Abstract

Countering the trend of modernist fiction, Wyndham Lewis and Laura Riding sought to eliminate, rather than illuminate, psychological depth. The Wild Body (1927) and Progress of Stories (1936) issue from a critique of the role of empathy in the arts, which is rooted in anxiety about power and culture in mass democracies. Theories of abstraction and of comedy are implicated in these fictions as means to a primary end: the replacement of empathetic response with an "anesthesia of the heart." Lewis hoped to effect a fundamental political transformation, Riding, a spiritual one. In the service of their visions, they used fiction to resist imagining other subjectivities

Talk to us

Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have

Schedule a call

Disclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.