Electric fur, exhilarated birds : nature and animals in E.E. Cummings and Mina Loy

Abstract

This thesis examines the role of nature and the animal both as subject and as symbol in the work of the modernist poet-polymaths E. E. Cummings and Mina Loy. Although they may be connected on many levels, Cummings and Loy have thus far remained unlinked in terms of the thematic concerns of their poetry. The introduction to this thesis establishes the grounds for a joint study of Cummings and Loy, both in broad terms, and in terms of their approach to the specific subjects of nature and the animal. The relationship of each poet to modernism is considered in a broad sense, as is their participation in the modernist practice of 'mythopoeia,' which will be seen to be linked to their use of animal and therianthropic imagery derived from myth.