First published in 1927, this is Wyndham Lewis's most important book of criticism and philosophy. He turns against his fellow modernists, Ezra Pound, Gertrude Stein and James Joyce to show how they have unconsciously turned their supposedly revolutionary writing into a vehicle for ideologies that undermine real human creativity and progress. The heart of this critique is a devastating assault on metaphysical doctrines that, Lewis believed, robbed the human mind of its creative power and handed that power over to time as a vital principle animating matter. In some of Lewis's most vivid writing, Bergson, Whitehead, Russell and William James are all mercilessly attacked for their implicit fatalism.
Lewis's argument remains unsurpassed for its liveliness, peceptiveness and brilliance of expression. This new edition of what Hugh Kenner called "one of the dozen or so most important books of the twentieth century" comes with full textual apparatus, editorial notes, an Afterword by Paul Edwards and substantial previously unpublished material.
Lewis's argument remains unsurpassed for its liveliness, peceptiveness and brilliance of expression. This new edition of what Hugh Kenner called "one of the dozen or so most important books of the twentieth century" comes with full textual apparatus, editorial notes, an Afterword by Paul Edwards and substantial previously unpublished material.
