A JOURNAL OF ACADEMIC WRITING VOLUME 5

a movie set in the distant future (even by today’s
standards). As is apparent, Epstein was fascinated by
the heavy and strong machinery of the time; therefore,
something capable of exerting the forces and
destruction of a rock drill was captivating to him. The
actual use of a machine in a sculpture was practically
unheard of at the time and epitomizes Vorticism
inspired by technology and machinery. The seemingly
futuristic figure standing on the drill is commentary
from Epstein on the dehumanizing affect of machines.
Epstein’s belief was that the machine age was
“transforming humanity into a race of armoured and
rigidly constructed figures” (Ewards 55). And even
though initially people didn’t see it (Rock Drill) as
such, it later became a vivid reminder of war. Both the
menacing figure and the powerful, aggressive piece
of machinery upon which it stands were reminiscent
of other inventions of the time like the rapid-fire
machine gun which was capable of true devastation.
Ultimately, Rock Drill was something that inspired
visions of horror; later versions of the sculpture no
longer contained the actual piece of machinery and
the body was shown from just the waist up.
The British avant-garde art & literary movement
known as Vorticism is seen by many as the only
significant British art movement of the 20 th century. As
such, it had a huge impact on not only the paintings
and literature of the time, but on the sculptures as
well, using inspiration from (and acceptance of) both
the science and technology of the times.
Footnote
1. The term quark actually came from James Joyce’s
Finnegans Wake (a high text of Modern Literature)
when physicist Murray Gell-Mann saw it in a poem
(in the novel) that starts off “Three quarks for Muster
Mark!”.
95
WORK CITED
Albright, Daniel. Quantum Poetics. 1st. New York,
NY: Cambridge University Press, 1997.
Edwards, Paul. Blast Vorticism 1914-1918. 1st.
Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing Company,
2000.
Lewis, Wyndham. “Blast.” The Norton Anthology
of Modern and Contemporary Poetry. Ed. Jahan
Ramazani. New York: W.W. Norton & Company,
2003. [Is this citation correct?]
Materer, Timothy. Vortex. 1st. UK: Cornell University
Press Ltd., 1979.
Rosenquist, Rod. “London, literature, and BLAST: the
vorticist as crowd master.” www.flashpointmag.
com. 8 Dec 2006 .
Saunders, Ethel M.. “Vorticist Composition 1915.”
Tate Online. Sep 2004. 8 Dec 2006 .
This paper was written for ENG464: Modern
Literature.
The assignment was a research paper.