Time and Western Man

First published in 1927, this is Wyndham Lewis's most important book of criticism and philosophy. He turns against his fellow modernists, Ezra Pound, Gertrude Stein and James Joyce to show how they have unconsciously turned their supposedly revolutionary writing into a vehicle for ideologies that undermine real human creativity and progress. The heart of this critique is a devastating assault on metaphysical doctrines that, Lewis believed, robbed the human mind of its creative power and handed that power over to time as a vital principle animating matter. In some of Lewis's most vivid writing, Bergson, Whitehead, Russell and William James are all mercilessly attacked for their implicit fatalism:

"If you asked the humblest of men if he would allow you to chop his head off, provided he received the assurance that his head would instantly become the sun, even he believed you had the ability to procure this advantage, he would certainly refuse with indignation. Such is human conceit! The thought of it saddens Mr. Russell. His reality is the sun (let us state it that way), and our reality is the man’s head."

Lewis's argument remains unsurpassed for its liveliness, peceptiveness and brilliance of expression. This new edition of what Hugh Kenner called "one of the dozen or so most important books of the twentieth century" comes with full textual apparatus, editorial notes, an Afterword by Paul Edwards and substantial previously unpublished material.

• Author
• Wyndham Lewis, Paul Edwards

• Format
• hardcover

• Pages
• 617

• Publisher
• Black Sparrow Press

• Language
• english

• ISBN
• 9780876858790

• Genres
• philosophy, essays

• Release date
• 1992