The Modernist Exoskeleton: Insects, War, Literary Form (Edinburgh Critical Studies in Modernist Culture) - Softcover

Murray, Rachel

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1474458203 ISBN 13: 9781474458207

Publisher: Edinburgh University Press, 2022

Synopsis

Argues for the importance of insects to modernism’s formal innovations
Uses the idea of the insect as a key to modernist writers’ engagement with questions of politics, psychology, life, and literary formProvides in-depth analysis of lesser-known modernist narratives, such as H.D.’s Asphodel and Lewis’s Snooty Baronet, as well as new readings of canonical texts – including D. H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover and Samuel Beckett’s TrilogyExplores the influence of popular scientific writing on modernist aestheticsReveals the attentiveness of modernist writers to nonhuman life, thus forging new lines of connection between modernism and literary animal studies
Focusing on the writing of Wyndham Lewis, D. H. Lawrence, H.D. and Samuel Beckett, this book uncovers a shared fascination with the aesthetic possibilities of the insect body – its adaptive powers, distinct stages of growth and swarming formations. Through a series of close readings, it proposes that the figure of the exoskeleton, which functions both as a protective outer layer and as a site of encounter, can enhance our understanding of modernism’s engagement with nonhuman life, as well as its questioning of the boundaries of the human.

About this title

About the Author

Rachel Murray is lecturer in English at Loughborough University. She is the author of several book chapters and articles in refereed journals including ‘Insects in Language and Literature’, A Cultural History of Insects, eds. Gene Kritsky, Vazrick Nasari (Bloomsbury, 2019); ‘Beelines: Joyce’s Apian Aesthetics’, Humanities Special Issue: James Joyce, Animals, and the Non Human, Vol. 6, No. 2 (June 2017), pp. 1-14 and ‘Vermicular Origins: The Creative Evolution of Samuel Beckett’s Worm’ [Winner of the 2016 BSLS/JLS Early Career Essay Prize], Journal of Literature and Science, Vol. 9, No. 2 (2016), pp. 19-35.

From the Back Cover

Argues for the importance of insects to modernism’s formal innovationsFocusing on the writing of Wyndham Lewis, D. H. Lawrence, H.D. and Samuel Beckett, this book uncovers a shared fascination with the aesthetic possibilities of the insect body – its adaptive powers, distinct stages of growth and swarming formations. Through a series of close readings, it proposes that the figure of the exoskeleton, which functions both as a protective outer layer and as a site of encounter, can enhance our understanding of modernism’s engagement with nonhuman life, as well as its questioning of the boundaries of the human.Rachel Murray is a postdoctoral research fellow at Loughborough University.

Edition details

• Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
• Publication date: 2022
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1474458203
• ISBN 13: 9781474458207
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 224