Description: Ezra Pound and Wyndham Lewis developed a highly experimental art in verse, prose, and paint; they were attracted simultaneously to political programs remarkably backward its outlook - the autocracies of fascist Italy and Nazi Germany. That paradox, central to the problematic achievement of Anglo-American modernism, is freshly addressed in this study. Sherry examines the influence of music and painting on literature, presents original research on European intellectual history, and proposes a new understanding of ideology as a force in the literary imagination. Following the example of continental ideologues like Julien Benda and Georges Sorel, the English modernists used the material of aesthetic experience to prove truths of human nature, making art the basis for social values and recomendations. This sensibility enriches their work, shaping the varied textures of Pound's Cantos and the complex designs of Lewis's painting and fiction, but their mastery of avant-garde techniques endorses the authority of an antique state. Sherry returns their "totalitarian synthesis" of art and politics to its originating moment, following its trajectory from 1910 to the eve of World War II. Skillfully relating aesthetic practice to political precepts, Sherry's study recovers a European tradition previously unrecognized by scholars, illustrating its profound intfluence on English modernism. Ezra Pound, Wyndham Lewis, and Radical Modernism will inform readers in the fields of modern British and American literature, modern intellectual history, modern art history, and political science.

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