Primordial Modernism : : Animals, Ideas, transition (1927-1938) / / Cathryn Setz.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Edinburgh University Press Complete eBook-Package 2019
• VerfasserIn: Setz, Cathryn,
• Place / Publishing House: Edinburgh : : Edinburgh University Press, , [2022]; ©2019
• Year of Publication: 2022
• Language: English
• Series: Edinburgh Critical Studies in Modernist Culture : ECCSMC
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (224 p.) :; 16 B/W illustrations

Brings ideas and animals together to shed new light on modernist magazine cultureTests the concept of ‘primordial’ modernism as a tributary of primitivism, Jungian thought, and fraught nationalismsProvides readings of Eugene Jolas’s creative and critical works that place him centre-stage in modernist studiesMoves between unpublished archival material, reception studies, and readings of overlooked authorsConsiders a wide range of modernist authors and artists as befitting to such a rich documentTouches on contemporary scientific discourse as an aspect of animal studiesThis adventurous study focuses on experimental animal writing in the major interwar journal transition (1927–1938), which contains a striking recurrence of metaphors around the most basic forms of life. Amoebas, fish, lizards, birds – some of the ‘lowest’ and ‘oldest’ creatures on earth often emerge at the very places authors seek expressions for the ‘newest’ and the ‘highest’ in art. Discussing works by James Joyce, Henry Miller, Gottfried Benn, Eugene Jolas, Kay Boyle, Bryher, Paul Éluard and more, Cathryn Setz investigates this paradox and provides a new understanding of transition’s contribution to twentieth-century periodical culture.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- CONTENTS -- FIGURES -- ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS -- SERIES EDITORS’ PREFACE -- INTRODUCTION -- 1 AMOEBA: FIGURES OF ABSTRACTION, SURREALIST INFLUENCE AND THE REVOLUTION OF THE WORD -- 2 FISH: EVOLVING THE ARTWORK IN JAMES JOYCE’S ‘SHEM THE PENMAN’ (1927) -- 3 LIZARD: GOTTFRIED BENN, ‘THE “DARK” SIDE OF MODERNISM’ AND TRANSITION’S ‘PINEAL EYE’ -- 4 BIRD: EDITORIAL FLIGHTS WITH EUGENE JOLAS -- CONCLUSION -- BIBLIOGRAPHY -- INDEX