Wolters 0706620/1 The impossibility of flight An analysis of Wyndham Lewis’s Enemy of the Stars in the light of Nietzsche’s literary approach to an overcoming of nihilism in Thus Spake Zarathustra Bachelor’s Thesis Rik Wolters s0706620
[email protected] Supervisor: Dr. Ruud vd Beuken BA English Language and Culture Radboud University Nijmegen Wolters 0706620/2 Cover image: Wyndham Lewis, The Enemy of the Stars, Blast, 1914: viiia. Wolters 0706620/3 Abstract As a key work from the early 20th century avant-garde, Wyndham Lewis’s play Enemy of the Stars can be seen as a modernist reaction to the nihilism inherent in modernity. One of the most comprehensive expressions of nihilism may be found in the work of Friedrich Nietzsche. This study will bring the two authors together by investigating what nihilism means and a possible way out of this nihilism as presented in various elements in Nietzsche’s Zarathustra, and how these elements feature in Lewis’s play. Key words: Wyndham Lewis, Friedrich Nietzsche, modernism, nihilism Wolters 0706620/4 Table of Contents Abstract 4 Chapter 1: Introduction 6 Chapter 2: Nietzsche and nihilism 15 Chapter 3: Thus Spake Zarathustra 29 Chapter 4: Enemy of the Stars 44 Chapter 5: Conclusion 58 Bibliography 61 Wolters 0706620/5 Chapter 1: Introduction What is nihilism? In his essay “Twentieth Century Nihilism” (1952), the avant-garde writer, painter, and critic Wyndham Lewis diagnoses his contemporary existentialist thinkers, such as Jean-Paul Sartre, in this way: The hypothesis of an absolute somewhere else than in existence (as posited in classical metaphysics) is rejected by the Existentialist.