Some portraits of the artist in the writings of Wyndham Lewis

This thesis compares the fictional heroes of Wyndham Lewis with those portraits of the artist presented in his discursive prose. Just as there are striking points of likeness between Rupert Birkin and D.H. Lawrence, Stephen Dedalus and James Joyce, so the heroes of Lewis's novels keep reminding us of their creator; all are in some sense portraits of the artist. While fiction and life are admittedly distinct worlds, Lewis's novels often come close to autobiography. His autobiographical writings, on the other hand, are usually stylised to the point of being semi-fictional, I suggest that the figure of Lewis etched in the public imagination - principally by his own discursive essays and autobiographical works - is not simply a self-portrait, but a mode of confronting an often inimical universe. By balancing the embattled personae of his non-fiction with the franker confessions he makes under the seal of fiction, a more complete picture of this extraordinary writer and artist can be achieved. The effect is to make him less a superman and more a man, crossed by conflicting sympathies and hatreds - directed towards himself as well as his enemies. Lewis the man is much more sympathetic than that repellent official portrait of himself which has been so widely accepted by his readers.