Overview

The revolution in literary form and aesthetic consciousness called modernism arose as the physical sciences were revising their most fundamental concepts: space, time, matter, and the concept of 'science' itself. The coincidence has often been remarked upon in general terms, but rarely considered in detail. Einstein's Wake argues that the interaction of modernism and the 'new physics' is best understood by reference to the metaphors which structured these developments. These metaphors, widely disseminated in the popular science writing of the period, provided a language with which modernist writers could articulate their responses to the experience of modernity. Beginning with influential aspects of nineteenth-century physics, Einstein's Wake qualifies the notion that Einstein alone was responsible for literary 'relativity'; it goes on to examine the fine detail of his legacy in literary appropriations of scientific metaphors, with particular attention to Virginia Woolf, D. H. Lawrence, Wyndham Lewis, and T. S. Eliot.

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9780198186403

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Reviews

Einstein's Wake is a revealing study and deserves an attentive audience. ISIS This is a well-crafted book about the reception of science (especially physics) by modernist literature in England. The book delivers exactly what it promises ... Einstein's Wake is a good start at limning pathways of information and figuration from science to literature. ELY ... we can all benefit from [Whitworth's] exhaustive archival work and his careful tracing of the shared use of a common set of metaphors that adds depth and breadth to the intellectual field of modernism. Woolf Studies Annual One of the main strengths of Whitworth's study is the rich context that he constructs in addressing the relationship between the popularization of science and modernism. Woolf Studies Annual ... a thoroughly researched and compellingly argued analysis of the complex relationship between communities of writers and scientists in the modernist period of the early twentieth century. Woolf Studies Annual Einstein's Wake combines painstaking archival research with an impressive command of a large range of disparate and difficult concepts. Whitworth traverses the tropological terrain of modernist literature and science with a fluidity that belies any simplistic 'two cultures' formulations of the period. Popular science writing is an under-criticized, under-theorized and under-historicized genre even within the field of 'literature and science'; Einstein's Wake is an important contribution to this field, and to modernist literary studies. Review of English Studies

Author Information

Michael H. Whitworth Lecturer in English, University of Wales, Bangor

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