Dynamic Form

L. Lewis Cara

Description

Dynamic Form traces how intermedial experiments shape modernist texts from 1900 to 1950. Considering literature alongside painting, sculpture, photography, and film, Cara Lewis examines how these arts inflect narrative movement, contribute to plot events, and configure poetry and memoir. As forms and formal theories cross from one artistic realm to another and back again, modernism shows its obsession with form-and even at times becomes a formalism itself-but as Lewis writes, that form is far more dynamic than we have given it credit for. Form fulfills such various functions that we cannot characterize it as a mere container for content or matter, nor can we consign it to ignominy opposite historicism or political commitment.As a structure or scheme that enables action, form in modernism can be plastic, protean, or even fragile, and works by Henry James, Virginia Woolf, Mina Loy, Evelyn Waugh, and Gertrude Stein demonstrate the range of form's operations. Revising three major formal paradigms-spatial form, pure form, and formlessness-and recasting the history of modernist form, this book proposes an understanding of form as a verbal category, as a kind of doing. Dynamic Form thus opens new possibilities for conversation between modernist studies and formalist studies and simultaneously promotes a capacious rethinking of the convergence between literary modernism and creative work in other media.

Sujets

• History of art
• Literary theory

Informations

• Publié par: Cornell University Press
• Date de parution: 15 juillet 2020
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781501749193
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 5 Mo

Extrait

DYNAMICFORM

DYNAMICFORM

HOW I NT E RME DI AL I TY MADE MODE RNI SM

C a r a L . L e w i s

CORNELLUNIVERSITYPRESS Ithaca and London

Copyright © 2020 by Cornell University

All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or parts thereof, must not be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher. For information, address Cornell University Press, Sage House, 512 East State Street, Ithaca, New York 14850. Visit our website at cornellpress.cornell.edu.

First published 2020 by Cornell University Press

Everyreasonableefforthasbeenmadetoidentifyrights holders and supply the complete and correct credits for the figures in this book. If there are errors or omissions, please contact Cornell University Press so that corrections can be addressed in any subsequent edition.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Lewis, Cara L., 1983– author. Title:Dynamicform:howintermedialitymade modernism / Cara L. Lewis. Description: Ithaca : Cornell University Press, 2020. | Includesbibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2019040743 (print) | LCCN 2019040744 (ebook) | ISBN9781501749179 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781501749186 (epub) | ISBN9781501749193 (pdf ) Subjects: LCSH: Modernism (Literature)—Great Britain. | Modernism(Literature)—United States. | Modernism (Art)—Great Britain. |Modernism (Art)—United States. | Art and literature—GreatHistain—Brit02htro—y century. | Art and literature—UnitedStates—History— 20th century. | Formalism (Literary analysis)—History.| Formalism (Art)—History. | Literary form—History— 20th century. |English literature—20th century— History and criticism. | Americanliterature— 20th century—History and criticism. Classification:LCCPR478.M6L492020(print)| LCC PR478.M6 (ebook) |DDC 820.9/0092—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019040743 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019040744

Contents

List of Illustrationsvii Acknowledgmentsix

Introduction:Reformulating Modernism 1. Plastic Form: Henry James’s Sculptural Aesthetics and Reading in the Round 2. Mortal Form: Still Life and Virginia Woolf ’s Other Elegiac Shapes 3. Protean Form: Erotic Abstraction and Ardent Futurity in the Poetry of Mina Loy 4. Bad Formalism: Evelyn Waugh’s Film Fictions and the Work of Art in the Age of Cinemechanics 5. Surface Forms: Photography and Gertrude Stein’s Contact History of Modernism Epilogue: The Consolations of Form

Notes231 Bibliography 287 Index305

18

1

53

93

135

178 226

I l lu s t r at i o n s

2.1 Paul Cézanne,Still Life with Apples (Pommes), 1877–78 2.2 Roger Fry, cover forHis DevelopmentCézanne: A Study of , 1927 2.3 Paul Cézanne,Still Life with Skull (Nature morte au crâne), 1896–98 3.1 Wyndham Lewis,Two Women, also calledThe Starry Sky, from theDial, 1921 3.2 Constantin Brancusi,Golden Bird, 1919–20 3.3 Constantin Brancusi,the Studio: Bird in Space andView of Princesse X, 1924 3.4 Constantin Brancusi,Brancusi, Tristan Tzara, Berenice Abbott, Mina Loy, Jane Heap and Margaret Anderson in the studio, ca. 1921 3.5 Constantin Brancusi,Golden Birdca.1920,hptogoarhp 4.1 Page 281 from the first edition of “The Balance,” inGeorgianStories1926 4.2 Page 290 from the first edition of “The Balance,” inGeorgian Stories 1926 4.3 Page 287 from the first edition of “The Balance,” inGeorgian Stories 1926 5.1 “Alice B. Toklas at the door, photograph by Man Ray,” from the first edition ofThe Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, 1933 5.2 “Gertrude Stein in front of the atelier door,” from the first edition ofAlice B. ToklasThe Autobiography of , 1933 5.3 “Pablo and Fernande at Montmartre,” from the first edition ofThe Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, 1933 5.4 “Gertrude Stein in Vienna,” from the first edition of The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, 1933 5.5 “Gertrude Stein at Johns Hopkins Medical School,” from the first edition ofThe Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, 1933

54 61

62

100 103

112

114 116

151

152

157

188

191

192

193

194

vii

viii I LLUSTRATI ONS

5.6 “Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas in front of Joffre’s birthplace,” from the first edition ofThe Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, 1933 5.7 “Room with Gas (Femme au chapeau and Picasso Portrait),” from the first edition ofThe Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, 1933 5.8 “Room with Oil Lamp,” from the first edition of The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, 1933 5.9 “Room with Bonheur de Vivre and Cézanne,” from the first edition ofAlice B. ToklasThe Autobiography of , 1933 5.10 “Homage à Gertrude, Ceiling painting by Picasso,” from the first edition ofAlice B. ToklasThe Autobiography of , 1933 5.11 “A Transatlantic, painting by Juan Gris,” from the first edition ofThe Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, 1933 5.12 “Bilignin from across the valley, painting by Francis Rose,” from the first edition ofThe Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, 1933 5.13 “Alice B. Toklas, painting by Francis Rose,” from the first edition ofThe Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, 1933 5.14 “Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas in front of Saint Mark’s, Venice,” from the first edition of The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, 1933 5.15 Interior, 27 rue de Fleurus, 1912 5.16 “Bernard Faÿ and Gertrude Stein at Bilignin,” from the first edition ofAlice B. ToklasThe Autobiography of , 1933 5.17 “First page of manuscript of this book,” from the first edition ofThe Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, 1933

197

199

200

201

206

207

207

208

212 218

219

224

Acknowledgments

TheideaforthisbookbeganattheUniversity of Virginia as I was trying to get beyond ekphrasis. That I got there at all—and anywhere since—is due to the enthusiasm and guidance of Michael Levenson, and I feel immensely grateful to have him in my corner. It is also thanks to Rita Felski’s incisive commentary: she knew what this book was about before I did, and to her I owe the title. To Jessica Feldman I owe its genesis in conver- sations that attempted to think literature and art together: thank you for your confidence in this book at the very beginning, and for reading chapters near the end. Thanks also to Victor Luftig for the heartening perspective checks and the chats about teaching, and to Jahan Ramazani and Stephen Arata for the steady encouragement. For their support in matters large and small dur- ing my time in Charlottesville and since then, I am indebted to Alison Booth, Stephen Cushman, Elizabeth Fowler, Bruce Holsinger, Clare Kinney, Victoria Olwell, Cynthia Wall, and the UVA Society of Fellows. IamgratefulfortheassistanceprovidedbythreeSummerFacultyFel- lowships at Indiana University Northwest, and to my colleagues in the English Department there, especially Bill Allegrezza, Kate Gustafson, and Doug Swartz. Extra thanks go to Garin Cycholl and Brian O’Camb for sus- taining conversations and for their feedback on some of these chapters. MahinderKingra,MaryKateMurphy,BethanyWasik,andeveryoneelse at Cornell University Press have been wonderful to work with: helpful, game, and responsive. The comments and suggestions offered by Michael Thurston and an anonymous reader for the press were invaluable in getting this book into its final form, as was Florence Grant’s careful copyediting. The Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University provided crucial assis- tance with images. For their help with illustrations, I also wish to thank Kerry Annos at the Barnes Foundation and Emma Darbyshire at the Fitzwilliam Museum. Tremendous thanks to Roger Conover, both for his own work to preserve Mina Loy’s legacy and for permission to quote from her work. Part of chapter 2 appeared in a slightly different version as “Still Life in Motion: Mortal Form in Woolf ’sTo the Lighthouse,”TwentiethCentury

ix