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Time and Western Man
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:
"If you asked the humblest of men if he would allow you to chop his head off, provided he received the assurance that his head would instantly become the sun, even he believed you had the ability to procure this advantage, he would certainly refuse with indignation. Such is human conceit! The thought of it saddens Mr. Russell. His reality is the sun (let us state it that way), and our reality is the man’s head."
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century" comes with full textual apparatus, editorial notes, an Afterword by Paul Edwards and substantial previously unpublished material.
"If you asked the humblest of men if he would allow you to chop his head off, provided he received the assurance that his head would instantly become the sun, even he believed you had the ability to procure this advantage, he would certainly refuse with indignation. Such is human conceit! The thought of it saddens Mr. Russell. His reality is the sun (let us state it that way), and our reality is the man’s head."
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century" comes with full textual apparatus, editorial notes, an Afterword by Paul Edwards and substantial previously unpublished material.
- GenresPhilosophyEssaysArt
617 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1927
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About the author
Wyndham Lewis
116 books161 followers(Percy) Wyndham Lewis (1882-1957) was a novelist, painter, essayist, polemicist and one of the truly dynamic forces of the early 20th century and a central figure in the history of modernism. He was the founder of Vorticism, the only original movement in 20th century English painting. His Vorticist paintings from 1913 are the first abstract works produced in England, and influenced the development of Suprematism in Russia. Tarr (published in 1918), initiated his career as a satirical novelist, earning the praise of his contemporaries: "the most distinguished living novelist" (T.S. Eliot), "the only English writer who can be compared to Dostoevsky" (Ezra Pound).
After serving as an artillery officer and official war artist during the First World War, Lewis was unable to revive the avant-garde spirit of Vorticism, though he attempted to do so in a pamphlet advocating the modernisation of London architecture in 1919: The Caliph's Design Architects! Where is your Vortex? Exhibitions of his incisive figurative drawings, cutting-edge abstractions and satirical paintings were not an economic success, and in the early 1920s he devoted himself to study of political theory, anthropology, philosophy and aesthetics, becoming a regular reader in the British Museum Reading Room. The resulting books, such as The Art of Being Ruled (1926), Time and Western Man (1927), The Lion and the Fox: The Role of the Hero in the Plays of Shakespeare (1927) and Paleface: The Philosophy of the Melting-Pot (1929) created a reputation for him as one of the most important - if wayward - of contemporary thinkers.
The satirical The Apes of God (1930) damaged his standing by its attacks on Bloomsbury and other prominent figures in the arts, and the 1931 Hitler, which argued that in contemporary 'emergency conditions' Hitler might provide the best way forward in Germany damaged it yet further. Isolated and largely ignored, and persisting in advocacy of "appeasement," Lewis continued to produce some of his greatest masterpieces of painting and fiction during the remainder of the 1930s, culminating in the great portraits of his wife (1937), T. S. Eliot (1938) and Ezra Pound (1939), and the 1937 novel The Revenge for Love. After visiting Berlin in 1937 he produced books attacking Hitler and anti-semitism but decided to leave England for North America on the outbreak of war, hoping to support himself with portrait-painting. The difficult years he spent there before his return in 1945 are reflected in the 1954 novel, Self Condemned. Lewis went blind in 1951, from the effects of a pituitary tumor. He continued writing fiction and criticism, to renewed acclaim, until his death. He lived to see his visual work honored by a retrospective exhibition at London's Tate Gallery in 1956, and to hear the BBC broadcast dramatisations of his earlier novels and his fantastic trilogy of novels up-dating Dante's Inferno, The Human Age.
After serving as an artillery officer and official war artist during the First World War, Lewis was unable to revive the avant-garde spirit of Vorticism, though he attempted to do so in a pamphlet advocating the modernisation of London architecture in 1919: The Caliph's Design Architects! Where is your Vortex? Exhibitions of his incisive figurative drawings, cutting-edge abstractions and satirical paintings were not an economic success, and in the early 1920s he devoted himself to study of political theory, anthropology, philosophy and aesthetics, becoming a regular reader in the British Museum Reading Room. The resulting books, such as The Art of Being Ruled (1926), Time and Western Man (1927), The Lion and the Fox: The Role of the Hero in the Plays of Shakespeare (1927) and Paleface: The Philosophy of the Melting-Pot (1929) created a reputation for him as one of the most important - if wayward - of contemporary thinkers.
The satirical The Apes of God (1930) damaged his standing by its attacks on Bloomsbury and other prominent figures in the arts, and the 1931 Hitler, which argued that in contemporary 'emergency conditions' Hitler might provide the best way forward in Germany damaged it yet further. Isolated and largely ignored, and persisting in advocacy of "appeasement," Lewis continued to produce some of his greatest masterpieces of painting and fiction during the remainder of the 1930s, culminating in the great portraits of his wife (1937), T. S. Eliot (1938) and Ezra Pound (1939), and the 1937 novel The Revenge for Love. After visiting Berlin in 1937 he produced books attacking Hitler and anti-semitism but decided to leave England for North America on the outbreak of war, hoping to support himself with portrait-painting. The difficult years he spent there before his return in 1945 are reflected in the 1954 novel, Self Condemned. Lewis went blind in 1951, from the effects of a pituitary tumor. He continued writing fiction and criticism, to renewed acclaim, until his death. He lived to see his visual work honored by a retrospective exhibition at London's Tate Gallery in 1956, and to hear the BBC broadcast dramatisations of his earlier novels and his fantastic trilogy of novels up-dating Dante's Inferno, The Human Age.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
July 22, 2015
Sorry Wyndham Lewis but you can't just say that everybody in the world is wrong about time, without actually explaining why! I'm on team Joyce (who Lewis has misread): you need space and time together in order to develop a piece of art. You can't just have space, which isn't much more stable than time any way!!
February 22, 2015
This book is so good, because Wyndham is so great.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews