Lateness and Modernism

In the aftermath of World War I, a sense of impasse and thwarted promise shaped the political and cultural spheres in Britain. Writers such as D. H. Lawrence, Hilda Doolittle, T. S. Eliot and Wyndham Lewis were among the literary figures who responded by pursuing vividness, autonomy and impersonality in their work. Yet the extent to which these practices were reflected in ideas about music from within the same milieu has remained unrecognised. Uncovering the work of composer-critics who worked alongside these figures - including Philip Heseltine (Peter Warlock), Cecil Gray and Kaikhosru Sorabji - Sarah Collins traces the shared tendencies of literary and musical modernisms in interwar Britain. Collins explores the political investments underpinning these tendencies, as well as the influence of English Nietzscheanism and related intellectual currents, arguing that a particular conception of the self, history, and the public characterised an ethos of 'lateness' within this milieu.

“'The concepts of lateness and modernism in early twentieth-century culture have both received voluminous critical attention in recent years. But here is an invigorating and sophisticated book which makes a highly distinctive and indeed provocative contribution. Neglected aspects of inter-war British musical and literary modernism receive long overdue scrutiny through virtuoso readings of the work of Philip Heseltine, Cecil Gray and Kaikhosru Sorabji. In short, essential, and thoroughly enjoyable reading.' Stephen Downes, Royal Holloway, University of London”

Sarah Collins is a lecturer in musicology at the University of Western Australia. She is the author of The Aesthetic Life of Cyril Scott (2013); and editor of Music and Victorian Liberalism (Cambridge, forthcoming).

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