‘The Language of the Future’ and the Crisis of Modernity: Mina Loy’s ‘Aphorisms on Futurism’
This paper focuses on Mina Loy’s “Aphorisms on Futurism,” written in Florence while she was involved with Futurist leaders F.T. Marinetti and Giovanni Papini, and first published in 1914 in Alfred Stieglitz’s Camera Work. In Loy’s “Aphorisms” emerges the utopian idea of a poetic “language of the Fut...
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| Format: | Article ou chapitre numérique |
| Język: | Anglais |
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Angles
2020
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| Dostęp online: | Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM |
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openedition-oai:revues.org:angles_2002 |
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openedition |
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OpenEdition Journal |
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Anglais |
| format |
Article ou chapitre numérique |
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0/Bibliothèque numérique/ 1/Bibliothèque numérique/OpenEdition Journals/ |
| topic |
manifeste Wilde Oscar Loy Mina futurisme Marinetti Filippo Tommaso Papini Giovanni Stein Gertrude Pound Ezra Cravan Arthur aphorisme Modernisme manifesto Wilde Oscar Loy Mina Futurism Modernism Marinetti Filippo Tommaso Papini Giovanni Stein Gertrude Pound Ezra Cravan Arthur aphorism |
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manifeste Wilde Oscar Loy Mina futurisme Marinetti Filippo Tommaso Papini Giovanni Stein Gertrude Pound Ezra Cravan Arthur aphorisme Modernisme manifesto Wilde Oscar Loy Mina Futurism Modernism Marinetti Filippo Tommaso Papini Giovanni Stein Gertrude Pound Ezra Cravan Arthur aphorism Bozhkova, Yasna ‘The Language of the Future’ and the Crisis of Modernity: Mina Loy’s ‘Aphorisms on Futurism’ |
| description |
This paper focuses on Mina Loy’s “Aphorisms on Futurism,” written in Florence while she was involved with Futurist leaders F.T. Marinetti and Giovanni Papini, and first published in 1914 in Alfred Stieglitz’s Camera Work. In Loy’s “Aphorisms” emerges the utopian idea of a poetic “language of the Future,” which reflects the Futurist project to destroy language, replacing a traditional syntax that has become obsolete with a telegraphic language of modernity. On her own copy of “Aphorisms,” Loy later replaced the word “Futurism” with the word “Modernism,” suggesting, perhaps with a certain irony, that the project of a poetic “language of the Future” extends beyond the aesthetics of Italian Futurism to the Modernist movement as a whole, yet pinpointing the problem of Modernism as a chain reaction of “isms,” each with its own agenda of radical experimentation in search of a new poetic language of modernity. Taking this key later revision as its departure point, this paper reads Loy’s text with a double focus: on the one hand, situating it in the context of its composition and reading it through the prism of Futurism’s incendiary rhetoric, and on the other, within a broader definition of Modernism, tracing how this violent call for destruction of traditional discourse later collapses into a poetics of silence, whose dimensions are both aesthetic and historical. The ironic ambivalence of “Aphorisms” is already inherent in its strategic generic ambiguity: it reads both as a Futurist manifesto and as a series of aphorisms, oscillating between the revolutionary rhetoric of the manifesto and the ironic silence of the aphorism, which becomes a key vehicle for reflecting ambivalently on the crisis of modernity. Finally, this paper also suggests that the aesthetic principles outlined in Loy’s “Aphorisms” can be used as an interpretative lens through which to examine her poetic strategies of extreme concision and density. |
| author |
Bozhkova, Yasna |
| author_facet |
Bozhkova, Yasna |
| author_sort |
Bozhkova, Yasna |
| title |
‘The Language of the Future’ and the Crisis of Modernity: Mina Loy’s ‘Aphorisms on Futurism’ |
| title_short |
‘The Language of the Future’ and the Crisis of Modernity: Mina Loy’s ‘Aphorisms on Futurism’ |
| title_full |
‘The Language of the Future’ and the Crisis of Modernity: Mina Loy’s ‘Aphorisms on Futurism’ |
| title_fullStr |
‘The Language of the Future’ and the Crisis of Modernity: Mina Loy’s ‘Aphorisms on Futurism’ |
| title_full_unstemmed |
‘The Language of the Future’ and the Crisis of Modernity: Mina Loy’s ‘Aphorisms on Futurism’ |
| title_sort |
‘the language of the future’ and the crisis of modernity: mina loy’s ‘aphorisms on futurism’ |
| publisher |
Angles |
| publishDate |
2020 |
| container_title |
URI:https://journals.openedition.org/angles |
| url |
https://ezproxy.univ-orleans.fr/login?url=https://doi.org/10.4000/angles.2002 https://ezproxy.univ-orleans.fr/login?url=https://journals.openedition.org/angles/2002 |
| _version_ |
1877293947360903168 |
| spelling |
openedition-oai:revues.org:angles_2002 https://doi.org/10.4000/angles.2002 urn:doi:10.4000/angles.2002 en https://journals.openedition.org/angles/2002 2020-07-16T02:00:00Z info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess article info:eu-repo/semantics/article urn:handle:20.500.13089/9n0p https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ ‘The Language of the Future’ and the Crisis of Modernity: Mina Loy’s ‘Aphorisms on Futurism’ Angles Société des Anglicistes de l'Enseignement Supérieur info:eu-repo/semantics/reference/issn/2274-2042 URI:https://journals.openedition.org/angles Bozhkova, Yasna manifeste Wilde Oscar Loy Mina futurisme Marinetti Filippo Tommaso Papini Giovanni Stein Gertrude Pound Ezra Cravan Arthur aphorisme Modernisme manifesto Wilde Oscar Loy Mina Futurism Modernism Marinetti Filippo Tommaso Papini Giovanni Stein Gertrude Pound Ezra Cravan Arthur aphorism This paper focuses on Mina Loy’s “Aphorisms on Futurism,” written in Florence while she was involved with Futurist leaders F.T. Marinetti and Giovanni Papini, and first published in 1914 in Alfred Stieglitz’s Camera Work. In Loy’s “Aphorisms” emerges the utopian idea of a poetic “language of the Future,” which reflects the Futurist project to destroy language, replacing a traditional syntax that has become obsolete with a telegraphic language of modernity. On her own copy of “Aphorisms,” Loy later replaced the word “Futurism” with the word “Modernism,” suggesting, perhaps with a certain irony, that the project of a poetic “language of the Future” extends beyond the aesthetics of Italian Futurism to the Modernist movement as a whole, yet pinpointing the problem of Modernism as a chain reaction of “isms,” each with its own agenda of radical experimentation in search of a new poetic language of modernity. Taking this key later revision as its departure point, this paper reads Loy’s text with a double focus: on the one hand, situating it in the context of its composition and reading it through the prism of Futurism’s incendiary rhetoric, and on the other, within a broader definition of Modernism, tracing how this violent call for destruction of traditional discourse later collapses into a poetics of silence, whose dimensions are both aesthetic and historical. The ironic ambivalence of “Aphorisms” is already inherent in its strategic generic ambiguity: it reads both as a Futurist manifesto and as a series of aphorisms, oscillating between the revolutionary rhetoric of the manifesto and the ironic silence of the aphorism, which becomes a key vehicle for reflecting ambivalently on the crisis of modernity. Finally, this paper also suggests that the aesthetic principles outlined in Loy’s “Aphorisms” can be used as an interpretative lens through which to examine her poetic strategies of extreme concision and density. Cet article se focalise sur « Aphorisms on Futurism », le premier texte publié de Mina Loy, écrit à Florence lorsqu’elle côtoyait les futuristes F.T. Marinetti et Giovanni Papini, et paru en 1914 dans la revue Camera Work d’Alfred Stieglitz. Dans « Aphorisms » émerge l’idée utopique d’une « langue du Futur », qui reflète le projet futuriste de faire exploser la langue, en remplaçant la syntaxe traditionnelle devenue obsolète par une langue télégraphique de la modernité. Sur son propre exemplaire du texte, aujourd’hui parmi ses archives, Loy remplaça le mot « Futurism » par le mot « Modernism », suggérant ainsi, sans doute avec une certaine ironie, que le projet d’une langue poétique du Futur s’étend au-delà du futurisme et concerne tout le mouvement moderniste qui se définit alors comme une réaction en chaîne d’« ismes », chacun avec son projet de révolutionner la langue poétique. S’appuyant sur l’éclairage qu’apporte cette modification clé, cet article propose une double lecture d’« Aphorisms », à la fois « on Futurism » et « on Modernism » : d’une part, en le plaçant dans le contexte des manifestes futuristes, et de l’autre, dans l’optique d’une définition plus large du Modernisme, en démontrant comment cet appel violent à la destruction de la langue mène paradoxalement à une poétique du silence, dont les dimensions sont à la fois esthétiques et historiques. L’ambivalence ironique d’« Aphorisms on Futurism » s’explique entre autres par son ambiguïté générique : il peut être interprété à la fois comme un manifeste futuriste et comme une série d’aphorismes, oscillant ainsi entre la rhétorique incendiaire du manifeste et le silence ironique de l’aphorisme, ce qui devient une stratégie de réflexion ambivalente sur la crise de la modernité. Enfin, cet article propose que les principes esthétiques qui émergent dans ce premier texte de Loy apportent également un éclairage sur les stratégies d’extrême concision et la densité souvent énigmatique des poèmes de Loy, dont beaucoup ressemblent à des aphorismes ou épigrammes. |