Lateness and Modernism
Untimely Ideas about Music, Literature and Politics in Interwar Britain

Examines the role of musical figures within 'late modernism', presenting a new understanding of the politics and aesthetics of lateness.

Sarah Collins (Author)

9781108722667, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 24 March 2022

191 pages, 5 b/w illus.
24.4 x 16.9 x 1.1 cm, 0.333 kg

'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

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.

1. The afterlife of a 'Beaten Ghost'
2. Sketch of a milieu: impasse and lateness
3. Impersonality and vividness
'Le Gai Savaire', Philip Heseltine and D. H. Lawrence
4. Modernism, democracy and the politics of lateness: Kaikhosru Sorabji and the new age
5. Cycles, rotation and the image: Cecil Gray's music history and H. D.'s Imagism

Subject Areas: Educational: English literature [YQE], 20th century & contemporary classical music [AVGC6], Theory of music & musicology [AVA]