Wyndham Lewis Critical Essay | Critical Essay by Kelly Anspaugh

Critical Essay by Kelly Anspaugh

SOURCE: "Getting Even with Uncle Ez: Wyndham Lewis's 'Doppelgänger'," in Journal of Modern Literature, Vol. XIX, No. 2, Fall, 1995, pp. 235-43.

In the following excerpt, Anspaugh argues that the protagonist of Lewis's story "The Doppelgänger" can be seen to represent Lewis's friend Ezra Pound, while the "Stranger" who in the tale proves to be the protagonist's alter ego and superior as a poet, scholar, and man, is a symbol for Lewis himself

The protagonist of "Doppelgänger," Lewis' Gothic récit a clef³³ is named Thaddeus Trunk or "Uncle Thad" (thereby conflating Pound's self-given "Uncle Ez" and the name of Pound's grandfather, Thaddeus Coleman Pound, who appears as "T.C.P." in the Cantos)³⁴ Trunk is a poet and scholar, "A snuffly old passéiste, digging about among musty old manuscripts" (p. 25). Here Lewis' text recalls his earlier representation of Pound in Time and Western Man as a "Man in love with the...
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