Modernist Exoskeleton

Rachel Murray is lecturer in English at Loughborough University. She is the author of several book chapters and articles in refereed journals including ‘Insects in Language and Literature’, A Cultural History of Insects, eds. Gene Kritsky, Vazrick Nasari (Bloomsbury, 2019); ‘Beelines: Joyce’s Apian Aesthetics’, Humanities Special Issue: James Joyce, Animals, and the Non Human, Vol. 6, No. 2 (June 2017), pp. 1-14 and ‘Vermicular Origins: The Creative Evolution of Samuel Beckett’s Worm’ [Winner of the 2016 BSLS/JLS Early Career Essay Prize], Journal of Literature and Science, Vol. 9, No. 2 (2016), pp. 19-35.

• List of illustrationsIntroduction1. Shell Bursts: Wyndham Lewis2. Formication: D. H. Lawrence 3. Cocoon States: H.D. 4. Larval Forms: Samuel Beckett Conclusion Bibliography Index

For Murray, we must grapple with the ways in which modernist insects inscribe “a new kind of human existence” and a vision of the “self” that is “more aware of its surroundings, more receptive to other ways of being, more conscious of its frailty,” while testing this against later writing that offers a more sustained dismantling of the carapace of individual identity (174).