'NO MYTH IS SAFELY BROKEN': AMERICAN WOMEN AND THE MODERNIST PERIOD

Although Tillie Olsen laments the existence of only "one woman writer for every twelve men," her own claim that "we who write are survivors, only's," implies survival strategies. Acknowledging the presence of successful survivors, this dissertation examines how certain American modernist women became one in twelve.;I decide that some creative modernist women succeeded because they either exploited myths to make a place for themselves and their work within literary circles or they rejected safer spheres in order to critique these myths and experiment in alternative forms. I divide these women into three groups. First, the traditionalists: women like Willa Cather succeeded because they accepted their period's definitions (even while writing subtly subversive works) and because their heroines succeed or fail according to the standards of the myths. Second, the facilitators: for example, Margaret Anderson personally embodied modified versions of the myths, thus adroitly creating a place for herself in literary circles. Third, the experimentalists: among others, Frances Newman and Djuna Barnes consciously or unconsciously refused to acquiesce to the dominant myths and therefore abandoned easier avenues toward fame and profit to push through the limits of existing myths about women and to create alternative definitions for creative women.;To do this, I consider what Barbara Charlesworth Gelpi calls "different aspects of a central cluster of ideas: the connections between historical change, sexuality, reproduction and language" and I investigate patterns of myth and metaphor in the work of American modernists. In the first chapter, I consider the writings and opinions of male modernists. I analyze their use of the myths of woman as muse and Madonna. In the second chapter, I specifically consider these myths in the poetry of Hart Crane. In the last three chapters, I explore the life and work of the women writers who subverted or revised these same myths.