The Little Art Colony and US Modernism: Carmel, Provincetown, Taos (Modern American Literature and the New Twentieth Century)

**Explores the little art communities and their aesthetic products in the early twentieth century** * Historicizes and theorizes the role and function of the little art community as a geo-social formation * Comparative, place-based study of three semiperipheral (non-metropolitan) sites * New readings of major authors Jeffers, O’Neill, and Lawrence * Interdisciplinary methodology based in primary source analysis * Challenges a center-periphery model of modernist activity and literary-aesthetic production and instead emphasizes a network-based, collaborative model This book is first to historicise and theorise the significance of the early twentieth-century little art colony as a uniquely modern social formation within a global network of modernist activity and production. Alongside a historical overview of the emergence of three critical sites of modernist activity – the little art colonies of Carmel, Provincetown and Taos – the book offers new critical readings of major authors associated with those places: Robinson Jeffers, Eugene O’Neill and D. H. Lawrence. Geneva M. Gano tracks the radical thought and aesthetic innovation that emerged from these villages, revealing a surprisingly dynamic circulation of persons, objects and ideas between the country and the city and producing modernisms that were cosmopolitan in character yet also site-specific. Explores the little art communities and their aesthetic products in the early twentieth century. Historicizes and theorizes the role and function of the little arts community as a geo-social formation. Comparative, place-based study of three semiperipheral (non-metropolitan) sites. New readings of major authors Jeffers, O'Neill, and Lawrence. Interdisciplinary methodology based in primary source analysis. Challenges a center-periphery model of modernist activity and literary-aesthetic production and instead emphasizes a network-based, collaborative model. This book is first to historicise and theorise the significance of the early twentieth-century little art colony as a uniquely modern social formation within a global network of modernist activity and production. Alongside a historical overview of the emergence of three critical sites of modernist activity - the little art colonies of Carmel, Provincetown and Taos - the book offers new critical readings of major authors associated with those places: Robinson Jeffers, Eugene O'Neill and D. H. Lawrence. Geneva M. Gano tracks the radical thought and aesthetic innovation that emerged from these villages, revealing a surprisingly dynamic circulation of persons, objects and ideas between the country and the city and producing modernisms that were cosmopolitan in character yet also site-specific The Little Art Colony and US Modernism 4 Copyright 5 Contents 6 List of Illustrations 7 Acknowledgments 9 Introduction: Modernism beyond the Metropolis 14 Part I Carmel 42 1 Race, Place and Cultural Production in Carmel-by-the-Sea 44 2 Robinson Jeffers, the Art Worker and the ‘Carmel Idea’ 71 Part II Provincetown 100 3 Building the Beloved Community in Provincetown 102 4 Eugene O’Neill: Superpersonalisation and Racial Spectacularism 141 Part III Taos 178 5 Cultivating the Taos Mystique 180 6 ‘Something Stood Up in my Soul’: D. H. Lawrence in Taos 217 Epilogue: The Afterlife of the Little Arts Colony: Institutionalising Creative Collectivities 252 Notes 258 Index 301