Mina Loy

Claude Akins (University of Arizona)

Ed. by Justin Parks, UiT - The Arctic University of Norway
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 3.2.3: American (US) Writing and Culture: The Early Twentieth-century , 1900-1945.
Vol. editors: Patrick Chura (University of Akron), J. Michael Duvall (College of Charleston), Emory Elliott (University of California, Riverside), Dale Enggass (University of Utah), Matthew Hofer (University of New Mexico), Stephen E. Meats (Pittsburg State University), Tony Papanikolas (San Jose State University), Justin Parks (UiT - The Arctic University of Norway), Nick Selby (University of East Anglia)

Dates

Born 27 Dec 1882
Died 25 Sep 1966
Activity 1902-1966

Places

Born in England
Active in United States

Cultural Identities

Jewish American

Activities

Primary

Poet

Resources

Mina Loy has loitered in the rooms of literary obscurity for decades, despite the recognition she received in her lifetime from such canonical modernists as T. S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, William Carlos Williams, Basil Bunting, and Getrude Stein, to name only a few. Indeed, for a brief period of time, Loy was considered somewhat of an avant-garde celebrity. In 1917, the New York Evening Sun summarized Loy as the embodiment of the “modern woman” (qtd. in Walter 663). In addition, Loy appears in the biographies of Djuna Barnes, Ernest Hemingway, Wyndham Lewis, Marriane Moore, Wallace Stevens, and Alfred Stieglitz Conover xii). She sketched portraits of Sigmund Freud, James Joyce, and Carl Van Vechten (again, to name only a few) (Gross 28, 51). This relative neglect notwithstanding, Loy’s reputation continues to grow posthumously for her skill...

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3258 words

Citation: Akins, Claude. "Mina Loy". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 05 February 2026 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=4915, accessed 09 June 2026.]