Book Section
Laura Scuriatti
Mina Loy’s Interrupted Communities
This chapter explores the different types of communities produced in Loy’s works, with a focus on her theorization of modernist poetry in the essays ‘Modern Poetry’ (1925) and ‘Gertrude Stein’ (1927), the pamphlet ‘Psycho-Democracy’, the poem Anglo-Mongrels and the Rose (1923–25), and the sequence ‘Italian Pictures’ (1914), showing that Loy considered the questioning of types of collectivities and communities a fundamental element in the production and reception of modernist art and literature. Through the investigation of Loy’s multilingualism, poetics, and style, the chapter argues that the insistence on the ephemeral, precarious, and shifting temporality of textual communities is the result not only of Loy’s presence within mobile, transnational expatriate groups but also of a feminist stance that refuses participation in patriarchal or oppressive forms of togetherness, aiming instead to imagine possible alternatives.
Keywords: Mina Loy; modernist poetics; multilingualism; communities; sociability
| Title |
Mina Loy’s Interrupted Communities
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| Author(s) |
Laura Scuriatti
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| Identifier | |
| Description |
This chapter explores the different types of communities produced in Loy’s works, with a focus on her theorization of modernist poetry in the essays ‘Modern Poetry’ (1925) and ‘Gertrude Stein’ (1927), the pamphlet ‘Psycho-Democracy’, the poem Anglo-Mongrels and the Rose (1923–25), and the sequence ‘Italian Pictures’ (1914), showing that Loy considered the questioning of types of collectivities and communities a fundamental element in the production and reception of modernist art and literature. Through the investigation of Loy’s multilingualism, poetics, and style, the chapter argues that the insistence on the ephemeral, precarious, and shifting temporality of textual communities is the result not only of Loy’s presence within mobile, transnational expatriate groups but also of a feminist stance that refuses participation in patriarchal or oppressive forms of togetherness, aiming instead to imagine possible alternatives.
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| Is Part Of | |
| Place |
Berlin
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| Publisher |
ICI Berlin Press
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| Date |
28 October 2024
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| Subject |
Mina Loy
modernist poetics
multilingualism
communities
sociability
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| Rights |
© by the author(s)
Except for images or otherwise noted, this publication is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
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| Language |
en-GB
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| page start |
135
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| page end |
158
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| Source |
Rethinking Lyric Communities, ed. by Irene Fantappiè, Francesco Giusti, and Laura Scuriatti, Cultural Inquiry, 30 (Berlin: ICI Berlin Press, 2024), pp. 135–58
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Publication scheduled for 28 October 2024
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Cite as:
Laura Scuriatti, ‘Mina Loy’s Interrupted Communities’, in Rethinking Lyric Communities, ed. by Irene Fantappiè, Francesco Giusti, and Laura Scuriatti, Cultural Inquiry, 30 (Berlin: ICI Berlin Press, 2024), pp. 135-58 <https://doi.org/10.37050/ci-30_06>