Wyndham Lewis

At the beginning of his career Wyndham Lewis (1882-1957) wrote vigorous poetry, and plays which in their form and vehement characterisation resemble the later work of Samuel Beckett. This volume includes major works: One-Way Song , and Enemy of the Stars in its two very different versions, as well as other writings that can now be seen as central to the formation of Lewis's work. The plays and poems crackle with ferocious energy, concentrated and brilliant, as Lewis creates a literary equivalent to the visual revolutions of Cubism and Vorticism. He explores how an artist should think and write in an oppressive world, the relationship between imagination and action. This edition, with Alan Munton's annotations, is a definitive text based on Lewis's own final corrections. An introduction by C.H. Sisson places these radical works in the context of Lewis's other writings.

Alan Munton published an essay on Wyndham Lewis in the first number of PN Review in 1976, and his edition of the Collected Poems and Plays appeared in 1979. He has written influential essays, articles and reviews on Lewis, and on twentieth-century fiction and poetry. He is editor of the Wyndham Lewis Annual. A full-length study, Wyndham Lewis and the Idea of the Twentieth Century, is in preparation. Alan Munton teaches English at the University of Plymouth.

Contents Acknowledgements Introduction by C. H. Sisson POEMS Grignolles One-Way Song PLAYS Enemy of the Stars (1914) The Ideal Giant Enemy of the Stars (1932) Physics of the Not-Self APPENDIX: Unpublished poems and fragments The liquid borwn detestable earth The life of memory concerned me next Explanatory Notes Textual and Bibliographical Notes Bibliography