PIERCING THE VEIL: VISUALITY AND EPISTEMOLOGY IN AMERICAN MODERNIST FICTION

Drastic changes in the media and technology combined with new psychological concepts of seeing led to re-conceptualizations of the visual in philosophy and, eventually, to a fundamentally changed understanding of reality in the age of modernism. These changes manifest themselves in modernist literature. One master metaphor that reflects this development is the veil in the sense of a „veil of perception.‟ Following Henri Bergson, T.E. Hulme‟s aesthetics draws heavily on this metaphor when it argues in favor of the epistemological superiority of poetic perception as compared to „ordinary‟ perception. The supposed piercing of the veil, however, is rather a redefinition and individualization of the metaphorical „veil of perception‟ formerly believed to be universal: reality is now considered subjective, temporary, and perspectival.