Thesis
"Leave off looking to men": genre, gender, and identity in the work of Mina Loy
Washington State University
Master of Arts (MA), Washington State University
2014
Handle:
https://hdl.handle.net/2376/100106
Abstract
This thesis explores the way Mina Loy appropriated poetic genres in order to articulate female identity In the first chapter, we turn attention to Loy's earliest poetry, looking at her involvement with the Futurists in the 1910s. Loy's early poetry has been described as some of the best Futurist poetry written in English, and yet she constantly used that poetry as a medium to level scathing critiques at the movement and its leaders. In this opening chapter, I examine the ways in which Loy appropriates the language of Futurism in order to articulate a Feminist interpretation of the movement, and to explore her own concerns regarding gender politics and female identity. Loy's work, then, is neither a reaction against or capitulation towards the Futurist movement, but instead occupies a liminal space between the two reactions. The second chapter focuses more specifically on Loy's later poetry, particularly the elegiac poetry she wrote following the death of her second husband, Arthur Cravan. Though elegy has been a prevalent poetic genre for centuries, the conventions of modernist elegy are distinct and detached from the established conventions from the 19th century. In the second chapter, I examine the ways the ways in which Loy appropriates and rejects the changing v conventions of elegiac poetry. Gender once again plays a central role to the discussion, both because modernist elegy became coded as a more masculine genre and because Loy uses elegy to explore issues of power and agency for female mourners. As in the first chapter, I argue that Loy appropriates the necessary elements of the genre in order to inform her own concerns. Loy uses the changing generic characteristics within elegy to emphasize her own considerations regarding women's place within the conversation, both poetically and within society.
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Details
- Title
- "Leave off looking to men"
- Creators
- Catherine Juliarose Tetz
- Contributors
- Chris Arigo (Degree Supervisor)
- Awarding Institution
- Washington State University
- Academic Unit
- English, Department of
- Theses and Dissertations
- Master of Arts (MA), Washington State University
- Publisher
- Washington State University; [Pullman, Washington] :
- Identifiers
- 99900525095501842
- Language
- English
- Resource Type
- Thesis