Edinburgh University Press Primordial Modernism: Animals, Ideas, transition (1927-1938) (Edinburgh Critical Studies in Modernist Culture)

This 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. Review Primordial Modernism asks us to behold modernism afresh, through pineal eyes. Gone is the fetishization of male ego that once made Wyndham Lewis's coinage, "the Men of 1914", a reasonable characterization of the modernist movement. Gone, too, is the fetishizationof genius. Jolas is celebrated by Setz primarily for his influence on other writers, while the most august of the magazine's contributors, James Joyce, is shrunk; Setz puts it beautifully: "The 'Work in Progress' was an agenda-setting presence [for transition], and the slither of that world of a book explored here has received a necessarily partial discussion".--Beci Carver "Times Literary Supplement " From the Inside Flap Brings periodical culture and animal studies together to shed new light on modernismThis adventurous study focuses on experimental animal writing in the major interwar journal transition (19271938), which contains a striking recurrence of metaphors around the most basic forms of life. 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 transitions contribution to twentieth-century periodical culture.Cathryn Setz is Associate Visiting Research Fellow at the Rothermere American Institute at the University of Oxford. From the Back Cover Brings periodical culture and animal studies together to shed new light on modernism This 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. 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. Cathryn Setz is Associate Visiting Research Fellow at the Rothermere American Institute at the University of Oxford. About the Author Cathryn Setz is an Associate Visiting Research Fellow at the Rothermere American Institute at the University of Oxford.