Literary Primitivism

This book comprehensively redefines literary primitivism, arguing that it was an aesthetic project formed in reaction to the high point of imperialist expansion at the start of the twentieth century. As those spaces in which “primitive” forms of existence were imagined to be possible were either directly colonized or otherwise forcibly integrated into a geographically totalized capitalist world-system, so dissenting writers responded by trying to reawaken primitive experience by means of literary practice. This thesis breaks with the orthodox understanding of primitivism as a transhistorical tendency according to which the “civilized” idealize the “primitive,” something that is usually thought to correspond to a binary of the “West” and its “Others.” Adopting the “point of view of totality,” Literary Primitivism argues that it was artists from peripheral societies who most energetically pursued primitivism’s project of immediacy as it was they who most keenly felt the loss of unalienated social worlds. The major debates are reviewed concerning primitivism and the thinkers, artists, and concept--including expressionism, modernism, surrealism, Rousseau, Darwin, Marx, Nietzsche, Luxemburg, the writers of négritude, Carl Einstein, the Frankfurt School, and Alain Locke. In close studies of the work of Aimé Césaire, Frantz Fanon, D. H. Lawrence, and Claude McKay the book identifies a morphology of literary primitivism that centers on the literary activation of the primitive remnant. Along the way, the book reassesses the politics of primitivism, especially with regard to its decolonial horizon, and the prospects for understanding literary primitivism as an event of world literature. This book fundamentally rethinks a pervasive and controversial concept in literary criticism and the history of ideas. Primitivism has long been accepted as a transhistorical tendency of the "civilized" to idealize that primitive condition against which they define themselves. In the modern era, this has been a matter of the "West" projecting its primitivist fantasies onto non-Western "others." Arguing instead that primitivism was an aesthetic mode produced in reaction to the apotheosis of European imperialism, and that the most intensively primitivist literary works were produced by imperialism's colonized subjects, the book overturns basic assumptions of the last two generations of literary scholarship. Against the grain, Ben Etherington contends that primitivism was an important, if vexed, utopian project rather than a form of racist discourse, a mode that emerged only when modern capitalism was at the point of subsuming all human communities into itself. The primitivist project was an attempt, through art, to recreate a "primitive" condition then perceived to be at its vanishing point. The first overview of this vast topic in forty years, Literary Primitivism maps out previous scholarly paradigms, provides a succinct and readable account of its own methodology, and presents critical readings of key writers, including Aime Cesaire, Frantz Fanon, D. H. Lawrence, and Claude McKay. This book fundamentally rethinks a pervasive and controversial concept in literary criticism and the history of ideas. Primitivism has long been accepted as a transhistorical tendency of the "civilized" to idealize that primitive condition against which they define themselves. In the modern era, this has been a matter of the "West" projecting its primitivist fantasies onto non-Western "others." Arguing instead that primitivism was an aesthetic mode produced in reaction to the apotheosis of European imperialism, and that the most intensively primitivist literary works were produced by imperialism's colonized subjects, the book overturns basic assumptions of the last two generations of literary scholarship. Against the grain, Ben Etherington contends that primitivism was an important, if vexed, utopian project rather than a form of racist discourse, a mode that emerged only when modern capitalism was at the point of subsuming all human communities into itself. The primitivist project was an attempt, through art, to recreate a "primitive" condition then perceived to be at its vanishing point. The first overview of this vast topic in forty years, Literary Primitivism maps out previous scholarly paradigms, provides a succinct and readable account of its own methodology, and presents critical readings of key writers, including Aimé Césaire, Frantz Fanon, D. H. Lawrence, and Claude McKay This book fundamentally rethinks a pervasive and controversial concept in literary criticism and the history of ideas. Primitivism has long been understood as a Transhistorical tendency of the "civilized" to idealize that primitive condition against which they define themselves. In the modern era, this has been a matter of the "west" projecting its primitivist fantasies onto non-western "others." arguing instead that primitivism was an aesthetic mode that arose in reaction to the apotheosis of European imperialism, and that the most intensively primitivist literary works were produced by imperialism's colonized subjects, the book overturns basic assumptions of the last two generations of scholarship. Against the grain, Ben Etherington contends that primitivism was not a racist discourse but an important, if vexed, utopian project, one that emerged only when modern capitalism was at the point of subsuming all human communities into itself. The primitivist project was an attempt, through art, to recreate a "primitive" condition then perceived to be at its vanishing point. The first overview of this vast topic in forty years, literary primitivism maps out previous scholarly paradigms, provides a succinct and readable account of its own methodology, and presents critical readings of key writers, including Aimé Césaire, Frantz Fanon, D. H. Lawrence, and Claude McKay. Book jacket Primitivism After Its Poststructural Eclipse -- Primitivism And Philo-primitivism -- Primitivism And Negritude -- The Question Of Representation -- Primitivism And Knowledge : Césaire, Fanon, And Immediacy As A Project -- D.h. Lawrence's Narrative Primitivism -- Claude Mckay's Primitivist Narration -- Conclusion : Primitivism, Decolonization, And World Literature. Ben Etherington. Includes Bibliographical References And Index. This book fundamentally rethinks a pervasive and controversial concept in literary criticism and the history of ideas, arguing that primitivism was an aesthetic project specific to European imperialism at its height, and that the most intensively primitivist works were produced by the colonized subjects of the imperial periphery.