Focusing on the writing of Wyndham Lewis, D. H. Lawrence, H.D. and Samuel Beckett, this book uncovers a shared fascination with the aesthetic possibilities of the insect body its adaptive powers, distinct stages of growth and swarming formations. Through a series of close readings, it proposes that the figure of the exoskeleton, which functions both as a protective outer layer and as a site of encounter, can enhance our understanding of modernism's engagement with nonhuman life, as well as its questioning of the boundaries of the human.Focusing on the writing of Wyndham Lewis, D. H. Lawrence, H.D. and Samuel Beckett, this book uncovers a shared fascination with the aesthetic possibilities of the insect body its adaptive powers, distinct stages of growth and swarming formations. Through a series of close readings, it proposes that the figure of the exoskeleton, which functions both as a protective outer layer and as a site of encounter, can enhance our understanding of modernism's engagement with nonhuman life, as well as its questioning of the boundaries of the human.