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| Mina Loy |
| 旻娜•洛伊 |
| 圖片來源：http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/g_l/loy/loy.htm |
| 主要文類：Poem |
| 資料提供者：Carol Lin/林依薇 |
| 關鍵字詞：20th American Poetry; Female Poet |
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Carol Lin/林依薇
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 早期生活與藝術養成
轉捩點與爭議性作品
痛失至愛與晚期生活
晚近詩作與境界
辭世與後續迴響
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| 早期生活與藝術養成 |
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旻娜•洛伊 (1882-1966) 出生於維多利亞時代英國倫敦的中產階級家庭。父親是匈牙利移民、猶太裔的工匠，而母親則是傳統英國清教徒出身的保守主婦。交混的家族歷史以及壓抑的家庭教育和洛伊後來接受的多樣繪畫訓練還有周遊歐洲各國的文藝薰陶形成強烈對比，造就她終其一生對於禮教規範的反叛以及藝術自由的追求，寫出後來〈盎格魯混種與英國玫瑰〉 (“Anglo-Mongrels and the Rose”)(1923) 的自傳性反史詩寓言。自十七歲離家到德國習畫求學之後，洛伊開始了她「旅外」藝術家 (expatriate artist) 的流轉生活。居住過慕尼黑、巴黎、佛羅倫斯和維也納等歐洲城市，參與包括立體派 (Cubism) 、未來主義 (Futurism) 、達達主義 (Dadaism) 、超現實主義 (Surrealism) 等等二十世紀上半重要的文學藝術運動，結交了像是畢卡索 (Picasso) 、 阿波里奈爾 (Apollinaire) 、 亨利•盧梭 (Henri Rousseau) 等重量級的藝術家。如此多元而豐沛的文化養成以及經歷，讓洛伊在往後迥異的創作領域裡得以融合不同的藝術元素和概念，形成她自成一格的前衛詩學。〈布朗庫西的黃金鳥〉 (“Brancusi's Golden Bird”)(1922) 、〈溫德姆•劉易斯的星空〉 (“'The Starry Sky' of WYNHDAM LEWIS”)(1922) 都是她試圖結合視覺藝術和文字媒介的跨領域呈現。而她對於以男性為領導主體的各個「主義」或「運動」也並非一昧照單全收，〈未來主義箴言〉 (“ Aphorisms on Futurism ”) 和〈女性主義者的宣言〉 (“ Feminist Manifesto ”) 等散文詩既突顯她和當代意識形態的交合，也透露出一種反叛分裂的矛盾情結。
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| 轉捩點與爭議性作品 |
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然而衝擊洛伊創作生涯最大的轉戾點，是她結束第一段貌合神離的婚姻，於 1916 年隻身前往紐約發展的決定。由於美國雜誌出版社友人的賞識，早在洛伊抵達紐約之前，她的爭議詩作以及「現代摩登女性」的名聲已經在當地文藝圈引起騷動。在《它者：新潮詩雜誌》 (Others: A Magazine of the New Verse) 所提前曝光的四首〈致尤韓那斯之情歌〉，使用尖銳而戲謔的詩句把向來從男性角度發聲意淫的浪漫情詩，扭轉為從女性立場看待的寫實愛慾和餘波反省。匱乏破碎的語言和句構赤裸地揭露愛情背後性鮮少被論及，可載舟亦可覆舟的性愛產物以及兩性差異。儘管〈致尤韓那斯之情歌〉讓洛伊遭受到不少當時社會輿論的攻擊和批評，卻也替她贏得許多文壇同儕的認可和欣賞。像是當時德高望重深具影響力的詩人龐德 (Ezra Pound) ，就曾讚美洛伊和瑪麗安•摩爾 (Marianne Moore) 對於文字精確的掌控，將她們的詩作風格歸類到「語言詩學」 (logopoepia) ，「字裡行間才智的躍動」 (“the dance of the intellect among words”) (Selected Prose 394-5) 。另外一位意像主義 (Imagism) 詩學提倡者威廉•卡洛斯•威廉斯 (William Carlos Williams) 在詩集《深陷地獄的可洛》 (Kora in Hell) 的序言也提及洛伊和摩爾是當代詩壇他所見的「南極」和「北極」，兩大指標。正是因為在美國這個新生的土地上獲得了迴響、肯定和靈感，洛伊自此之後，除了追隨第二任丈夫同時也是達達主義詩人 / 拳擊手亞瑟•柯文 (Arthur Craven) 輾轉到過墨西哥以及回到歐洲短暫定居，後半生幾乎是待在美國，繼續她各方面的創作生活。這同時也是為什麼現在提到洛伊，無論是出現在文學選集或者評論，都傾向稱呼她為「美國」詩人而非英國詩人的原因。
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| 痛失至愛與晚期生活 |
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洛伊人生中另一個影響深遠的事件，是第二任丈夫亞瑟•柯文在墨西哥離奇失蹤的謎團。就在 1918 年她前往阿根廷待產的期間，預定要隨後抵達的柯文就消失在由墨西哥出發航行的船隻上，再也沒有出現過。深信她和柯文是天生註定的一對 (柯文的原名為 Fabian Avenarius Lloyd ，猶如他和洛伊早就融合在一起，而 Fabian 後來也成為洛伊這個遺腹子的名字) ，洛伊把柯文的莫名消失以及對她而言永恆的存在寫進後期詩作〈已非活人的信〉 (“Letters of the Unliving”) ，反覆的訴說辯証文字、生命和回憶的虛實交錯與曖昧指涉。痛失愛夫之後的日子，洛伊必須依靠自己的力量謀生，於是便於 1923 年在友人的資助下開設了位在巴黎的手工藝品店，展示販賣自己設計的燈罩、玻璃燈以及剪紙花藝等作品。同年洛伊的第一本詩集《月之旅行指南》 (Lunar Baedecker) 也悄悄出版，發行數量極少的原始版本僅僅在少數藝文人士手裡傳閱流傳。已經淡出文學圈子的洛伊，低調的於 1936 年回到美國，陸續居住在紐約邊緣地區 Bowery 以及科羅拉多州的亞斯本 (Aspen) ，開始了她另一階段，貼近生命底層的創作生涯，利用街道上撿拾的廢棄垃圾和物品，製作主題為街友遊民的裝置藝術。
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| 晚近詩作與境界 |
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在這段近乎隱居期間，洛伊仍然不忘詩詞的創作。延續對於「不存在的存在」以及「存在的不存在」等超越性的探討，洛伊晚期的詩作圍繞對於逝去的富足聲望、年華肉身的審視和昇華，指直超脫現世現實肉眼可見，另一種游離中間性 (in-between) 的無形存在和精神性。〈衰老的女人〉、〈大屠殺過後的相片〉、〈此外，月亮───〉、〈雪紡絲絨〉可說是這個時期詩作的代表。蕭笛雷教授 (Raphael Schulte) 在他未正式出版的文章〈「夜空的多樣面貌」：旻娜•洛伊晚期詩作的讀畫詩學〉 (“'Faces of the skies': Ekphrastic Poetics of Mina Loy's Late Poems”) 一文談到洛伊晚近詩作中極為重要的「眼界」 (vision) ： |
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唐恩主張對於洛伊而言，晚年生活的貧困經歷換來了兩種報酬：不尋常的美麗和非正規的活動。我還想額外補充第三種報酬：獨到的洞察力 …… 現代詩人，像是艾略特 (Eliot) 和龐德 (Pound) ，把分崩離析視為現今世界衰敗墮落的徵兆；破碎分裂的詩句暗示了他們想要回歸過去統整秩序的慾望。然而對洛伊來說，這樣的崩潰碎裂是她詩學視野中一個不可或缺的元素：生命始終烙印著不完美和殘存的碎片，永遠也無法變成完整一貫的全體。但是洛伊始終堅持非傳統概念卻再真實不過的神聖，那種源於對生命中的匱乏和不完滿坦然接受的眼界。 (20) |
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除了和主流詩人有所區隔的世界觀，洛伊在越接近生命尾聲所反映出的前衛詩學，不斷地用匱乏 (absence) 與豐沛 (abundance) 並存的語言探索著多層次多面向的現實，引導讀者穿越過腐朽的肉身和有形的文字，看見或許沉默隱形的神秘存在。
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| 辭世與後續迴響 |
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直到 1959 年，幾乎被眾人遺忘的洛伊才再度現身紐約文藝圈，展出名為「構築」 (“Constructions”) 的一系列裝置作品。她在世的時候所出版的第二本詩集《月之旅行指南與時間表》 (Lunar Baedecker & Time-Tables) 也於 1958 年問世。接近遲暮之年的洛伊，破例讓人進行採訪，留下了她唯一的聲音與訪談紀錄，隨後在她人生的第八十四個年頭，死於肺炎。雖然時至今日，洛伊依舊是一個現代英美文學史上陌生而邊緣的名字，但是熱衷重新提倡她詩作能見度的文人作家從來沒有間斷過。四零年代有詩人 Kenneth Rexroth 的大力推崇；五零年代 Jonathan Williams 編輯發行《月之旅行指南與時間表》也成為一時的佳話；八零年代 Virginia Kouidis 撰寫了洛伊第一本的評論性傳記；而九零年代 Carolyn Burke 儼然成為研究洛伊的專家，陸續在文學期刊發表了多篇關於洛伊詩作的文章，並於 1996 年出版洛伊的正式傳記《成就現代：旻娜•洛伊的一生》 (Becoming Modern: The Life of Mina Loy) ，同年洛伊最新版的詩選《失落的月之旅行指南》 (The Lost Lunar Baedeker) 也在 Roger Conover 的編輯下問世；而第一本的洛伊評論選集《旻娜•洛伊：女性和詩人》 (Mina Loy: Woman and Poet) 更於 1998 年出版，收錄了珍貴的訪談字稿以及極為完整的研究書目。
儘管各個年代都有不同的藝文人士為洛伊「平反」，直到現在跨越了二十世紀，她的詩作似乎還是保持一貫的低調和神秘性，不為所動的繼續沉浮在可見與不可見的文學版圖邊緣。或許這樣的狀態才是洛伊前衛詩學的本質 —— 無法完全被任何社會象徵系統接納收編，永遠超越當代的眼界 —— 這或許也是她本人所追求的藝術報酬：「但是保持默默無名是必要的，」她這麼說「為了繼續我的微妙行跡，我冒險選擇了詩人這個作為」 (Conover xii) 。洛伊另類「旅行指南」裡所呈現的異世界 (otherworldliness) 正如 Conover 在序言所堅信，是我們邁向二十一世紀「不可或缺」卻絕對「令人忐忑不安」的導覽。而她詩作表露出身為女性藝術家的自覺和盲點，同時也是對現代心理分析和女性主義的挑戰。
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引用書目
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Conover, Roger L. Introduction. The Lost The Lost Lunar Baedeker. Ed. Roger L. Conover. New York : Harper, 1996. xi - xx.
Pound, Ezra. “Marianne Moore and Mina Loy.” Selected Prose: 1909-1965. New York : New Directions, 1873.
Schulte, Raphael. “Faces of the skies: Ekphrastic Poetics of Mina Loy's Late Poems.” Fu Jen English Literature Databank. September 12, 2005. <http://www.eng.fju.edu.tw/iacd_2003F/g_am_poetry/loy/Face%20of%20the%
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參考書目
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Burke, Caroline. Becoming Modern: The Life of Mina Loy. Berkeley : U of California P, 1996
Hanscombe, Gillian and Virgina L. Smyers. “Mina Loy's Life” Writing for Their Lives: The Modernist Women 1910-1940. Boston : Northeastern UP, 1987. 112-128.
Koudis, M. Virgina. Mina Loy: American Modernist Poet. Baton Rouge : Louisiana
State UP, 1980.
---. Biography. American National Biography Online. March 21, 2001.
< http://www.anb.org/articles/16/16-02125.html >
Loy, Mina. The Lost Lunar Baedeker. Ed. Roger L. Conover. New York : Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1996.
Shreiber, Maeera and Keith Tuma. Introduction. Mina Loy: Woman and Poet. Ed. Maeera Shreiber and Keith Tuma. Orono , ME : National Poetry Foundation, 1998. 11-16.
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Carol Lin/林依薇
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| Early
life and artistic background |
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Mina Loy (1882-1966), a lifelong
poet and visual artist, was born in London , England , of a
Hungarian Jewish father and an English Protestant mother. Her
repressed childhood in this mixed marriage became the source of her
ambivalent attitude towards race purity and her rebellion against
late-Victorian gender definitions. The long semi-autobiographical
satire, “Anglo-Mongrels and the Rose” (1925) touches the issues of
gender and genre expectations, and her prose poems such as
“Aphorisms on Futurism” (1914) and “Feminist Manifesto” (1914)
reveal her entangled ideas of masculine power and feminine
potential. During her eighty-four-year lifetime, Loy traveled as a
cosmopolitan, an expatriate artist who participated in most of the
major art movements of the first half of the twentieth
century—Cubism, Futurism, Dadaism, and Surrealism—and lived in
London, Paris, Vienna, Munich, Berlin, Florence, Mexico City, and
New York City, among other places. With this heterogeneous
background, she was able to integrate and restructure different
artistic concepts and cultural experiences into her creative
efforts. She dedicated poems to her fellow artists, who used their
various arts to expand human consciousness: “Apology of Genius”
(1922), “Brancusi's Golden Bird” (1922), “Joyce's Ulysses”
(unknown), “'The Starry Sky' of WYNDHAM LEWIS” (unknown) and
“Gertrude Stein” (1924).
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| Turning
points and the American connection |
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By the time she sailed for New York in 1916,
Loy's reputation as a free-verse radical had preceded her arrival
with the first four poems of “Songs to Joannes” (1917) appearing in
the 1915 issue of Others: A Magazine of the New Verse. In
this disillusioned love sequence, she tried to subvert both
Victorian and Futurist ideas of sex and the body, questioning what
it means for a woman to desire but then be excluded from bodily
pleasure and expression. Alfred Kreymborg, the founder and editor of
Others , commented on Loy's impact on American readers years
after the publication: “In an unsophisticated land, such sophistry,
clinical frankness, sardonic conclusions, wedded to a madly
elliptical style scornful of the regulation grammar, syntax and
punctuation…horrified our gentry and drove our critics into furious
despair” (qtd. in Burke 196). Perhaps that is why though once being
crowned the “Belle of the American Poetry Ball,” Mina Loy and her
poetry have been in eclipse until recently, for its obscurity and
her marginal position as a woman writer. Or perhaps, it is Loy's own
wish to remain distant: “But it is necessary to stay very unknown,”
she wrote ”To maintain my incognito, the hazard I chose was—poet” (qtd.
in Conover xii ). There is always a persistent “propensity” for
otherworldliness in her art that may eventually cause the neglect of
her works. After the meteoric career in the 1920s, with the sudden
disappearance of her second husband, the Dadaist-boxer Arthur
Craven, Loy faded from the vigorous American poetry scene, first
opened a lampshade business in Paris and then immersed herself later
in the reclusive but creative life in Aspen , Colorado , making
collages from street objects and writing a more visionary poetry.
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| Literary
reception then and now |
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Ezra Pound described the poetry of Loy and
Marianne Moore as “logopoepia,” “the dance of the intellect among
words” ( Selected Prose 394-5), and asked Moore in a letter
“…is there anyone except you, Bill [William Carlos Williams] and
Mina Loy who can write anything of interest in verse” ( Selected
Letters 168). In the Prologue to Kora in Hell (1920),
Williams also designated Loy and Moore as the South and North poles
of the modern poetry landscape. Though now an almost forgotten
modernist poet, Mina Loy and her poetry still find their way to
ignite new waves of rediscovery, signaled by Kenneth Rexroth's
advocacy in the 40s, Jonathan Williams' publication of Lunar
Baedeker and Time-Tables in the 50s , and the first book on
Loy's life and works by Virginia M. Kouidis, Mina Loy: American
Modernist Poet , in the 80s. Recent publications include the
definitive biography by Carolyn Burke and the scholarly edition of
Loy's selected poems The Lost Lunar Baedeker in 1996,
followed by the 1998 collection of critical essays Mina Loy:
Woman and Poet , edited by Maeera Shreiber and Keith Tuma. Just
as Roger Conover noted in his introduction to The Lost Lunar
Baedeker , Loy's poetry, her startling lunar baedeker, remains
an “indispensable” and “disturbing” guidebook on our way marching
toward the twenty-first century ( xx ), and has continued as well in
feminist challenges to the high modernist canon.
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| Late
poetry |
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Loy didn't reappear in public until the 1959
exhibition of her “Constructions” at New York 's Bodley Gallery.
Raphael Schulte in his unpublished essay “‘Faces of the Skies':
Ekphrastic Poetics of Mina Loy's Late Poems” observes with great
precision how Loy's poetry, especially from the late period,
explores multilinear spaces by writing a poetics of both abundance
and lack: “These late poems…offer a poetics of absence that evokes a
mystical and spiritual presence, that is a visionary poetics evoking
silent spaces beyond body and beyond language” (3). One can sense
these distinguishing characteristics in her late works such as “On
Third Avenue”(1942), “Property of Pigeons” (unknown), “Letters of
the Unliving” (1949), “Hot Cross Bum” (1949) “An Aged Woman”
(unknown) and “Moreover, the Moon ─── ” (unknown). While taking
leave of the rising and flourishing modern world and its numerous
movements, Loy, through her late art and poetry that are closer to
the bottom layer of human life, reached a reality that seems
insignificantly personal and trivial, but is in fact visionary and
transcendental.
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Works Cited
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Burke, Caroline. Becoming Modern: The Life of
Mina Loy. Berkeley: U of California P, 1996
Conover, Roger L. Introduction. The Lost The
Lost Lunar Baedeker. Ed. Roger L. Conover. New York: Harper,
1996. xi - xx.
Pound, Ezra. “Marianne Moore and Mina Loy.”
Selected Prose: 1909-1965. New York: New Directions, 1873.
---. Selected Letters of Ezra Pound and Louis
Zukofsky. New York: New Direction, 1987.
Schulte, Raphael. “Faces of the skies: Ekphrastic
Poetics of Mina Loy's Late Poems.” Fu Jen English Literature
Databank. September 12, 2005.
< http://www.eng.fju.edu.tw/iacd_ 2003F /g_am_poetry/loy/Face%20of%20the%20skies.pdf
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Reference
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Hanscombe, Gillian and Virgina L. Smyers. “Mina
Loy's Life” Writing for Their Lives: The Modernist Women
1910-1940. Boston: Northeastern UP, 1987. 112-128.
Koudis, M. Virgina. Mina Loy: American
Modernist Poet. Baton Rouge: Louisiana
State UP, 1980.
---. Biography. American National Biography
Online. March 21, 2001.
<
http://www.anb.org/articles/16/16-02125.html >
Loy, Mina. The Lost Lunar Baedeker. Ed.
Roger L. Conover. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1996.
Shreiber, Maeera and Keith Tuma. Introduction.
Mina Loy: Woman and Poet. Ed. Maeera Shreiber and Keith Tuma.
Orono , ME: National Poetry Foundation, 1998. 11-16.
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