Geopoetics and Historical Modernism: Gertrude Stein, Laura Riding, and Robert Graves in Mallorca, 1912–1936

Abstract

This chapter employs Mikhail Bakhtin’s notion of the chronotope as a theoretical framework for a claim that literary works produced by key Anglo-American modernists during extended stays in the Balearic Islands, between 1912 and 1936, resulted in aesthetic and conceptual redirections—most notably in the emphasis on genre and language. Additionally, I analyze the identity of the modernist cultural tourist and expatriate settler for whom the islands were a refuge from war and personal strife, through close readings of texts written by the following writers while on location in the Balearic Islands: Gertrude Stein (Palma, Mallorca), Laura Riding, and Robert Graves (Deia, Mallorca).