Date of Award
5-2026
Degree Type
Masters Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Arts (MA)
School
Humanities
Committee Chair
Christopher Spaide
Committee Chair School
Humanities
Committee Member 2
Charles Sumner
Committee Member 2 School
Humanities
Committee Member 3
Ery Shin
Committee Member 3 School
Humanities
Abstract
Among many modernist artists, Mina Loy remains one of the most complex and allusive. Recent posthumous exposure of Loy's life and work adds to this precarity. A significant piece of Loy's life that is especially complex to contemporaries is her time spent writing. By establishing Loy's subjective relationship with her Victorian upbringing, this paper seeks to show examples of its influence on her search for originality. Mainly, the paper examines Loy's concept of originality, where that concept may have come from, and how it is reflected in her literature. The paper analyzes three of Loy's literary works, her poems "Virgins Plus Curtains Minus Dots" (1914) and "Apology of Genius" (1922), and her novel Insel (1930s), to establish Loy's unique concept of originality and how it developed over time amid complex artistic moments.
Copyright
Peyton Phillips, 2026
Recommended Citation
Phillips, Peyton L., ""Ostracized as we are with God": Mina Loy's Anti-career and the Search for Originality" (2026). Master's Theses. 1198.
https://aquila.usm.edu/masters_theses/1198