ABSTRACT Jack Clemo's Vocation to Evangelical Poetry and Erotic
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ABSTRACT Jack Clemo's Vocation to Evangelical Poetry and Erotic Marriage: an Examination of his Poems of Personal Tribute and Critique Heather R. Martin, Ph.D. Director: Ralph C. Wood, Ph.D. Jack Clemo, whose dates are 1916-1994, calls to us from the margins: a working-class voice from deep within in the china clayworks of Cornwall, having been educated outside the conventional system, contending with deafness and blindness for most of his life; a believer whose fierce Evangelical non-conformist religiosity was at odds with an increasingly secularized Britain; a poet who, insisting that his art serve God no less than the world, embraced the erotic as a necessary component of Christian faith and life; and thus a man whose yearning for both marital and poetic companionship is as heartfelt as it is unyielding. Clemo believed he had a divine calling to be an evangelical poet and a married man: a dual vocation that seemed impossible given his physical, social, and educational limits. In the process of fulfilling that vocation, which he did despite poverty, blindness, and deafness, his poetry often “gives testimony” through the varied artistic and spiritual influences he encountered. These portrait poems and dramatic monologues generally fall into three categories: theologians and preachers, saints and missionaries, and artists and writers. For Clemo, these testimony poems document the verity of the Christian faith that he both aspired to and lived by. The predominant themes that connect these poems are evangelism and marriage, reflecting Clemo’s concern with fulfilling his twin vocation. This dissertation concentrates on how Jack Clemo’s quest to fulfill his vocation intersects with his dramatic monologues and portrait poems, demonstrating that his aspirations shaped these poems and in turn that these poems helped Clemo to imagine and define what it means to be an evangelical poet and a priest of erotic marriage. He did so by constantly testing his voice against others, writing himself into their lifeworld and allowing them to inhabit his poems. His portraits of actual personages also provide concrete expression of Clemo’s evangelical witness to the “good news” and the redemptive possibilities of a Christ-centered marriage. Moreover, these figures, whether they affirmed, challenged, or revised Clemo’s vision, offered the poet a way to interact with the world through an artistry of encounter, dialog and imagined community. Jack Clemo’s Vocation to Evangelical Poetry and Erotic Marriage: an Examination of his Poems of Tribute and Critique by Heather R. Martin, B.S., M.Div. A Dissertation Approved by the English Department ___________________________________ Dianna M. Vitanza, Ph.D., Chairperson Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of Baylor University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Approved by the Dissertation Committee ___________________________________ Ralph C. Wood, Ph.D., Chairperson ___________________________________ David Lyle Jeffrey, Ph.D. ___________________________________ Luke Ferretter, Ph.D. ___________________________________ Barry A. Harvey, Ph.D. ___________________________________ Joshua S. King, Ph.D. Accepted by the Graduate School December 2010 ___________________________________ J. Larry Lyon, Ph.D., Dean Page bearing signatures is kept on file in the Graduate School. Copyright © 2010 by Heather R. Martin All rights reserved TABLE OF CONTENTS Chronology for Jack Clemo ................................................................................iv List of Abbreviations .........................................................................................vii Acknowledgments ........................................................................................... viii Dedication ............................................................................................................x Chapter One ........................................................................................................1 Introduction ..............................................................................................1 Chapter Two ......................................................................................................14 Clemo in Context: Biographical Overview ............................................14 Chapter Three ....................................................................................................42 Vocation: “Priest and Lover”...................................................................42 Chapter Four ......................................................................................................83 A Choice About Art: Artists & Writers ..................................................83 Chapter Five.....................................................................................................119 Beatific Vision: Saints & Missionaries.................................................119 Chapter Six.......................................................................................................150 A Kindred Battlefield: Theologians & Preachers ...............................150 Chapter Seven ..................................................................................................181 Conclusion .............................................................................................181 Appendices........................................................................................................190 Bibliography .....................................................................................................197 iii CHRONOLOGY FOR JACK CLEMO Date Event Poems Considered in Dissertation 1916 Born in Goonamarris, St. Stephen-in-Brannel, Cornwall, U.K. 1921 First attack of iritis 1929 Second attack of iritis; met Evelyn 1935 Permanently deaf 1947 Wilding Graft (novel) Atlantic Award in Literature 1949 Confession of a Rebel (autobiography) 1951 The Clay Verge “Neutral Ground,” “The Clay-tip Worker,” “The Excavator,” “Sufficiency,” “A Calvinist in Love,” “The Burnt Bush” 1951 The Wintry Priesthood “Cornish Anchorite,” “The Broadening Spring,” “A Thorn in the Flesh,” “The Two Beds,” "A Kindred Arts Council Festival of Battlefield,” “The Broad Winter,” Britain prize for poetry “Priest Out of Bondage” 1954 Permanent white blindness 1958 The Invading Gospel (theological manifesto) 1961 The Map of Clay “Tregerthen Shadow,” “Max Gate,” “Daybreak in Dorset,” “Lunar Awarded a civil list pension Pentecost,” “Beyond Lourdes” iv Date Event Poems Considered in Dissertation 1964 Penguin Modern Poets (several poems included) 1967 Cactus on Carmel “Massabeille,” “The Riven Niche,” “Charlotte Nichols,” “Friar’s Crag,” “Carmel” 1968 Married Ruth Peaty in October 1971 The Echoing Tip “I Go Gentle,” “Genevan Towers,” “Mould of Castile,” “Mary Shelley in Geneva,” “Ste Gudule and St Agnes,” “Simone Weil,” “Harpoon,” “Alfred Wallis,” “William Blake Notes a Demonstration,” “Katherine Luther,” “After Billy Bray,” “On the Death of Karl Barth “ 1975 Broad Autumn “Wart and Pearl,” “Toyohiko Kagawa,” “Testament,” “John Wesley,” “A Night In SoHo,” “Josephine Butler,” “Comeley Bank” 1977 Eveline Clemo dies 1980 Marriage of a Rebel (second autobiography) 1981 Honorary D. Litt from University of Exeter 1983 The Bouncing Hills (humorous dialect tales) 1984 Move to Weymouth, Devon 1986 Different Drummer “Charlotte Mew,” “Virginia Woolf,” “A Choice About Art,” “Holman Hunt,” “Eric Gill,” “Henry Martyn,” “Juan Diego,” “At Hardy’s Birthplace,” “Dietrich Bonhoeffer,” “Jim Elliot,” “Mappowder Revisited,” “Florence Barclay” v Date Event Poems Considered in Dissertation 1987 Trip to Venice, Italy 1988 Selected Poems - Poetry Book Society Recommendation; Reprint of Confession of a Rebel and Marriage of a Rebel 1989 Banner Poems (local descriptive pieces) 1993 Approach to Murano “Link At Oxford,” “Reception: Pope John Paul II,” “Jean-Pierre de Trip to Venice and Florence Caussade,” “Hudson Taylor to Maria,” “The Kilns,” “Festal Magnet,” “Palazzo Rezzonico” 1994 Jack Clemo dies on July 25th 1995 The Cured Arno “Beatific Vision,” “Newman,” “George Müller,” “Casa Guidi,” “Jack London” 2000 The Clay Kiln (novel) 2003 The Awakening – Poems Newly “Charles Haddon Spurgeon” Found vi LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ATM: Approach to Murano (1993) AWK: The Awakening – Poems Newly Found (2003) BA: Broad Autumn (1975) CA: The Cured Arno (1995) COC: Cactus On Carmel (1967) COR: Confession of a Rebel (1949; 1988) DD: Different Drummer (1986) ET: The Echoing Tip (1971) IG: The Invading Gospel (1958) MOC: The Map of Clay (1961) MOR: The Marriage of a Rebel (1980; 1988) SP: Selected Poems (1988) WP: The Wintry Priesthood (1951) vii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS One of my favorite lines of poetry comes from the King James Bible: “Every good gift and every perfect gift cometh down from the father of lights, in whom there is no variableness neither shadow of turning.” My debt of gratitude to the “father of lights” is inexpressible, but to paraphrase Saint Augustine, it is better to make the attempt rather than remain silent. And speaking of saints, there is my dissertation director Dr. Ralph C. Wood, whose kind heart and savage pen it has been my great privilege to work with. With patience and professional integrity he would alternately nurture a good idea and annihilate bad prose. Dr. Wood’s depth of commitment and dedication as a mentor and teacher has indelibly formed my own standard, which I shall strive to achieve even if I cannot hope to do so. The gentlemen making up my