Never-Begotten Perfect Daughters: Laura Riding's and Mina Loy's Steinian Inheritances

Eva Isherwood-Wallace

Never-Begotten Perfect Daughters: Laura Riding's and Mina Loy's Steinian Inheritances

Eva Isherwood-Wallace

School of Arts, English and Languages

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

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Abstract

This paper argues that Gertrude Stein acts as a significant point of connection between poets Laura Riding and Mina Loy. Their critical responses to Gertrude Stein’s work display similar praise of its newness and immediacy, whereby language is ‘cleansed’ of historical experience. This shared conception of Stein’s anti-historical poetics complements their engagement with traditional influence in their own poetry, through which they both prioritise the new in a Steinian notion of a ‘pure’ language. The identification of this link illuminates the symmetrical preoccupations of their poetic careers, making it possible to situate Laura Riding in a network of her female contemporaries.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	83-100
Journal	The Robert Graves Review
Volume	1
Issue number	1
Publication status	Published - 01 Sept 2021

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

SDG 5 Gender Equality

Keywords

laura riding
mina loy
gertrude stein

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Literature and Literary Theory

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Never-Begotten Perfect Daughters: Laura Riding and Mina Loy’s Steinian Inheritances
Copyright 2021 the authors. This is an open access article published under a Creative Commons Attribution- ShareAlike License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the author and source are cited, and new contributions are distributed under the same license.
Final published version, 312 KBLicence: CC BY-SA

https://www.robertgravesreview.org/current.php?tab=2Licence: CC BY-SA

Laura Riding's sculptural modernism
Isherwood-Wallace, E. (Author), Brearton, F. (Supervisor) & McConnell, G. (Supervisor), Jul 2025
Student thesis: Doctoral Thesis › Doctor of Philosophy

Cite this

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Never-Begotten Perfect Daughters: Laura Riding's and Mina Loy's Steinian Inheritances

Abstract

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Keywords

ASJC Scopus subject areas

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Student theses

Laura Riding's sculptural modernism

Cite this