Grotesque Sound Poetics and Performative Mimesis in Edith Sitwell’s “Polka”

Abstract

Edith Sitwell, a paradoxical figure in British modernism—both celebrated and critically underestimated—made significant contributions to experimental poetics through her innovative use of sound, abstraction, and performance. Her poem “Polka,” from the Façade collection (1922) exemplifies her grotesque sound poetics through rhythmic excess, sonic fragmentation, and performative mimesis, exposing the unstable theatricality of imperial and gendered constructs. This article explores “Polka” through the intertwined lenses of grotesque sound poetics and performative mimesis, arguing that it dismantles traditional lyric structures and reconfigures poetic voice as a site of distorted performativity. Sitwell challenges British imperial and gendered narratives within a broader framework of identity formation, cultural memory, and imperial fantasy. By mimicking, rather than mirroring, the absurdities of reality, the poem subverts conventional mimesis, revealing dominant identities as illusory and unstable. Central to this performative mimesis is Mr. Wagg, a grotesque vaudevillian whose repetitive dance and fragmented speech transform identity into theatrical spectacle. Historical icons like Nelson, Wellington, Byron and Crusoe are reduced to props within decaying imperialism, stripped of their grandeur. Repositioning “Polka” within modernist sound poetics and performative mimesis, this study argues that Sitwell transforms poetry into a performative stage where identity, gender and imperial fantasies collapse into parody.