Contents -- Acknowledgements -- Introduction -- Chapter I. Modernist Consciousness of Crisisand the Emer gent Violence Mythos -- Modernism as Sacrificial Crisis -- The Secret Agent, Tarr and Women in Love -- Mimetic Rivalries and Con tagion of Violence -- The Violence My thos of Modernism -- Review of Critic al Approaches to Violence and Modernism -- Chapter II. Ticking Towards Disaster-Violenceas "The Enemy Within" in Conrad's The Secret Agent -- England must be brought into line -- Madness alone is truly terrifying -- Blood alone puts a seal on greatness -- She was not a submissiv e creature -- Simple ferocity of the age of caverns -- Chapter III. "All Personality Was Catching"-Mimetic Rivalryand the Con tagion of Violence in Tarr -- Doomed, evidently -- All in order for unbounded in flammation -- A thirst for action -- She had lain in wait for him -- The bubonic plague -- Not a duel but a brawl -- Only a game, too -- Chapter IV. Humanity in a Cul-de-sac: Women in Loveas an Epic of Sacrificial Crisis -- An omen of universal dissolution -- Mutual hellish recognition -- A lurking desir e to have gizzard slit -- Conclusion -- Bibliography.