Wyndham Lewis Critical Essay | Critical Essay by Anne Quema

Critical Essay by Anne Quema

SOURCE: “Introduction: Modernism Reclaimed,” in The Agon of Modernism: Wyndham Lewis's Allegories, Aesthetics, and Politics, Bucknell University Press, 1999, pp. 11-29.

In the following excerpt, Quema identifies Lewis as an unfairly neglected master of modernist literature.

Metaphors of gigantic, totemic statues buried in dust, preserved in their primitive state, and awaiting to be discovered by the curious archeologist of earlier twentieth-century art haunt the critical imagination of those who have taken the time to read Wyndham Lewis's texts and examine his visual works. Invariably, a monograph on Lewis's artistic activities begins with the almost ritualistic statement that in him we have an ignored or simply unknown genius who should be recognized as a major contributor to the earlier development of modern art.

Although few in number, most of the successful critical studies of Lewis's works retain the visible marks of the shock of the new always produced by the first...
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