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Looking back over the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in Europe and North America, one can see the emerging patterns of antimodernism beneath or within modernity . Th e emer gence of antimodernism during this period is important because it is not restricted only to this or that obscure figure, but is a fundamental theme implicit or explicit within the works of many major figures—indeed, in many respects antimodernism is a leitmo- tif for the defining figures of the modern period. What are we to make of this seeming paradox: that so many modernist figures are in fact antimod- ernist by inclination? This is a complex subject, and as we will see, it has many facets. Still, it is possible to make a single overarching observation at the outset of our inquiry , and that is this: antimodernism is fundamental to the creative impulse in modernity . Modern industrial society in its very nature calls forth antimodernism in the creative individual. Of course, we have to begin by considering what we mean by the terms “modern” and “modernity.” The word “modern” in its more or less contemporary English usage began to appear in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. For example, in 1609 Ben Jonson uses the term to draw a contrast with the “ancients,” such as Seneca; in 1676, Etherege refers to a man who “thinks himself the Pattern of modern Gallantry”; and so forth.

1

The word “modern” in such usage means “contemporary” or “present,” and also carries with it the underlying etymological root-mean-

1. See Ben Jonson,

Epicoe ne, or the Silent W oman

(Manchester: Manchester UP, 2003), p. 109: “Tut, he must have Seneca read to him, and Plutarch, and the ancients; the moderns are not for this disease.” See also George Etherege,

The Man of Mode

, in

The Plays of George Ether ege

, ed. Michael Cordner (Cambridge: Cambridge UP , 1982),

Arthur Versluis