Dynamic Form: How Intermediality Made Modernism

328 Pages·2020·3.842 MB·English

by  Cara L. Lewis

D YNAMIC FORM

D YNAMIC FORM
HOW INTERMEDIALITY MADE
MODERNISM
Cara L. Lewis
C ORNELL UNIVERSITY PRESS
Ithaca and London
C opyright © 2020 by Cornell University
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F irst published 2020 by Cornell University Press
E very reasonable effort has been made to identify rights
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L ibrary of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
N ames: Lewis, Cara L., 1983– author.
T itle: Dynamic form : how intermediality made
modernism / Cara L. Lewis.
D escription: Ithaca : Cornell University Press, 2020. |
Includes b ibliographical references and index.
I dentifiers: LCCN 2019040743 (print) | LCCN 2019040744
(ebook) | ISBN 9 781501749179 (hardcover) |
ISBN 9781501749186 (epub) | ISBN 9 781501749193 (pdf)
S ubjects: LCSH: Modernism (Literature)—Great Britain. |
Modernism ( Literature)—United States. | Modernism
(Art)—Great Britain. | M odernism (Art)—United States. |
Art and literature—Great B ritain—History—20th
century. | Art and literature—United S tates—History—
20th century. | Formalism (Literary analysis)—History. |
Formalism (Art)—History. | Literary form—History—
20th century. | E nglish literature—20th century—
History and criticism. | American l iterature—
20th century—History and criticism.
C lassification: LCC PR478.M6 L49 2020 (print) |
LCC PR478.M6 (ebook) | D DC 820.9/0092—dc23
L C record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019040743
L C ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019040744
Contents
List of Illustrations vii
Acknowledgments ix
I ntroduction: Reformulating
Modernism 1
1. Plastic Form: Henry James’s Sculptural
Aesthetics and Reading in the Round 18
2 . Mortal Form: Still Life and Virginia
Woolf’s Other Elegiac Shapes 53
3 . Protean Form: Erotic Abstraction
and Ardent Futurity in the Poetry
of Mina Loy 93
4 . Bad Formalism: Evelyn Waugh’s Film
Fictions and the Work of Art in the
Age of Cinemechanics 135
5 . Surface Forms: Photography and
Gertrude Stein’s Contact History
of Modernism 178
E pilogue: The Consolations of Form 226
Notes 231
Bibliography 287
Index 305

Illustrations
2 .1 Paul Cézanne, S till Life with Apples (Pommes), 1877–78 54
2 .2 Roger Fry, cover for Cézanne: A Study of His Development, 1927 61
2 .3 Paul Cézanne, S till Life with Skull (Nature morte au crâne),
1896–98 62
3 .1 Wyndham Lewis, Two Women, also called The Starry Sky,
from the Dial, 1921 100
3 .2 Constantin Brancusi, Golden Bird, 1919–20 103
3 .3 Constantin Brancusi, View of the Studio: Bird in Space and
Princesse X, 1924 112
3 .4 Constantin Brancusi, Brancusi, Tristan Tzara, Berenice Abbott,
Mina Loy, Jane Heap and Margaret Anderson in the studio,
ca. 1921 114
3 .5 Constantin Brancusi, Golden Bird, photograph ca. 1920 116
4.1 Page 281 from the first edition of “The Balance,”
in Georgian Stories 1926 151
4.2 Page 290 from the first edition of “The Balance,”
in Georgian Stories 1926 152
4.3 Page 287 from the first edition of “The Balance,”
in Georgian Stories 1926 157
5 .1 “Alice B. Toklas at the door, photograph by Man Ray,”
from the first edition of T he Autobiography
of Alice B. Toklas, 1933 188
5.2 “Gertrude Stein in front of the atelier door,” from the
first edition of The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, 1933 191
5.3 “Pablo and Fernande at Montmartre,” from the first edition
of The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, 1933 192
5 .4 “Gertrude Stein in Vienna,” from the first edition of
The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, 1933 193
5.5 “Gertrude Stein at Johns Hopkins Medical School,” from
the first edition of The Autobiography of
Alice B. Toklas, 1933 194
vii
viii ILLUSTRATIONS
5 .6 “Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas in front of Joffre’s
birthplace,” from the first edition of T he Autobiography
of Alice B. Toklas, 1933 197
5.7 “Room with Gas (Femme au chapeau and Picasso Portrait),”
from the first edition of T he Autobiography of
Alice B. Toklas, 1933 199
5 .8 “Room with Oil Lamp,” from the first edition of
The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, 1933 200
5.9 “Room with Bonheur de Vivre and Cézanne,” from the
first edition of The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, 1933 201
5.10 “Homage à Gertrude, Ceiling painting by Picasso,” from
the first edition of The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, 1933 206
5.11 “A Transatlantic, painting by Juan Gris,” from the
first edition of The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, 1933 207
5.12 “Bilignin from across the valley, painting by Francis Rose,”
from the first edition of T he Autobiography
of Alice B. Toklas, 1933 207
5.13 “Alice B. Toklas, painting by Francis Rose,” from the
first edition of The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, 1933 208
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 212
5 .15 Interior, 27 rue de Fleurus, 1912 218
5.16 “Bernard Faÿ and Gertrude Stein at Bilignin,” from the
first edition of The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, 1933 219
5.17 “First page of manuscript of this book,” from the
first edition of The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, 1933 224
Acknowledgments
T he idea for this book began at the University
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.
I am grateful for the assistance provided by three Summer Faculty Fel-
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.
M ahinder Kingra, Mary Kate Murphy, Bethany Wasik, and everyone else
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.
P art of chapter 2 appeared in a slightly different version as “Still Life
in Motion: Mortal Form in Woolf’s To the Lighthouse, ” T wentieth-Century
ix
x ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Literature 60, no. 4 (2014): 423–54. Excerpts from To the Lighthouse by Virginia
Woolf copyright © 1927 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Com-
pany, renewed 1954 by Leonard Woolf. Reprinted by permission of Hough-
ton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved. Excerpts from
“Pictures” from T he Moment and Other Essays by Virginia Woolf copyright
© 1948 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, renewed 1976
by Marjorie T. Parsons. Reprinted by permission of Houghton Mifflin Har-
court Publishing Company. All rights reserved. Excerpts from The Diary of
Virginia Woolf: Volume I 1915–1919 by Virginia Woolf published by The Hog-
arth Press are reproduced by permission of The Random House Group Ltd.
© 1977. Excerpts from The Diary of Virginia Woolf: Volume III 1925–1930 by
Virginia Woolf published by The Hogarth Press are reproduced by permis-
sion of The Random House Group Ltd. © 1980. Excerpts from A Change
of Perspective: The Letters of Virginia Woolf: Volume III 1923–1928 by Virginia
Woolf published by Chatto & Windus are reproduced by permission of The
Random House Group Ltd. © 1977. Permission to quote from the work of
Virginia Woolf in the e-book has been granted by the Society of Authors as
the Literary Representative of the Estate of Virginia Woolf.
E xcerpts from The Diaries of Evelyn Waugh, T he Letters of Evelyn Waugh,
and images of three pages from the first edition of “The Balance” by Evelyn
Waugh copyright © 1927, 1976, and 1980 by Evelyn Waugh, used by permis-
sion of The Wylie Agency LLC. Excerpts from Vile Bodies by Evelyn Waugh,
copyright © 1958, reprinted in the United States by permission of Little,
Brown and Company, an imprint of Hachette Book Group, Inc. Excerpts from
Vile Bodies by Evelyn Waugh (Chapman and Hall 1930, Penguin Books 1938,
1996), copyright © Evelyn Waugh, 1930, notes and introduction copyright
© Richard Jacobs, 1996, reproduced by permission of Penguin Books Ltd.
Excerpts from The Loved One by Evelyn Waugh, copyright © 1976, reprinted
in the United States by permission of Little, Brown and Company, an imprint
of Hachette Book Group, Inc. Excerpts from T he Loved One by Evelyn Waugh
(Chapman and Hall 1948, Penguin Books 1951, Penguin Classics 2000), copy-
right © 1948 by Evelyn Waugh, reproduced by permission of Penguin Books
Ltd. Excerpts from The Complete Stories of Evelyn Waugh by Evelyn Waugh,
copyright © 1998, reprinted in the United States by permission of Little,
Brown and Company, an imprint of Hachette Book Group, Inc. Excerpts
from “The Balance” and “Excursion in Reality” from T he Complete Short Stories
by Evelyn Waugh (Penguin Classics 2011), copyright © The Estate of Laura
Waugh, 2011, reproduced by permission of Penguin Books Ltd.
M any friends provided help and inspiration as this project was getting
underway and as it was getting finished. Thanks to Emily Richmond Pollock