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The Poetry and Poetics of Douglas Oliver, 1973-1991

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The Poetry and Poetics of Douglas Oliver, 1973-1991 A University of Sussex DPhil thesis Available online via Sussex Research Online: http://sro.sussex.ac.uk/ This thesis is protected by copyright which belongs to the author. This thesis cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the Author The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the Author When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given Please visit Sussex Research Online for more information and further details The Poetry and Poetics of Douglas Oliver, 1973-1991 Joseph Luna Dissertation submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Sussex March 2015 UNIVERSITY OF SUSSEX DISSERTATION SUBMITTED FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN MODERN AND CONTEMPORARY LITERATURE, CULTURE AND THOUGHT THE POETRY AND POETICS OF DOUGLAS OLIVER, 1973-1991 SUMMARY This dissertation is about the poetry and prose, published and unpublished, of the British poet Douglas Dunlop Oliver (1937-2000), written between 1973-1991. It traces the development of Oliver’s poetics from his early prose through his later poetry of the 1970s and 1980s. The dissertation makes extensive use of archive material stored in the Douglas Oliver Archive at the Albert Sloman Library, University of Essex, the vast majority of which has thus far received little or no critical commentary or appraisal. Contained in the archive are a set of unpublished essays Oliver wrote as a mature undergraduate at the University of Essex between 1974-1975. In my first chapter, I discuss these essays and examine their philosophical and aesthetic standpoints in order to understand and expand upon Oliver’s published claims about the experience of reading poetry in his theoretical monograph Poetry and Narrative in Performance (1989). Oliver’s thinking about prosody and poetic language are then discussed in relation to his books of poetry on explicitly political subjects, The Diagram--Poems (1979) and The Infant and the Pearl (1985). My second and third chapters present close readings of Oliver’s poetry with a view to understanding and critiquing the political arguments conducted therein. My second chapter, on The Diagram--Poems, adds to the discussion of prosody the historical significance of Oliver’s thinking about “stupidity,” and reads the poetry’s political intervention in the light of such thinking. My third chapter, on The Infant and the Pearl, reads the poem’s critique of the contemporary political landscape with the help of the extensive scholarship on its prototype, the medieval Pearl, in order to explain and critique Oliver’s poem’s emphasis on national and inter- personal “unity.” The dissertation argues throughout that the inseparability of poetic form and political feeling is at the heart of Oliver’s practice as a poet. Declaration I hereby declare that this thesis has not been, and will not be, submitted in whole or in part to another University for the award of any other degree, and that this work is entirely my own original research. Signed: Joseph Luna Acknowledgements My thanks to all those at the University of Sussex who have made the last few years such an invigorating and intellectually sustaining place to read, work and think. The School of English has been a constant source of encouragement and inspiration. I am grateful to Laura Vellacott, Liz Walker and all in the School of English Office for their kindness and support throughout my time at Sussex. I owe a substantial debt of gratitude to all those in the poetry community who knew, were related to, or otherwise took an interest in Douglas Oliver and his work, and who took the time to aid me in my research. In particular I would like to acknowledge the generous assistance and illuminating conversation of Anthony Barnett, Anselm Berrigan, Matt ffytche, John Hall, Ralph Hawkins, Wendy Mulford, Alice Notley, Ron Padgett, Neil Pattison, J.H. Prynne and Peter Riley. Thank you to Nigel Cochrane and the staff at the Albert Sloman Library at the University of Essex, who were most helpful during my visit to the Douglas Oliver Archive. To Luke Roberts and Connie Scozzaro, whose friendship kept me afloat when this dissertation began, thank you. I am also especially grateful for the discussions and correspondence I have shared over last few years with Sara Crangle, Ryan Dobran, Danny Hayward, Ed Luker, Jeff Nagy, Robin Purves, Nicholas Royle, Samuel Solomon, Jonty Tiplady, Katie Walter and John Wilkinson. This dissertation would not exist without the attention, advice, support and encouragement proffered without remiss over the course of its composition by my supervisor, Keston Sutherland. For his incisive and challenging criticisms, and his suggestions at every turn, I am immensely grateful. Contents Page Introduction 1 Chapter 1 1.1 Introduction 8 1.2 Prynne, Oliver and philosophy 10 1.3 Perfect identity and utopian politics 16 1.4 The creative dynamic and Husserl 19 1.5 The moment and poetic stress 44 1.6 Conclusion 50 Chapter 2 2.1 Introduction 52 2.2 Knowledge, stupidity and modernism 58 2.3 Tom, “authentic politics” and unity 80 2.3a Langland and kynde 86 2.3b Rousseau 97 2.4 “the factual basis for these events”: 2.4 The Diagram--Poems and the suspension of politics 102 2.5 Harm, torture and the Tupamaros 111 2.6 Conclusion 118 Chapter 3 3.1 Introduction 120 3.2 The question of unity 126 3.3 Oliver and Pearl 141 3.4 The Infant and the Pearl – form, plot and style 145 3.5 The Infant and the Pearl and labour 157 3.6 The Infant and the Pearl and gender 164 3.7 Conclusion 174 Coda 176 Bibliography 179 Abbreviations Abbreviations are used in the references to the following texts by Oliver for ease of repeated citation: CAAS Oliver’s autobiographical essay in Joyce Nakamura, ed., Contemporary Authors Autobiography Series, Vol. 27 (Detroit, MI: Gale Research, 1997), pp.242-261. K Kind (London, Lewes and Berkeley: Agneau 2 - Allardyce, Barnett, 1987). PNP Poetry and Narrative in Performance (London: Macmillan, 1989). PP Penniless Politics (Newcastle upon Tyne: Bloodaxe Books Ltd, 1994). SP Selected Poems (Jersey City, NJ: Talisman House, 1996). THB The Harmless Building (London: Ferry Press, and Pensnett: Grosseteste Review Books, 1973). TTL ‘The Three Lilies,’ in LAMB, ed. Anthony Barnett, No. 3 (Jan., 1982), pp.17-24. VTH Three Variations on the Theme of Harm: Selected Poetry and Prose (London: Paladin, 1990). WL Whisper ‘Louise’: A Double Historical Memoir and Meditation (Hastings: Reality Street Editions, 2005). The following abbreviations are also used: DOA Douglas Oliver Archive (various boxes), Albert Sloman Library, University of Essex, Essex, UK. NLT Nous les Tupamaros, suivi d’apprendre d’eux par Régis Debray, trad. Elisabeth Chopard Lallier (Paris: François Maspero, 1971). 1 Introduction This dissertation is about the poetry and prose, published and unpublished, of the British poet Douglas Dunlop Oliver (1937-2000), written between the years 1973 and 1991. Oliver’s work is not now widely read or discussed by many people beyond certain communities of poets, critics and students of the UK and North American experimental and avant-garde poetry scenes. Yet during his later life, at least, Oliver was the recipient of a wide range of plaudits and enjoyed some impressive public claims for his poetry. The reception of his work by the mainstream of the English press and literary organs was often as enthusiastic as its celebration in the pages of smaller, avant-garde journals. Writing in The Times, Peter Ackroyd named Oliver’s 1987 collected poems Kind “the finest poetry of the year.”1 Patrick Wright and Howard Brenton both heaped praise on Oliver’s The Infant and the Pearl (1985) and Penniless Politics (1991) in the London Review of Books and The Guardian respectively, with Brenton in 1992 claiming the latter poem had set “the literary agenda for the next two decades,” invoking both Eliot and Milton as comparable precursors.2 Bloodaxe Books reprinted Penniless Politics in 1994 with Brenton’s ecstatic recommendation as a foreword. Oliver was declared by Ian Sansom in 1997, again in The Guardian, to be “one of the very best political poets writing in English.”3 By the time of his death in 2000, Oliver had become one of the most publicly and internationally visible of all the poets whose writing careers began in earnest in the college rooms, grounds, domestic environs and pubs of Cambridge, UK in the 1960s. Partly this has to do with Oliver’s shifting geographical locales. His work as a provincial journalist in Cambridge in the 1960s, his frequent travels between various English cities and Paris as a journalist in the following two decades, to New York in the late 1980s upon his marriage to the American poet Alice Notley, and back to Paris in the 1990s where he lived and wrote until his death, allowed him the opportunity to establish connections with communities of writers in Britain, France and North America with relative ease. Partly, too, it was the result of a deliberate courting and attempted cultivation by Oliver of a wider audience for his poetry than the one he had established, originally amongst the Cambridge 1 Peter Ackroyd et al, ‘Bringing the year to book...,’ The Times, Saturday, November 28th 1987, p.13. 2 Patrick Wright, ‘A Journey through Ruins,’ London Review of Books, Vol. 8, No. 16 (September 18th 1986), p.10; Howard Brenton, ‘Poetic passport to a new era,’ The Guardian, Tuesday, April 7th 1992, p.38. See also Patrick Wright, ‘Poet of the lower depths,’ The Guardian, October 24th 1991, p.23, on The Infant and the Pearl, Penniless Politics and Oliver’s authorship in general.
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