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Wyndham Lewis, Ford Madox Ford, and the Artist As Masochist

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Wyndham Lewis, Ford Madox Ford, and the Artist As Masochist University of Tennessee, Knoxville TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange Masters Theses Graduate School 8-2010 Uncelebrated Stylists: Wyndham Lewis, Ford Madox Ford, and the Artist as Masochist Chase Morgan Erwin University of Tennessee - Knoxville, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_gradthes Part of the Literature in English, British Isles Commons Recommended Citation Erwin, Chase Morgan, "Uncelebrated Stylists: Wyndham Lewis, Ford Madox Ford, and the Artist as Masochist. " Master's Thesis, University of Tennessee, 2010. https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_gradthes/702 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. It has been accepted for inclusion in Masters Theses by an authorized administrator of TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. For more information, please contact [email protected]. To the Graduate Council: I am submitting herewith a thesis written by Chase Morgan Erwin entitled "Uncelebrated Stylists: Wyndham Lewis, Ford Madox Ford, and the Artist as Masochist." I have examined the final electronic copy of this thesis for form and content and recommend that it be accepted in partial fulfillment of the equirr ements for the degree of Master of Arts, with a major in English. Allen Dunn, Major Professor We have read this thesis and recommend its acceptance: Urmila Seshagiri, Lisi Schoenbach Accepted for the Council: Carolyn R. Hodges Vice Provost and Dean of the Graduate School (Original signatures are on file with official studentecor r ds.) To the Graduate Council: I am submitting herewith a thesis written by Chase M. Erwin entitled “Uncelebrated Stylists: Wyndham Lewis, Ford Madox Ford and the Artist as Masochist.” I have examined the final electronic copy of this thesis for form and content and recommend that it be accepted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts with a major in English. Allen Dunn, Major Professor We have read this thesis and recommend its acceptance: Urmila Seshagiri Lisi Schoenbach Accepted for the Council: Carolyn R. Hodges Vice Provost and Dean of the Graduate School Uncelebrated Stylists: Wyndham Lewis, Ford Madox Ford, and the Artist as Masochist A Thesis Presented for The Master of Arts Degree University of Tennessee, Knoxville Chase M. Erwin August 2010 Copyright © 2010 by Chase M. Erwin ii DEDICATION This thesis is dedicated to my grandmothers, Ruth Cheshire and Aline Erwin, who instilled in me a love of reading, and who at all points, and often against my will, impressed on me the importance of eloquence, integrity and reasonableness in speech and the written word, and to my parents, Cara Jean Erwin and Jerry Charles Erwin, who out of a selfless love and earnest passion for a bright and amazing future, have sacrificed so much for my education. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank Dr. Allen Dunn for his constant encouragement and guidance throughout not only the process of composing this project, but also throughout my tenure at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. His patience and dedication to my continuing maturity as a scholar has shown through his rigorous treatment of each draft. Special thanks also go to Dr. Urmila Seshagiri and Dr. Lisi Schoenbach for their generous sharing of their expertise by serving on my thesis committee. In every circumstance, Dr. Seshagiri and Dr. Schoenbach made sure that this process was as challenging and exciting as it can be, encouraging me in both their criticisms and their praise to reveal through this project my fullest potential as a young scholar. To Dr. Nancy Henry and Dr. Jennifer Fishman I owe thanks for their sound encouragement and advice in perusing my academic goals. To Dr. Jeffry Johnson, Dr. Mary Ruth Marotte, and Dr. Wayne B. Stengel I owe a debt of gratitude because without their patience, advice, and encouragement I would not be where I am today. I will do everything I can in the future to ensure that these wonderful people will look back at the time we spent together both inside and outside of the classroom and feel a sense of accomplishment as teachers, mentors, and friends. Furthermore I would like to thank my colleagues and friends, John Paul Hampstead, Leah Rang, Brent Krammes, George Pate, Charlotte Pence, Adam Prince, Briana Scroggins, Kirsten Lamour, Virginia Murphy, Katherine A. Burnett, and Mathew Reese. Thank you for making my time at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville a challenging and life-changing experience. I am honored to work among you and I am excited to see where your talents and abilities take you in the future. iv Abstract This study presents an attempt to understand the political and aesthetic relationship between two of Modernism’s most enigmatic authors, Wyndham Lewis and Ford Madox Ford by examining their novelistic practice in light of their writings on politics and social criticism. A close look at the use of ironic distance, a hallmark feature in our understanding of modernist fiction, in Tarr (1918) and The Good Soldier (1915) reveals both authors conscious effort to distance themselves from their novel’s subjects, Fredric Tarr and John Dowell respectively. In light of both novels’ satirical element, a scathing attack on bourgeois narcissism caused by the wealthier class’ persistent attempts to identify with hollow and self serving social roles through the sham- aristocratic prestige created by England’s pre-war commodity culture, and the fact that both Fredric Tarr and John Dowell are artist figures that somehow resemble their creators, this project reinterprets Ford and Lewis’ ironic distance as an instance of self-distanciation. From this we can infer that both Ford and Lewis were invested in the modernist idea of impersonality, not just as a artistic or literary technique, but as the artist’s only means of escaping the narcissistic and slothful trap of modern subjectivity, and that, along with the production of modernist art, they saw a continual self-effacement as the price of authenticity, therefore inspiring in them the conviction to live as “uncelebrated stylists.” v TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION: The Artist as Masochist…………………………………………….……pg. 1 CHAPTER ONE: “Art Thou an Ephraimite?”………………………………………………pg. 18 Lewis’ Satire as Rhetorical Shibboleth……………………………………………………....pg. 23 Ford’s Satire as Sexual Shibboleth…………………………………………………………..pg. 33 CHAPTER TWO: “Conscience as an artist”………………………………………………...pg. 46 Possession and Indifference………………………………………………………………….pg. 51 “From Art into Sex”………………………………………………………………………….pg. 56 Swearing off Humor…………………………………………………………………………pg. 64 CHAPTER THREE: “Some picture I have seen somewhere”………………………………pg. 75 The Flagging Novelist………………………………………………………………………..pg. 80 “Why are you all in the dark?”…………………………………………………………....... pg. 88 “A phosphorescent fish in a cupboard”…………………………………………………..….pg. 95 CONCLUSION: The Cost of Authenticity...……………………………………………….pg. 108 WORKS CITED……………………………………………………………………………pg. 117 vi Introduction— The Artist as Masochist The haven from sophistications and contentions Leaks through its thatch; He offers succulent cooking; The door has a creaking latch. Ezra Pound, “Hugh Selwyn Mauberley” When his book opens its mouth, the author must shut his. Friedrich Nietzsche While writing a review of BLAST only two days after its publication, Ford Madox Ford makes a strange comment in reference to what he calls “a story that is to what other stories what a piece of abstract music by Bach is to a piece of program-music” (176 “Mr. Wyndham Lewis”). Here, Ford has in mind Wyndham Lewis’ “Enemy of the Stars,” not a story at all, but instead a “play” that Lewis intended as the paradigm of Vorticist literary production. Ford writes, “I don’t just figure out what it means, but I get ferociously odd sensations” (176 “Mr. Wyndham Lewis”). Possibly fearing that his comment could be mistaken for an insult against Lewis’ lucidity, Ford qualifies his earlier statement: “But then I do not understand what Bach meant by the Fourth Fugue, I don’t want to” (176 “Mr. Wyndham Lewis”). Ostensibly, Ford’s opinion of Lewis’ “story” appears ambiguous. Earlier in the review, he calls BLAST “very amusing, very actual, very impressive now and then” (176 “Mr. Wyndham Lewis”). With this in mind, we should wonder whether or not Ford was 1 serious when he admitted not wanting to understand “Enemy of the Stars.” We should not put past him the possibility that his remark was sarcastic; Ford was not one to refrain from cracking a joke. However, in “Enemy of the Stars” Lewis took on a theme that I will spend the following pages arguing was a significant preoccupation to Ford while he was writing his review for the Outlook . Lewis’ play deals with the interior struggle of modern artists who have all but lost their place in society and must discover how to reestablish themselves to a place of social relevance. The same year BLAST was published, Ford was in the midst of composing The Good Soldier (1915), a novel that, as I argue, was largely concerned itself with the place of artists in modern society. Four years later, Lewis would publish his first novel Tarr (1918), which I also contend echoes many of the same concerns. Therefore, when Ford wrote about his “ferociously odd sensations” in response to Lewis’ play, it seems possible that he was speaking honestly. Ford possibly recognized in his younger acquaintance a similar anxiety, persistent but not at that moment quite fully articulated.
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