Modernism and Matter

In the wake of recent reappraisals of modernism through the lens of ecocriticism and within the compass of New Modernist Studies, this volume seeks to renew our reading of modernist literature by focusing on matter. Rather than addressing the materiality of the book or of archive, it focuses on matter as organic or unorganic, as encompassing human bodies as well as cosmic elements, vegetal matter and the materiality of objects, and as vibrant and dynamic. Analysing the representation of matter in its multifarious acceptations in the novels, short stories and poetry of the early twentieth century entails touching upon aesthetic matter as well as ethical or ontological issues connected with the living world at large. This is done through a rich interdisciplinary approach that conjurs up literary theory while drawing now on the philosophy and scientific discoveries of the time, now on contemporary knowledge. In this light, the works of canonical authors such as Wyndham Lewis, D. H. Lawrence, Katherine Mansfield, Virginia Woolf or Elizabeth Bowen take on new meanings while neglected ones, like those of Vita Sackville-West or Mina Loy, beg to be further acknowledged.