Fascist Modernism: Aesthetics, Politics, and the Avant-Garde

Abstract

What was it about fascism that made the movement, in its various forms, so attractive and exciting to such writers and artists as Wyndham Lewis, Ezra Pound, and Celine, among others? Using as a focal point the literary work of Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, the founder of the Italian Futurist movement and an early associate of Mussolini, the author examines the points of contact between a 'progressive' aesthetic practice and a 'reactionary' political ideology. The book begins by unfolding the history of the avant-garde and concludes by re-examining some of Marinetti's assertions in the light of the postmodernism debate, attempting to understand the ways in which the debate is framed by the demise of both fascism and the avant-garde in their most fully developed historical forms. Throughout, the book is enriched with close readings of a range of (often marginalised) avant-garde texts. Introduction: Why Fascist Modernism? -- 1. Avant-Garde and Modernism: A Theoretical Introduction -- 2. Excursus on the Dialectic of Autonomy and Rationalization: History and Theory -- 3. Decadence and Nationalism -- 4. The Politics of the Manifest -- 5. Avant-Garde and Technology: Futurist Machines -- Fascist Bodies -- 6. Fascist Modernism and the Theater of Power.