The aesthetics of perception in modernist women's poetry

Thesis

This thesis considers how five modernist women writers (Gertrude Stein, H.D., Mina Loy, Hope Mirrlees, and Marianne Moore) used poetry to engage in scientific, philosophical, and aesthetic debates regarding the nature of perception. Archival research reveals that all five of the poets featured in this thesis studied perceptual processes either formally or informally during the formative years of their poetic development. Yet little has been written about their poetic portrayal of perceptual processes despite the fact that these processes were at the heart of aesthetic culture, technological advancement, and scientific debate at the turn of the twentieth century. Historically grounded in a period of significant developments in the study of perception, this thesis explores how modernist women poets encountered, critiqued, and created new technological, philosophical, and formal approaches to perception and perceptibility. Thanks to their elite educational backgrounds, Stein, H.D., Loy, Mirrlees, and Moore encountered and even participated in a range of interdisciplinary debates regarding the nature of perceptual processes— many of which were only just emerging into recognition—before they turned from scientific prose and painting to the medium of poetry. What, I ask, distinguishes modernist poetry as a medium for portraying the processes of perception compared to scientific prose and visual art as parallel systems of portrayal? How did modernist women poets use poetic form to reconfigure the boundaries of perception and expression? And finally, how can reading modernist women’s poetry deepen our understanding of the nature of perception, past and present? With close attention to five key collections of poetry—Stein’s Tender Buttons (1914), H.D.’s Sea Garden (1916), Loy’s Songs to Joannes (1917), Mirrlees’ Paris: A Poem (1920), and Moore’s Observations (1924)—this thesis seeks to answer these questions before concluding with an account of the phenomenological affordances of modernist women’s poetry.

Authors: Felin, E

• DOI: 10.5287/ora-zbzzgvoam
• Type of award: DPhil
• Level of award: Doctoral
• Awarding institution: University of Oxford
• Language: English
• Keywords: psychology; perception; history of science; women's literature; modernism; poetry; aesthetics; phenomenology
• Subjects: Science and the humanities in literature; Modernism (Literature); Religion and science--History; Poetry; Literature--Women authors; Literature and science; British literature