Modernism's mythic pose
Subtitle: gender, genre, solo performance
By: Carrie J. Preston
Series: Modernist literature & culture
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2011
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 357
ISBN-13: 9780199766260
Subjects: Modernism (Art); Dance; History and criticism; American literature; Classical influences; Modernism (Literature); Modern Art; American poetry; History
Description: The ancient world served as an unconventional source of inspiration for a generation of modernists. Drawing on examples from literature, dance, photography, and film, this book argues that a strain of antimodern-classicism permeates modernist celebrations of novelty, shock, and technology. The touchstone of this study is Delsartism - the popular transnational movement which promoted mythic statue-posing, poetic recitation, and other hybrid solo performances for health and spiritual development. Delsartism shaped modernist performances, genres, and ideas of gender.
Table of contents: title: Introduction; title: The solo's origins: monodramas, attitudes, dramatic monologues; title: Posing modernism: Delsartism in modern dance and silent film; title: Positioning genre: the dramatic monologue in cultures of recitation; title: The motor in the soul: Isadora Duncan's solo dance; title: Ritualized reception: H.D.'s antimodernist poetics and cinematics.