‘Longest way round is the shortest way home:’ Escapism in the Fictions of James Joyce and Wyndham Lewis

Abstract

In the early 20th century many ideas existed about the figure of the artist, and what the artist should do. There arose the idea that the artist should be removed from society so that he may more effectively critique and effect it in his art—that the artist should be an escapist figure. The development of the idea of escapism can be seen in James Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and Ulysses, and Wyndham Lewis’s Enemy of the Stars. These texts show the development of the artist as escapism, the limits of escapism as an artist, and how the artist might appropriately utilitze escapism for his art