The Woman Writer’s Baedeker: Mina Loy as Feminist Modernist Guide and Artist-Philosopher

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Abstract/Contents

Abstract: The work I examine closely in this thesis is Lunar Baedecker [sic], a 1923 collection of poems written by British-born modernist poet Mina Loy. Though several of the poems that constitute Lunar Baedecker have been explored extensively as anthology entries and epigraphs, scholars have largely neglected to analyze the 1923 poetry collection as an intentionally curated whole. This gap in Loy scholarship may exist in part because the collection appeared in print only once. Still, Lunar Baedecker is the only compilation of Loy’s poems we know she exercised organizational control over, and therefore it holds rich critical potential. I propose that Lunar Baedecker is a figurative map of Loy’s journey as a female artist, from her early veneration of her male contemporaries to her eventual severance from them, and thereby offers a gynocentric alternative to the historically dominant, androcentric narratives around literary genius. I’ve based my interpretation of Lunar Baedecker on the structure and content of the collection and contextualized my interpretation of her poetry alongside her prose essays on modernism and feminism, including “Feminist Manifesto” (1914) and “The Metaphysical Pattern in Aesthetics” (n.d.).

DOI	https://doi.org/10.25740/fz563rx5358
Location	https://purl.stanford.edu/fz563rx5358

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Preferred citation: Mendez, M. (2022). The Woman Writer’s Baedeker: Mina Loy as Feminist Modernist Guide and Artist-Philosopher. Stanford Digital Repository. Available at https://purl.stanford.edu/fz563rx5358. https://doi.org/10.25740/fz563rx5358.

Stanford University, Department of English, Undergraduate Honors Theses

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