Copyright is owned by the Author of the thesis. Permission is given for a copy to be downloaded by an individual for the purpose of research and private study only. The thesis may not be reproduced elsewhere without the permission of the Author. Challenging Discourses in Alien Curnow's oeuvre A dissertationpresented in partialful filment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in English at Massey University, New Zealand James Norgate 1997 11 ABSTRACT Alien Curnow has been publishing poetryfor more than six decades. His critical writings span about half a century,and as an anthologist he influenced the post-World War 11 generation of New Zealand poets and readers. Less well known today is his early verse, often published under the pseudonym Julian, his social satire, published under the nom de guerre Whim Wham, and his drama. In this thesis I read examples from Curnow's oeuvre from a dialogic perspective. The Bakhtin school's dialogism allows a reading that differs from earlier appraisals of Curnow's work in that it highlights the conflicts of ideologies which reside in the texts. The Bakhtinian carnivalesque, also used in this study, allows for a new interpretation of the function of subversion in what many have viewed as a relatively conventional poet's work. Previous readings have tended to employ traditional critical theories and are predominantly historical. They also largely omit what I believe to be importantsec tions of Curnow's oeuvre: the Julian poems, works by Whim Wham and the plays. In Chapter One I outline the theoretical context of dialogism and the carnivalesque in which I have placed this study. Chapter Two looks at Curnow's juvenilia and examples from the verse he published as Julian, much of which has remained unexplored. In Chapter Three I discuss Curnow's poetry collections that he published during the 1930s, and Chapter Four looks at his poetry published between 1941 and 1962. In Chapter Five I examine examples from Curnow's more recent poetry, published since 1972. Chapter Six discusses Curnow's social satire, the Whim Wham verse, and represents the first critical study of these works. Chapter Seven deals with Curnow's published plays, which have also mostly escaped critical appraisal, and have been performed only rarely on stage. In Chapter Eight I provide a dialogic reading of Curnow's own literarycritical writings. I conclude my study with three appendices: an index to Curnow's contributions to the 1930s periodical Tomorrow, a checklist to Whim Wham, and an index to Whim Wham's contributions to the New Zealand Listener. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am indebted to my chief supervisor, Associate Professor John Needham, for his quiet and professional supportthroughout my doctoral research project. My second supervisor, Dr William Broughton, deservesa special mention for his enthusiasm which years ago instilled in me a love of New Zealand literature. He has become a friend who has generously shared his time, knowledge and personal resources. I wish to thank Massey University for providing me with a Doctoral Scholarship, without which I could not have undertakenthi s study. Finally, I am deeply grateful to my children for patiently sharing some of the burden these past three years, and to my wife Michelle for her supportand intellectual companionship. TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS______________________________________________________________________________________ iii INTRODUCTION__________________ _________________________________________________________________________________ CHAPTER ONE: Aspects of Dialogism__________________________________________________________________ 8 CHAPTER TWO: Curnow, Julian and Tomorrow.___________________________________________________ 23 CHAPTER THREE: Early Poetry: 1933 to 1939_·-·----------··-----···---·-·--------------------··· 39 CHAPTER FOUR: The Middle Years: Poetry from 1941 to 1962____________________________ 58 CHAPTER FIVE: Curnow's Poetry from 1972____ ·-·····---·-------·---··----·------··--------·-----· 78 CHAPTER SIX: Whim Wham and Social Satire .................................................... 112 CHAPTER SEVEN: Curnow the Playwright___________________________________________________________ 149 CHAPTER EIGHT: Time and Place: Literary Criticism____________________________________ _______ 175 CONCLUSION_____________________ ________________________________________________________________________________ _ 205 Appendix 1: Index to Curnow's Contribution to Tomorrow_______________________________________ 208 Appendix 11: Checklist of References to Whim Wham_____________________________________________ 212 Appendix Ill: Index to Whim Wham's Contributions to the New Zeaiand Listener____ 215 WORKS CONSULTED·---------------------------------------·----------------·····-------·-------------------· 219 1 INTRODUCTION By the way, I had none of these ideas while I was writing the poem, I was too busy writing it. Alien Curnow (1990) Alien Curnow is accepted today as one of the great, if not the greatest, New Zealand 1 poets. He was born Thomas Alien Munro Curnow in 1911 in Timaru, South Canterbury,the 2 son of an Anglican vicar. He worked as a cadet reporterfor the Christchurch Sun while attending Canterbury University College part-time in 1929 and 1930, before deciding to enter the Anglican ministry on a scholarship for three years at the College of St John the Evangelist, at Meadowbank in Auckland. This included two years' full-time university study at Auckland University College, where Curnow published his first poems in Kiwi, the university magazine, edited at the time by James Bertram. In 1932-33 his poems appeared in Phoenix alongside such New Zealand writers as Bertram, Charles Brasch, D'Arcy Cresswell, A.R.D. Fairburn, Robin Hyde, and R.A.K. Mason. Curnow rejected the Church as a vocation in 1934, eventually returning to Christchurch where he became a reporteron Th e Press in 1935. However, he soon changed positions to that of cable (foreign news) sub-editor, where he remained till 1948, after which he spent a year on the News Chronicle, in London. In 1950 Curnow visited the United States on a Carnegie grant, before joining the Auckland University College's Departmentof English as a lecturer in 1951, becoming associate-professor in 1967. He was awarded the university's Doctor of Literature degree in 1966 for six papers of literary criticism: "The Future of New Zealand; New Zealand Literature," "Modern Australian Poetry," " Dance of the Seasons," "The Expatriate," "A Time 1 Peter Simpson, for example, commenced a 1986 analysis: "Alien Curnow and James K. Baxter are by general consensus the two most important figures in New Zealand poetry, both as poets and critics" ("'The Trick of Standing Upright': Alien Curnow and James K. Baxter" 369). A decade earlier, Theresa Graham introduced her bibliography of Curnow'sworks: "Alien Curnow is unquestionably a, if not 'the', major New Zealand poet" (1976: introd., n. pag.). 2 Biographical details of Curnow in this section are drawn largely from Alan Roddick's 1980 critical study of the poet (Alien Curnow59-6 0). 2 3 for Sowing," and Coal Flat (1964). The University of Canterburyconferred an honorary Doctor of Letters degree on Curnow in 1975, and he retired from the University of Auckland in 1976. 11 Curnow is primarily renowned as a poet and literarycritic. He published his first collection of poems in September 1933 through the Auckland University College Students' Association Press. Valley of Decision is largely a collection of the poems Curnow published in Kiwi, Phoenix and Artin New Zealand, and the volume's title, from the Old Testament book of Joel (3:14), captures the divinity student's crisis of faith prior to his leaving the theological college. His second publication in 1935, Poetryand Language, is significant for two reasons: it is his earliest piece of critical writing, and it saw the beginning of Curnow's long association with Denis Glover and the Caxton Press. Curnow teamed up in the same year with Glover and A.R.D. Fairburn to publish Another Argo: Th ree Poems fro m the Caxton Club Press, and has not ceased publishing new poetry or collected editions of previously published work in 4 the more than sixty years since. After returning to Christchurch in 1935 and publishing Poetry and Language, Curnow also began writing reviews for Th e Press and elsewhere, soon establishing himself as a literary critic whose influence is still felt. Curnow's Introduction to A Book of New Zealand Ve rse 1923-45 confirmed his reputation in 1945 as this country's pre-eminent literary writer and, despite intense controversy in two decades following its publication, that essay remains seminal to the study of New Zealand poetry. Charles Doyle wrote in 1966, "Curnow has provided us with our only criticism so far at the creatively conceptual (as opposed to the analytical) level" (Small Prophets and Quick Returns 7). While post-structuralist criticism has 3 "Checklist of Theses on New Zealand Literature: Supplement No. 1," Journal of New Zealand Literature 12 {1994): 163. All six papers are included in Cumow's collection of critical writings, Look Back Harder. 4 Indeed, after I had finished this study, Alien Curnow published Early Days Yet: New and Collected Poems 1941-1997 {Auckland: Auckland UP, 1997), which includes a dozen new poems under the heading "The Game of Tag {1989-1 997)." These additional poems are not discussed in my study, although I have included the book in my "Works Consulted"; a review