Education, of masses, danger of, 61 Egoist, ix, 14 ff., 143, 147, 236, 239 Egoist Ltd., 15, 116, 147, 168, 218, 240 Egyptian art, 196 Einfiihlung, 195 Einstein, Albert, 76, 105, 172 f., 271, 286 Eliot, George, Middlemarch, 265 Eliot, T. S., X, 4n., 12 ff., 35, 42, 60, 62, 85, 87, 91, 95, 97 f., 108, 117, 124, 146, 161, 176 f., 181, 183 f.,
190, 220, 239 f., 242, 264, 285 and 309, 311; his description of WL, ix; evasive prose of, 36; states his politics, 70; attacked by WL, 191;
n.,
Wyndham Lewis
Fascism, 49, 69 ff., 74, 80 f., 86, 136, 158, 306; "pure" democracy in Nazi Germany, 81; in England, 82 Fascist Quarterly, 81 f., 89 Faulkner, William, 164, 203, 287; Fable, 204 n., 275-6; Light in August, 204 n.; Mirrors of Charles Street, 203-4 n.; Sound and the Fury,
the objective correlative, 205; After Strange Gods, 13, 77 f., 191; "Burnt Norton," 191; Cocktail Party, 53;
287 Fernandez, Ramon, 12, 110, 185, 189, 204 f., 270; Messages, 3 n., 192, 163 Fielding, Henry, 213, 251, 285, 288 Figaro, 8, 127 Firbank, Ronald, 74 Flaubert, Gustave, 130, 213, 240, 293, 308; Bouvard et Pecuchet, 293-4
Flecker, James Elroy, 16
"Commentary"
in Criterion, 74;
For
Enemy, 22
English
f.
Review,
11,
14
f.,
105,
153,
209
f.
17, 128, 142 f., 156 f., 280-1; "Rock Drill," 133, 145 199 and n.; 197, 10, Ernst, Paul, 198; 198 f.; Demetrios, Brunhild, Weg zur Form, 198 and n.; Zusammenbruch des deutschen Idealismus, 198 Etchells, Frederick, 141, 143, 147, 155
Epstein, Jacob,
Fleming, Peter, 82 Fliegende Blatter, 1 Flint, F. S., 13 ff., 161 Fontenelle, Bernard, 227 Ford, Ford Madox, 14, 16 ff., 116, 141, 146, 209 f.; Marsden Case, 142; Thus to Revisit, 130 Forster, E. M., 238; Aspects of the Novel, 285 and n.; Howard's End, 241 Fortnightly Review, 17, 142, 149 Forum, 97 Franco, Francisco, 84, 197 Frank, Joseph, 285 f. Eraser, G. S., 308 Frederick II of Prussia, 228 Frederick the Great, 62 Freedom: not wanted by the many, 36; of the press, 61, 84; difference between liberty and, 64 n.; true freedom the privilege of the few, 68
Freewoman, 16
Frierson, William, 220 n. Fry, Roger, 17, 120, 134, 150, 155, 254; Omega Workshops, 120, 141 Frye, H. N., 201 n.
Eton, 67 Experiment, 99-100 Expressionism, 277 External approach to literature and art, 269 ff., lauded by Grigson, 285; scorned by Spender, 285-6 Faguet, mile, 58 False Bottoms, 258.
Fuchs, Georg, Der Kaiser, die Kultur und die Kunst, 7; Deutsche Form, 7
Fuller,
Henry
B.,
240
See
also
Lewis,
Percy
for
Furioso, 305 Futurism, 49, 74, 127, 147-8, 258; first manifesto, in Figaro, 127-8; second manifesto, 129; Vital English Art,
130;
periodicals,
Love
131;
reasons
for
Index
WL's dislike of, 131 f.; shows, 132-3; as mechanical, 134; scored by anticubism of, 134; Vorticism called
Guerard, Albert, 12
Guttinger, Ulric, Arthur, 23 n.
353
WL
healthier than,
netti, F.
T.
Gable, Clark, 257 Galerie Georges Giroux, Brussels, 130 Galsworthy, John, 14 Gardiner, Rolf, 88 Gamett, Constance, 241 Garnett, David, 152 n., 210 Gassendi, Pierre, 227 Gaudier-Brzeska, Henri, 77, 130, 143, 145 f., 148 f., 204 n., 280 f.
"H.D.," 14, 16 Halper, Nathan, 170, 182 Hamilton, Alexander, 63 and n. Hamilton, Cuthbert, 141, 143, 145
Gauguin, Paul, 118-19 Gawthorpe, Mary, 16 Gazette de France, 8 George, Stefan, 107, 118, 197; Jahrbuch
der geistegen Bewegiing, 197 Gide, Andre, 162; Caves du Vatican, 293; Faux-Monnayeurs, lAl Gilbert, Stuart, 176, 192 Gilman, Harold, 151 Giotto di Bondone, 195 Girard, Henri, 12 Gissing, George, 301 n. Gleizes, Albert, and Jean Metzinger, Du "Cubisme," 138 f. Goebbels, Joseph, 82, 88, 243 Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, 200; Faust, 59, 188 Goldring, Douglas, 14, 16, 129; Odd Man Out, 210; South Lodge, 146 f.,
StanWrit-
Comic
Ben
Hearst Press, 84
Henriot,
12
209
Joyce, 177
Kampf, 74
Holderlin, Friedrich, 200 Hoffmann, E. T. A., 242
Goupil Gallery, London, 120, 124 Grafton Galleries, London, 17 Grant, Duncan, 152 n.
Gratz, 7 Great English Vortex, Vorticism Greenaway, Kate, 261
145.
See also
Hopkins, Gerard Manley, 173 Howe, Irving, 309 Hudson, W. H., 14 Hudson Review, ix, 309 Hughes, Glenn, 144 n. Hugo, Victor, 11, 94 f., 200; Hernani, 95
Herbert,
13,
193,
195;
Hulme, T.
125
195,
f.,
E., 8, 10
f.,
"Classical
and Romantic," 93
Grigson, Geoffrey, 37 f., 184, 242; opinion of WL, ix; Master of Our Time, 283 Gris, Juan, 121
130, 133, 144, 146, 152, 193, 200, 260, 284; his humanism,
and Einfiihlung,
155,
157;
concepart
"Group-rhythms," 44
ff.
man, 195;
354
Hulme, T.
lations,
Wyndham Lewis
E. (continued)
153, 196
107, 195
f.,
Ulysses,
Wake, 5-6
180
If.,
Humanism,
205; of Babbitt,
Artist,
97; and humanitarianism, 97-8 Humanitarianism, and humanism, 97-8 Hunt, Violet, 14, 142 f., 147 f., 281 Huxley, Aldous, 17; Antic Hay, 152; Point Counter Point, 112 Hyman, Stanley Edgar, 283
179-84; Finnegans 168 f., 172 ff., 176 f., 189, 276, 288; Portrait of the 170 f., 176 ff., 240; Stephen 179 f.; 171, Ulysses, 168, 174 ff., 181 f., 190, 192, 251, 272, 276, 283, 285 and
170
ff.,
n.,
f.,
296
Joyce, William, 88
78
n.
135 f. Imagism, 14-15, 142, 145, 277 Impressionism, 115, 126 f., 132, 149, 155 Individualism, and politics, 32-3
I Rondisti,
139,
Kain, Richard, 192 Kandinsky, Vasily, 121, 125, 126 n., 156 Kant, Immanuel, 225 Kauffer, E. McKnight, 120 f., 152 Keenan, Peter, 144 n., 145
on WL,
ff.
Interior
Isaac, Jules,
260
James, Henry, 14, 270 ff., 274 n. Janicot, Gustave, 8 Jarrett-Kerr, Martin, 231
Jarry, Alfred,
Uhu
Roi, 220 n.
Karl,
51,
58,
197,
200,
211;
Bedeutung unseres klassischen Zeitalters fiir die Gegenwart, 10; Wandlungen der Weltanschauung, 200
John, Augustus, 34-5, 45 n., 124, 142, 250, 253 Jolas, Eugene, 22, 167 Jones, Bobby, 132 Jones, P. Mansell, 8 Jones, William Powell, James Joyce and the Common Reader, 182 Jonson, Ben, 212, 222, 226 Josephson, Chfford, 193 n. Joyce, James, x, 12, 15 f., 41, 54, 76, 87, 122, 163 f., 181, 189, 219 n., 235, 243, 269 ff., 273, 280, 285 and n., 286, 295, 301, 307, 311; attacked by WL, 163, 166 f., 171-83; first meeting with WL, 168; quarrels with WL, 168-9; criticism of in Finnegans Wake, Portrait of the Artist, and
Kenner, Hugh, 15 and n., 21, 41, 101, 149 f., 174, 182, 192, 210, 219 n., 229, 232 f., 242, 251 ff., 264, 266, 305, 309; Dublin's Joyce, 169 Kenyon Review, 291 Keyserling, Herman Alexander, Count, 185, 193-4 Kipling, Rudyard, 272 Kirk, Russell, 309 Klages, Ludwig, 118 Klanggedichten, 128 Kleist, Paul von, 199 Koestler, Arthur, 87; Invisible Writing, 260 Kramer, Jacob, 145 Krutch, Joseph Wood, 305 Kunitz, Stanely J., and Howard Haycraft, Twentieth Century Authors, 5n.
Labour
party, 65 n.
Lacerba, 131, 134 f. Lacretelle, Jacques de, 49 La Hune Catalogue, Paris, 219 n. Lamartine, Alphonse de, 1 Le Mettrie, Julien Offray de,
294;
L'Homme-Machine, 228
Lanson, Gustave, 95 Larbaud, Valery, 271
Lasserre, Pierre, 9, 12, 33, 76, 93, 98, 11 1-12 n., 120, 165, 188; catalogue of romantic traits, 201; Charles Maurras et la renaissance classique,
8; Mise au point, 193; Des Romantiques a nous, 95; Romantisme frangais, 8, 52, 111,
WL
200 214
ff.;
"Laughter,":
as
satire,
dichot-
Index
of mind and body essential to, 215-16; representative of tragedy, 245 Lawrence, D. H., x, 14, 39, 46 f., 67, 83, 88, 94, 117f., 164, 172, 270 f.,
273, 283, 310; Lady Chatterley's Lover, 152, 253 Lawrence, T. E., 100 League of Nations, 81, 83 n. Leander, Folke, 93 Leavis, F. R., 310; Common Pursuit,
355
of the mass wants no freedom, 35-6; inteUigence to be found mostly in upper classes, 37; criticism of the working classes, 37-8; the more animal, the more mechanical, 38-9; the "person" is the true individual, 3940; the Hegelian Not-Self, 41; the Split-Man, 41; continuity of culture, 42; God the only absolute, 43; concern for three "group-rhythms" (color war, age war, sex war), 46 ff., 77; opinion of the Negro, 46-8; strife
omy
309
Leavis, Q. D., Fiction Public, 252
and
the Reading
between emotional youth and intelligent old age, 48-51, 58; sex and
of
culture,
55; time
and
view
democracy and autocracy are close, 61; democratic freedom merely a technicality, 61; criticizes American
that
politicians,
285
Levin, Harry, 169, 192 Levy-Bruhl, Lucien, Mentalite primitive, 173 Lewis, Captain Charles, 6 Lewis, Dominic Bevan Wyndham, xi Lewis, Percy Wyndham (WL): no longer neglected, x; relation of criti-
62
f.;
attacks Parliament,
63; criticizes "orthodoxy of the left," 64; attitude toward socialism, 65 ff.;
attacked by Orwell, "bites back," 67; the evangelical heresy, 67; his alternative to democracy, 69; admires
Communism and Fascism, 69, 72; scorns Marx, 70, and Marxism, 71;
inconsistent attitudes, 71-2; champions dictatorship, 72; sanctions Fascism, 73; supports Mussolini, then repudiates him, 74; admires Hitler, 75-6; attitude toward Jews, 75-81; Left Wings over Europe an apology for Hitler, 81-2; views on nationalism, 82-3 n.; 7957 the peak of his interest in Fascism, 84; volte-face, 85 ff.; idea of common good a fallacy,
90; rule by intellectual elite, 91 ff.; inequality a necessity, 92; ideal society, 92; supremacy of art, 98; drawing, "Surrender of Barcelona," 101.
and creative writings, 3, 304-5; many-sided artist, 4-5; pamphlets, 4; political books, 4 and n.; three main influences (Munich, Paris, London), 5 ff.; date of birth, 5 n.; on the Continent, 6ff,; in Paris, 7-13; in Loncal
don, early days, 14 ff.; first exhibition, 17; runs Cube Press, 17; in the Royal Artillery, 17; drawings for Timon of Athens, 17; present residence, 18; his criticism completely representative of contemporary neoclassicism, 18; claim to impartiality, 18-20; use of th3 mask, 20 ff., 279; his alter egos, 22-7; his politics,
31
state,
mo-
32;
politics
inimical
to
Art function and definitions, 105; painting the highest art, 105; "Vortices and Notes," 106; "Essay on the Objective of Plastic Art in Our
Time," 105;
intellect,
distinction
"person" and "thing," 34, 38-9; use of lower case for names of nationalities, 34 n.; man
between
intellect not subordinate to ethics, 108; realm of art the "preserve" of the intellect, 108; the
106;
356
Lewis, Percy Wyndham {continued) dithyrambic spectator, 109, 165, 239, 255; abstract art, 110; art a kind of death, 111-13; Vortex, the principle of unity in the maelstrom of life's diversity, 113; dislike of Cubism, 116; dislike of French novelty in art, 117; attack on Lawrence, 117; apriorism a disease of art and life, 118; first one-man exhibition, with fore-
Wyndham Lewis
Humour,
mor,
210; Hkes 211; humor ing, 212; function piction of reahty,
satire, detests
hufail-
an EngHsh
word Guns,
120; "X" Group, 120, 152; his opinion of modern painters, 121 ff.; "contradictions" in his art
of satire the de212; violence of his satire, 213 ff.; "War Baby," 214; "Cornac and His Wife," 215; separation of mind and body essential to satire, 216; theory essentially Bergsonian, 216; role of the "showman," 217-20; early stories, 221-2, 226; similarities with Bergson's Rire, Til ff., and differences, 223; the man-
criticism,
art,
123^;
124-5;
"Tyros and Portraits," 125; sources of abstraction in his art, 126; definition of "classical" art, 126 n.; "A Review of Contemporary Art," 127; heckles Marinetti, 130; reasons for dishke of Futurism, 131 ff.; scores Futurism as mechanical, 134; on present-day painting, 136-7; weakness of his art criticism, 138-40; associated with Fry, 141; Rebel Art Centre, 141-3, 156; Blast dinners, 144; Blast publications, 145; its contributors, 145-6; classical restraint and order, 146; assessment of worth of Vorticism, 150-2; Hulme's analysis of art applied to Lewis, 153-8; drawing, "Enemy of the Stars," 156; "Credentials of the Painter," 158. Attack on "Time" (romanticism), 161 ff.; criticism of Gertrude Stein, 165-7, 168 ff.; first meeting with Joyce, 168; launches attack on him, 168-70; continues it, 171-83; Joyce's criticism of WL, 170 ff., 179-84; attacks Joyce as a writer of "time" books, 184; WL's treatment of Bergsonism, 185-8; attacks Pound, 190, and EHot, 191; for classicism is antiromanticism, 194; epitome of his "time-philosophy," 201; as Thomist, 202 ff.; antagonism to rehgion, 202; art the supreme expression of God, 203; attacks Protestantism, 203; cannot subscribe to Catholicism, 204-6, Reads first story to Ford, 209; threatens to horsewhip editor, 209; Khan and Company, 210; Soldier of
124;
machine, 227-30; WL's comic type, 230 ff.; Hardcaster and Kreisler, 232-9; comparison with Dostoevsky, 239 ff.; his view of tragedy, 245 ff.; subject of the Apes, 247-8; Apes more satiric than tragic, 248; Apes a roman a clef, 249; "Roaring Queen," 252-3 {see also below, works); breadth of vision in Apes, ISA; satire in Snooty Baronet, 255-7; tragedy in Snooty, 256-7; Vulgar Streak a critique of "action," 258; tragedy in form of satire in Revenge for Love, 258-63; sham the human norm, 25960; "playing the game," 261-2; Self
264; plot technique of writing of the outside, "philosophy of the eye," 269 ff.; parodies Stein, 273-5; parodies Joyce, 276; repulsive mouths of characters, 278; puppets, dummies, and clowns, 279; clear, clean eyes, 279-80; painting, "Mud Clinic," 279; use of "hieratic," 280-1; clockwork characters, 281-2;
to master new problems engendered by space-time continuum, 286; favorite words in Childermass, 288-9; plot of, 292-304; concerned with "time-philosophy," 299; opinions of Childermass, 305-9; evaluation, 307-11.
fails
WL
WL
26,
Index
282, 288, 307; Art of Being Ruled, 4n., 33f., 43n., 51, 57,60, 65, 70ff., 92, 151, 163, 168, 170, 247 f., 266, 269, 283; Blast No. 1, 10, 36, 77, 103, 131-2, 134, 141, 106, 115, 130,
257,
357
258-63, 273, 277 f., 280, 282; "Roaring Queen," 181, 252-3, 276 n., 277, 296; Rotting Hill, 25, 37, 45 n., 53, 63, 65, 68, 85, 119, 126, 204 and
144
ff.,
156,
211,
219
n.,
245,
92,
268;
106,
Blast No. 2,
18, 42,
83
n.,
121, 127, 145 f., 148, 211, 236, 279, 289; Blasting and Bombardiering, 23,
De-
219, 229, 258, 267, 279, 289, 305, 307; Rude Assignment, 3, 4 n., 31, 44, 45-6, 50, 59, 71, 90, 115, 124, 217, 220, 226, 236 f., 246, 262, 290, 305; Satire and Fiction, 165, 213, 245, 250, 254, 269, 271 f.; Self Conn.,
120
ff.,
Spring-Mate,
182;
X, 26, 61, 76, 86, 92, 112, 206, 218, 221, 229, 264-7, 274, 276, 279 f., 282, 305; "Sigismund," 55; Snooty Baronet, 27, 54 f., 219, 229, 234, 251, 253 f., 255-7, 259, 273, 278, 280; "Soldier of Humour," 277; Tarr, 6, 8, 15, 25 f., 39, 51, 53, 77,
demned,
53, 72;
88,
4, 34, 84,
90,
109,
lllff.,
118, 147,
158,
164,
259; Demon of Progress in the Arts, 136-7, 304; Diabolical Principle and the Dithyrambic Spectator, 22,
105, 109, 151, 191 n., 192, 248;
212 f., 218, 219 n., 230, 234-44, 245 f., 248, 251, 254,
168,
188,
210,
Doom
of Youth, 48-9 n., 49, 51 n., 55, 71, 77, 232, 307; Enemy No. 2, 248; Enemy No. 3, 168; Enemy of the
Stars, 22, 40,
101,
142,
181, 218, 219 n., 233; English, Are They Human? 76; Filibusters in Bar-
bary,
39,
55;
Hitler,
50
f.,
71,
75,
83 n., 88, 258; Hitler Cult, 80, f., 258; Human Age, x, xi, 37, 50, 54, 169, 290 f., 304; Ideal Giant, 25, 55, 70, 247, 282; Jews, Are They Human? 29, 46, 76, 85; Left Wings over Europe, 4, 81, 85, 88, 259; Lion and the Fox, 4n., 20, 37, 57 n.,
f.,
80 85
263, 265, 277, 283, 288; Time and Western Man, 10, 33-4, 40, 51, 64, 73, 105, 113, 145, 161 ff., 168, 170, 172, 176, 182, 185 ff., 194, 202, 204, 220 n., 248, 270, 283, 286; Trial of Man, 290, 299; Tyro No. 1, 150, 209, 221; Tyro No. 2, 106 f.; Vulgar Streak, 37, 55, 85, 220, 238, 251, 254, 257-8, 273, 278, 281; "War Baby," 278; V/ild Body, 53, 207, 210 f., 214 ff., 220, 222, 224, 226, 229, 245 f., 277, 288 f., 306; Writer and the Absolute,
43,
67,
258, 305;
Wyndham
Lewis the Artist, 234-5 Lhote, Andre, 115, 122, 127; Parlons
peinture, 119; Peinture:
Le Coeur
et
15711.;
Malign
298, 303
Fiesta,
f.;
166,
290
ff.,
295
213,
f.,
Men
272; Monstre Gai, 86, 290 f., 298, 302, 304; Mysterious Mr. Bull, 37, 63, 211, 220; Old Gang and the New Gang, 48-9 n.; One-Way
295
f.,
Song, 22
151,
ff.,
159,
166,
277,
289,
298;
262, 269,
34,
46
f.,
"Pole," 209;
68,
Red
Priest,
76,
f.,
152,
275,
25,
279,
307;
Revenge
f.,
for
Love,
116,
54
123,
V esprit, 117, 119 Liberalism, 60 ff., 82; criticized by Babbitt, 61-2, by Eliot, 62, by Benda, 62 Library of Congress, 5 n. anglo Linati, Carlo, Scrittori 135; americani d'oggi, 243 Lincoln, Abraham, 63 n. Lipps, Theodor, 7, 153 Listener, 119, 126, 140, 148 Little Review, 15, 21, 210 Litvinov, Maxim, 84 Living Art, 5 n. Lockwood Memorial Library, University of Buffalo, 77 London Conservative Political Centre,
13
358
London Mercury, 214, 282 Lowell, Amy, 15, 144
Lubbock, Percy, Craft of Fiction, 285 n. Lublinski, Samuel, 11, 197; Ausgang der Moderne: Ein Buck der Opposition, 199; Entstehung des Judentums: Eine Skizze, 198; Giinther und Brunhild,
199; Tsar Peter, 198 Lukacs, Georg, 199-200 die Formen, 199 Luther, Martin, 230 Lyceum Club, 128
n.;
Wyndham Lewis
Martin Seeker Ltd., 210
Marwood, Arthur, 14
Marx, Groucho, 71 Marx, Karl (Marxism), 71, 76, 85, 259, 263. See also Communism, Sociahsm
Massis, Henri ("Agathon"), 9, 64, 99, 185, 193 f.; Defense de I'Occident, 13, 161; Jeunes Gens d'aujourd'hui, 95; and Alfred de Tarde, Esprit de la
Seele
und
Nouvelle Sorbonne,
8,
10,
95
et
Matisse, Henri, 121 and n., 138 Mauriac, Francois, Romancier personnages, 231
ses
McBryde, Robert, 126 McCarthy, Mary, 87 MacColl, D. S., 151 MacDiarmid, Hugh, To Cencrastus, 24
Circumjack
Machiavelli, Niccolo, 32, 35; Principe, 31 and n. McLuhan, H. M., 145, 184, 216, 265;
Maurier, Daphne du, Mary Anne, 267 Maurois, Andre, 49 Maurras, Charles, 9 f., 12 f., 32 f., 35 f., 38, 64, 68, 78 ff., 82, 83 n., 87, 89 n., 91 ff., 95 and n., 97, 193, 196, 198; Anthinea, 8; Avenir de l intelligence,
117;
Romantisme feminin,
52,
165;
Vers I'Espagne de Franco, 197 Maurrasians, 78 Mechanists, versus vitalists, 227-8 Melville, Cecil F., 41, 86 Melville, Herman, Moby Dick, 256
"Men
Contemporary
British Literature, 5 n.
Tristan, 1
of 1914," 12, 15 f., 87, 149, 177, 311 Meredith, George, 3 n., 14 Metzinger, Jean. See Gleizes, Albert Michaud, Regis, 99 Michel, Wilhelm, Das Teuflische und G roteshe in der Kunst, 7 Michelangelo Buonarroti, 134; "Nude Youth," 300
Michelet, Jules, 1 Middle Ages, 195, 204
Mill,
f.
John
Stuart,
82
Areopagitica,
61;
Milton,
John,
79;
mobilism,"
futurista,
Comus, 203; Paradise Lost, 292 Mitchison, Naomi, 250 Modern Language Association, 242
Zang Tumb Tuuum, 128 Marinettian poetry, 128-9 Maritain, Jacques, 10, 13, 39, 68, 78, 96, 96-7 n., 204 f.; Evolutionisme de M. Bergson, 9; "Impossible Antisemitisme," 78 n.; Philosophic de M. Bergson, 9 Marlborough Gallery, London, 150 Marriott, Charles, 5 n. Marsden, Dora, 16 Martin du Gard, Roger, Jean Barois, 12
Modern
Painting, 151
Index
More, Paul Elmer, 93 More, Sir Thomas, 171 Moreas, Jean, 9, 11 Morgan, Louise, 272 n.
359
Morning
Morgenstern, Christian, 7 Post, 239 Morris, Margaret, 142 Mortimer, Raymond, 251, 305 Mosley, Oswald, 73 f., 82 Mudrick, Marvin, 234, 263 n. Muir, Edwin, 166; Structure of the Novel, 285 n. Munich, 6-7 Murry, J. Middleton, 116, 189 Museum of Modern Art, New York, x, 137 Mussolini, Benito, 71, 73 f., 80, 82, 86, 136; "Fascismo," 74
New Statesman, 36, 77, 267, 306 New Statesman and Nation, 106 New Verse, 19 n. New Weekly, 134 New Witness, 240 New York Evening Post, 306 New York Herald Tribune, 305 New York Times, 251; Book Review,
304, 309 Yorker, x, 309 Newton, Eric, 148 Nichols, Robert, 240 f. Nicole, Pierre, 225 Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm (Nietzschean), 33, 52, 68, 90, 94, 131 Noi, 131
New
36
Nott, Kathleen, 36
Nash, Paul, 150 Nation, 239 Nation (London), 241 Nation and Athenaeum, 305 Nationalism, 82-3 n.
Neoclassicism, 8
47, 51, 52
ff.,
45
n.,
f., 58, 61, 65, 77 ff., 82, 99-100, 117 f., 136, 146, 161, 163, 188 f., 192, 306, 310; criticism of classical versus romantic, 189-90; civil war among English neo-
87
ff.,
93,
O'Connor, William Van, 203 n. Order, as foundation of good society, 93 Original sin, doctrine of, 35 Orpen, Sir William, 150 Ortega y Gasset, 91 "Orthodoxy of the left," 64 Orwell, George, 67, 70
WL
195;
Hulme's theory,
weakness
ski,
WL
Thomas, Rights of Man, 295 Pannwitz, Rudolf, 197 Pantheism, 111-12 n., 120, 138, 153 Papini, Giovanni, 131, 135 Parnassian movement, 58 Partisan Review, 67, 309 Pater, Walter, 3 n. Paul, David, 267
Paine,
on space, 284
Negro, WL's opinion of the, 46-8 Nero, 197 Nevinson, Charles, 141, 143, 145, 155; Paint and Prejudice, 130, 144 n. New Age, 11, 15, 98 f., 155, 157 New Britain, 111 New English Art Club, 145, 150 New Europe, 116
Paul, Elliot, 22 Peale, Norman Vincent, 267 Peguy, Charles, 52, 193; Cahiers de la quinzaine, 9 and n., 52 Petrarch, 195 Picabia, Francis, 131 Picasso, Pablo, 117, 121, 122-3, 127, 175 Piccadilly Review, 116
Pinker, J. B., 210 Pittura futurista: manifesto tecnico, 129 Plato, 79 f., 178, 232; Phaedo, 39, 301;
New Freewoman, 16 New Republic, 121, 239, 251, New Signatures group, 190 n.,
308 298
Symposium, 245
360
Plautus, Twin Poesia, 128
Politics,
Wyndham Lewis
Menaechmi, 293
138 n., 140, 154; Philosophy of Modern Art, 86 Rebel Art Centre, 141 ff., 156 Religion, and WL, 202 ff. Renaissance, 195 f. Revolution: and social classes, 65; aUied to Protestantism, 78-9 Richards, Ceri, 126 Richards, I. A., 254, 297, 298-9 Rickert, Edith. See Manly, John M. Riding, Laura, 166 Roberts, Cecil, 250 Roberts, Michael, 11 Roberts, WilHam, x, 145 f., 150; "Blast Vorticism!" 145
31
ff.
Porteus,
14,
15 and
n.,
n.,
18,
78, 87, 89
90, 97,
132, 135 f., 142 f., 145, 148 f., 157 f., 168, 177, 190, 192 f., 198 f., 203, 206, 210, 220, 234 ff., 239, 242, 251, 269, 280 f., 285 and n., 305, 307, 311; strong influence on WL, 16; College of Arts, 145; attacked by WL,
124,
at Chinon, 35; 284, 286; Gaudier-Brzeska. A Memoir, 144; Gold and Work, 99; Guide to Kulchur, 149, 190; // This Be Treason, 147; Indiscretions, 46; Instigations, 8; Jefferson and/or Mussolini, 63, 84, 93; "Moeurs contemporains," 281; Personal, 20; Pisan Cantos, 144, 146; Spirit of Romance,
Rodman,
190;
Anachronism
Romains,
Jules,
272
Cantos,
Romance,
and Romanticism,
78, 188, 211, 235, 258, 265; Sex, as inimical to culture, 51 ff.
108, 189-90; Townsman, 184-5 Praz, Mario, 191 and n.; Romantic Agony, 191 n. Prescott, Harriet Elizabeth, Azarian: An Episode, 111 Prezzolini, Giuseppe, 135 Primitivism, 119; child art, 119-20
Pritchett,
V. opinion of
S.,
67, 236,
ix
n.
253-4, 308;
94, 189; impressionism a form of, 115; criticism of classical versus romantic, 189-90; compares with classicism, 194; contemporary opposed to Renaissance, 196 denial of pan-German nature of, 197 Lublinski's fear of, 199; of Joel, 200 Lasserre's catalogue romantic of characteristics, 201. See also "Time" Ronda, 134 ff. Roosevelt, Franklin D., 62 f. Rose, William K., 305 Rosenberg, Moses (Marcel), 83 f. Rosenfield, Leonora, 228; From Beast-
WL
WL,
Machine
to
Man-Machine, 111
Proust, Marcel, 162, 179, 189, 225, 270, 285 and n., 286; Remembrance of
Ross, Alan, 19 Roth, Samuel, 168 Rothenstein, Sir John, 145 Rothenstein, Sir William, 6, 151, 158, 236; Men and Memories, 1900-1922,
17
Quetzalcoatl, 172
17,
143, 219 n.
Quinn Collection,
brary, 5 n.
New York
Public Li-
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 8, tmile, 255 Rousseau, Theodore, 139 Royal Academy, 124, 145 Rudrauf, L., 100
Rugby
Read,
Sir
Herbert,
64
n.,
119,
137,
School, 5 n., 6 Bertrand, 87, 99, 184 n. Russolo, Luigi, 129; "Plastic Resume of a Woman's Movements," 133 Ryder Gallery, London, 17
Russell,
Index
Sackville Gallery,
361
London, 130
Shorey, Paul, 170 Sickert, Walter, 151
Sage, Robert, 22 St. Augustine, 195 Saint-Exupery, Antoine de, 49 Saint-Point, Valentine de, 143
Sitwell, Edith,
Sitwell,
287 250
n.
142
Sacheverell,
Canons of Great
Art, 88
287
Sitwells, 5 n.
211
ff.;
its
function,
to
depict
n., 6,
151
Jonsonian, 212; must not be moral, 213; must be cruel, 214; in WL's Wild Body, 111; as Bergson sees it, 222-3; a species half way between tragedy and comedy, 245; in Apes, 247-54; "Roaring the in Queen," 252-4; in Snooty Baronet, 255-7; in Vulgar Streak, 257-8; in Revenge for Love, 258-63; in Self Condemned, 264-7; in Red Priest, Idl; technique of presentation, 269 ff. Saturday Night (Toronto), 266
reality, 212;
Saturday Review
Schiller,
(London), 305
197
Ardengo, 134 Soirees de Paris, 138 Some Imagist Poets, 111 Soper, Donald, 267
Sophocles, 199 Sorbonne, 9 f., 13 Sorel, Georges, 71; Reflections on Violence, 196 Soviet leaders, 82
117-18; Mai romantique, 9, 119; Origines romanesques de la morale et de la politique romantique, 194; Pangermanistes d'apres guerre, 185; Romantisme, 80 Severini, Gino, 129, 131; "Blue Dancer," 132 Sewanee Review, 285 Sex, as an enemy of culture, 51-9 Sexual perversion, 56-8 Shakespear, Olivia, 291 Shakespeare, William, 3 n., 157, 199, 211, 219, 245 f.; Coriolanus, 37; King Lear, 86, 247; Othello, lAl "Shaman," 57 Shaw, George Bernard, 66; St. Joan, 211 Shelley, Percy Bysshe, 66
in
experi-
Spender, Stephen, 71, 277, 288; Destructive Element, 191 n., 283-4; World within World, 87
Spengler, Oswald, 40, 105, 193 f, 201 and n., 204
Stael,
109,
185,
Madame
de, 51
96
273 and
n., 294 f.; WL's attack on, 163, 165-7; cult of the child, 165 ff.; with Joyce, a chief representative of
362
Stein,
Wyndham Lewis
Gertrude {continued)
170; joint defects of
called a sham,
Joyce and,
167
"Stein-stutter,"
according to
WL,
175;
273-5
G. W., 307
Stone, Geoffrey, 75, 202, 251, 254 Strachey, Lytton, 254, 266 Strindberg, Madame, 142, 146 Strich, Fritz, 10, 13 Summers, Montague, Gothic Quest,
Apes of God, 247Snooty Baronet, 256-7; in Revenge for Love, 258-63 Tramp, 16, 210, 215, 277 Transatlantic Review, 17 transition, 22, 109 n., 128, 167 ff., 181, 273, 295 Trilling, Lionel, 101, 306 True, Gonzague, Classicisme d'hier et classiques d'aujourd'hui, 166 Turgenev, Ivan Sergeevich, 55; Fathers and Sons, 238
nique, 246-7; in
54;
in
191 n.
118
140
See Mechanists
Tailhede, Raymond de la, 12 Tarde, Alfred de. See Massis, Henri Tate Gallery, London, x, 5 n., 145
Theophrastus, 238 Thieme, Ulrich, and Felix Becker, Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Kilnstler,
5 n.
WL
neo-Thomists, 306
"Time": opposed to intellect, stability, and art, 161 ff. Time and space. See Space and time Time and Tide, 50, 75, 86 Time Magazine, x Times (London), 116-17, 128, 149, 240, 265 Times Literary Supplement, x, 191 n., 209, 220, 240, 251, 263 f., 268, 290, 305 Tindall, William York, 88, 99, 169, 173, 308; Forces in Modern British Literature, 1885-1946, X, 146 Tomlin, E. W. F., 242, 252, 264, 290, 303-4 Tonks, Henry, 151 Toronto, University of, 48 n. Toussenel, Alphonse, 68, 79 Tragedy: close to comedy and satire, 245-6; WL's definition, 246; his tech-
our busy life," 113; damned by Sir Herbert Read, 119; much in common with Futurism, 127; touched off by Marinetti's 1914 lecture, 130; anxious to announce art of future but reluctant to break with past, 131; anticipated by Cubism, 138; "Vorticist" invented by Pound, 143; WL's Vortex announced by Blast No. 1, 144-5; called healthier than Futurism, 149;
assessment, 150-2; Milton's Lady in Comus similar to Vortex, 203; Faulkner refers to, 203-4 n. See also Great English Vortex
Wadsworth, Edward,
143,
6,
Waugh, Alec, Loom of Youth, 49 Waugh, Evelyn, 84, 252; Vile Bodies,
152, 266 Weaver, Harriet, 16 Weber, Max, Cubist Poems, 17 Wells, H. G., 87, 95, 130, 250; TonoBungay, 14
Index
Werfel, Franz, Barbara, 242 West, Rebecca, 146, 173, 241 f.; Strange Necessity, 176 Whistler, James A. M., 106 f., 110, 150 Whitaker's Cumulative Book List, xi
363
Woolf, Virginia,
192
141, 164, 254, 261, 271, 273, 283, 307; Writer's Diary,
Women,
obstruction to
art,
51
ff.
Who's Who, 5n. Wickham, Harvey, Impuritans, 174 Wilde, Oscar, Decay of Lying, 106
Wilenski, R. H., "Order and Authority,"
Worringer, Wilhelm, 7, 107, 110, 153-5, 195 f., 249; three kinds of aesthetic man, 153-4; Abstraktion und Einfiihlung, 154 Wyndham, Richard, 109
Yeats, William Butler, 40, 88, 125, 135, 162, 173 f., 192, 250 and n., 251, 291; Autobiographies, 20; Dramatis Personae, 20; "Ego Dominus Tuus," 20-1; Vision, 20
Zola, mile, 118, 132, 164
122 Williams, William Carlos, 145 Williamson, Hugh Ross, 144 Wilson, Angus, Anglo-Saxon Attitudes, 152 Wilson, Woodrow, 63 Witzbldtter, 1
I!
DATE
DUE
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