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Indianism and the Modernist Literary Field

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Indianism and the Modernist Literary Field ABORIGINAL ISSUES: INDIANISM AND THE MODERNIST LITERARY FIELD By Elizabeth S. Barnett Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Vanderbilt University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in English August, 2013 Nashville, TN Approved: Professor Vera Kutzinski Professor Mark Wollaeger Professor Allison Schachter Professor Ellen Levy For Monte and Bea ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I have been very fortunate in my teachers. Vera Kutzinski’s class was the first moment in graduate school that I felt I belonged. And she has, in the years since, only strengthened my commitment to this profession through her kindness and intellectual example. Thank you for five years of cakes, good talks, and poetry. One of my fondest hopes is that I have in some way internalized Mark Wollaeger’s editorial voice. He has shown me how to make my writing sharper and more relevant. Allison Schachter has inspired with her range and candor. My awe of Ellen Levy quickly segued into affection. I admire her way of looking, through which poetry and most everything seems more interesting than it did before. My deep thanks to Vanderbilt University and to the Department of English. I’ve received a wonderful education and the financial support to focus on it. Much of this is due to the hard work the Directors of Graduate Studies, Kathryn Schwarz and Dana Nelson, and the Department Chairs, Jay Clayton and Mark Schoenfield. I am also grateful to Professor Schoenfield for the opportunity to work with and learn from him on projects relating to Romantic print culture and to Professor Nelson for her guidance as my research interests veered into Native Studies. Thanks to the professors with whom I did my coursework: Lynn Enterline, Michael Kreyling, Jonathan Lamb, Michael Neill, Rachel Teukolsky, Cecelia Tichi, Mark Schoenfield, Kathryn Schwarz, and Paul Young. Your training has shaped my critical approach. Donna Caplan, Janis May, Sara Corbitt, Margaret Quigley, and Calista Doll provided not only academic support but also an ad hoc mothering committee. I’m grateful for your help and friendship. iii This project would not have been possible without Robert Manson Myers and his generous award. With the exception of Wallace Stevens, the poets I write about are seldom studied. Traveling to Alice Corbin’s archive in Austin and Lynn Riggs’s archives in Tulsa and New Haven allowed me to gain crucial insights into their lives and work. These funds also allowed me to travel to conferences and share parts of this project as it developed. Questions and comments I received in Victoria, Louisville, Las Vegas, Tulsa, and Minneapolis helped me see strengths, weakness, and potentials. I’m grateful to the delightful Mona Frederick, the exemplary Edward Friedman, and the lovely Hillary Pate and Allison Thompson for my year at the Warren Center, which has been so wonderful that I’m worried the rest of my career will be a letdown. Thanks also to the fellows, Cory Duclos, Lara Giordano, Paddy McQueen, Rosie Seagraves, Mike Alijewicz, Cari Hovanec, and Jennifer Vogt. I discovered so much about this project in discussing it with you, and your work, in its excellence, always pushed me to make my own better. Thanks to American Studies and Teresa Goddu, whom I admire from afar, for sponsoring me at the Warren Center. I’m grateful to the Vanderbilt Library, especially the Interlibrary Loan department for keeping me in books. The Modernist Journals Project, an online archive of little magazines supported by Brown University and the University of Tulsa was also an invaluable resource. The staffs of the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin, the Beinecke Library at Yale, the McFarlin Library at the University of Tulsa, and the Gilcrease Museum were universally helpful. In these archives I owe special thanks to Renee Harvey at the Gilcrease and Alison Greenlee at the McFarlin. iv I have been lucky to be surrounded by peers who challenge and inspire me. Sarah Kersh and Elizabeth Meadows have taught me to be a better person and a better academic. Cari Hovanec has been a generous and incisive reader and a daunting writing partner. Heather Freeman’s gentleness cut with wit has been the sweet and sour of many a day. Donika Ross is the bird to my field. Nikki Spigner gave sustenance of all kinds. Matt Duques is one of the best readers I know. Emily August, Jenn Bagneris, Diana Bellonby, R.J. Boutelle, Annie Castro, Hubert Cook, Elizabeth Covington, Lisa Dordal, Matt Eatough, Amanda Hagood, Stephanie Higgs, Andy Hines, Emma Ingrisani, Amanda Johnson, Lucy Mensah, Adam Miller, Megan Minarich, Chris Pexa, Aubrey Porterfield, Lacey Saborido, Dan Spoth, and Jane Wanninger have all contributed to making me the scholar that I am. My parents, Barbara and Joe Barnett, have often had more faith in me than I did in myself. Pam and Randy Holman gave moral support and unwavering cheer. It is the lucky academic who is married to a professional editor. Monte Holman improved much of this dissertation, and I am grateful to him for stepping away from his own career to take care of our daughter Bea as I focused on this work. Those are the outlines, but I cannot imagine doing this, or most anything, without him. Bea Holman has taught me so much about words, beauty, and poetry. She reminds me that there is also an innate, and wondrous, reaction to art. v LIST OF FIGURES Figure Page 1 Photo, Alice Corbin and A. Rosin 31 2 Paul Gauguin, Femmes de Tahiti ou sur la plage 42 3 Paul Gauguin, Quelles nouvelles? 43 4 Auguste Rodin, Danseuse Cambodgienne 45 5 “Echoes of Childhood,” Seven Arts (September 1917): 598. 48 6 “Echoes of the Dance,” The Scrap Book (April 1907): 286. 50 7 “Indian Songs” Poetry (February 1917): 235-36. 58 8 Chippewa Music II (1913): 102. 59 9 “Indian Songs” Poetry (February 1917): 238. 61 10 The Path on the Rainbow, 21 62 11 The Path on the Rainbow, 22-23. 64 12 Photo, Lynn Riggs with miniature set. 74 13 This Book, This Hill, These People, 54 99 14 This Book, This Hill, These People, 19 100 15 The Nation, April 14, 1926 112 16 1892 Map with a red line dividing Oklahoma and Indian Territory 119 17 Postcard of Claremore Mound 145 18 Lyonel Feininger, Volcano 166 19 Walter Pach, illustration for “Earthly Anecdote” 183 vi LIST OF ABBERVIATIONS ACP The Alice Corbin Henderson papers are housed at the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin. BCP The Barrett Clark papers are housed at the Beinecke Rare Books and Manuscript Library, Yale University. CP Collected Poetry and Prose of Wallace Stevens, Library of America edition Letters Letters of Wallace Stevens GGTL Green Grow the Lilacs ID The Iron Dish LRPB The segment of Lynn Riggs papers housed at the Beinecke Rare Books and Manuscript Library, Yale University. LRPM The segment of Lynn Riggs papers housed at The Department of Special Collections and University Archives of the McFarlin Library, University of Tulsa. TCN The Cherokee Night vii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page DEDICATION .................................................................................................................... ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ................................................................................................. iii LIST OF FIGURES ........................................................................................................... vi LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ........................................................................................... vii Chapter INTRODUCTION: INDIANISM ........................................................................................1 Modernists and Indians ............................................................................................3 What was Indianism? ...............................................................................................7 The Significance of Indianism ...............................................................................21 Reading Indianism .................................................................................................25 I. HISTORICIZING COLLAGE: ALICE CORBIN AND THE POETICS OF APPROPRIATON .................................................................................................31 Rejection ................................................................................................................40 Possession ..............................................................................................................47 Appropriation .........................................................................................................53 Revision .................................................................................................................67 II. A “CURIOUSLY IRRONCILABLE INHERITANCE”: LYNN RIGGS AND THE POSSIBILITIES OF QUEER ALLUSION ..............74 Poet—Santa Fe .....................................................................................................75 Skull and Bones: Allusion and Quotation ............................................................82 Hamlet Not the Only ............................................................................................92 Illicit Intertexts: Self Allusion, Sameness, Desire .............................................100 III. ADAPTATION IN INDIAN TERRITORY ......................................................117 Revisiting Oklahoma! .......................................................................................118 viii “To change the green lilacs to the red, white and
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