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The Death of the Character in Modern Fiction and Criticism

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The Death of the Character in Modern Fiction and Criticism by Nathan Murray A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of English University of Toronto © Copyright by Nathan Murray (2019) The Death of the Character in Modern Fiction and Criticism Nathan Murray Doctor of Philosophy English Department University of Toronto 2019 Abstract This study is a critical history of the conflict over literary character in the first half of the twentieth century. It explores the tension between conceiving of character either as a linguistic construct or as a simulated person. Rejecting the teleological metanarrative that modernist characters represented the self more authentically than earlier writers, the study treats that metanarrative as a mythos and reveals the intellectual labour that modernist writers and critics put into constructing it. The first chapter deals with A.C. Bradley, F.R. Leavis, T.S. Eliot, G. Wilson Knight, and L.C. Knights and their debates over representation of character in Hamlet. Bradley emerges as a nuanced critic, who, far from seeing Hamlet as merely the imitation of a real person, recognizes the role of the reader in filling narrative gaps, smoothing over inconsistencies and errors, and, ultimately, accepting the incompleteness of the text. The second chapter deals with the disagreement between, on one side, E.M. Forster and Lytton Strachey, who both assert the power of text to communicate both fictional and historical people, and, on the other, Virginia Woolf, who in her criticism and experimental biographies challenges readers’ assumptions that we can ever know another individual – even a fictional one. The final two chapters explore grassroots organizations of readers who resisted modern trends in criticism because they viewed a character’s reality as an essential aspect of a great work of literature. First ii are the Holmesians, who circulated mock-essays with the conceit that Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson were real people. Second are the first Bloomsday celebrants, who followed the path of the protagonists of James Joyce’s Ulysses through the streets of Dublin, reading the work as a passionate national epic. This model of reading character emphasizes the vivid feeling of reality that simulated persons produce and rejects any attempt to reduce characters to a mere collection of words on a page. The legacy of this divergence between enthusiastic lay readers and academics can still be felt in the academy today and demonstrates the urgent need for a new understanding of how character is communicated, and how character is read. iii Acknowledgements The writing of this dissertation was supported by a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council Graduate Scholarship, an Ontario Graduate Scholarship, and a University of Toronto Fellowship. This dissertation is a pot that has been stirred by many cooks. A primary debt of gratitude is owed to Greig Henderson, who has helmed this project since 2017, and in that time, impressed me with his hard work, thorough feedback, and unwavering guidance through some difficult times. My other committee members, Garry Leonard and Nick Mount, have provided invaluable feedback in shaping the final product, helping transform it into a polished work. I also want to thank Deidre Lynch, who helped develop this project with me and supervised it until her departure to Harvard. I must also thank all the former members of the committee, many of whom offered important guidance before departing the University of Toronto, including Sarah Wilson, Mark Knight, and Joshua Gang. I wish to thank Allan Hepburn, my External Appraiser, for his generous and thoughtful assessment of my work, and Larry Switzky, my Internal Appraiser, for his insightful comments. My years in Toronto have been challenging but rewarding years, and I owe a great deal to many friends who have read and re-read sections of the dissertation, including Matt Risling, Elisa Tersigni, Katherine Magyarody, Joanne Leow, Claire Battershill, and Justine Leach. Your feedback and friendship has helped shape my work in many ways. I also want to thank my friends who shared camaraderie, offered insights and extended support through the last seven years, including Jon Kerr, Kaelyn Kaoma, Aaron Donachuk, Jeff Espie, Irene Mangoutas, Noa Reich, Cristina D’Amico, Elissa Gurman, Giuliano Gullotti, Leslie Wexler, and Matt Schneider. You all have helped to make this time an enjoyable one. I have also been lucky enough to share much of this time in Toronto with my brothers, Peter and Scott, and I have treasured your company. I also need to thank my parents, Christine Johnson and James Murray. You helped inspire a love of reading in me and a desire for knowledge, and offered unwavering stability, love and support to me growing up, which shaped who I am today. Your thoughtfulness and moral example have provided me with a model of who I have sought to be. Just as importantly, I want to acknowledge and thank you for the emotional and financial support you have offered me throughout this degree, without which it would not be complete. I love you both. A heartfelt thanks is also due to my grandmother Elizabeth and grandfather Ken, who have also provided love and support in many ways throughout my life. I also want to thank my mother and father-in-law, Lorraine Auclair and Thomas Beauchamp, who in the years since I have met them have become an essential part of my life, and who have also provided emotional and financial support to our family. Your generosity of spirit is inspiring and I cannot thank you enough. Finally, and most importantly, I want to thank my wife Melissa and my daughter Evelyn, without whom none of this would have been done. Melissa, your curiosity and sharpness of intellect have shaped my mental life for ten amazing years. Nothing in this world has defined me or my work more than my partnership with you. I am who I am because of you and Evelyn, and your love offered me both support and motivation when the completion of this work seemed impossible. This dissertation is dedicated to the both of you. iv Table of Contents “I was perhaps not altogether guiltless of trailing my coat”: Hamlet and Character in Modern Criticism ....................................................................................................... 1 A.C. Bradley and the Reader .................................................................................................. 8 T.S. Eliot, the Objective Correlative, and De-Centred Character ............................................16 G. Wilson Knight and Spatial Reading………………………………………………………..21 Tracing Character: Plan of the Present Work .........................................................................26 Homo Fictus: Character, Person and Biography in the Bloomsbury Circle ........... 33 E.M. Forster and Homo Fictus ...............................................................................................38 What Can Be Said about Jacob? ............................................................................................43 Flush and the Legibility of the Subject ..................................................................................50 Orlando and the Exploded Self ..............................................................................................60 The Best Loved Man Who Never Lived: Character, Anti-Modernism, and the Holmesians .................................................................................................................. 68 Ronald Knox and the Hermeneutics of Trust .........................................................................77 Dorothy L. Sayers and Serious Play .......................................................................................85 T.S. Eliot and the Modern ‘Real’ Character ...........................................................................93 S.C. Roberts and Scientific Character ....................................................................................98 Playing Bloom: The Characters of Ulysses, Irish Criticism, and Bloomsday ...... 105 “I am other I now”: Character in Ulysses ............................................................................. 110 Stuart Gilbert, Frank Budgen, and the Schema ..................................................................... 115 Character, Author, Authority ............................................................................................... 119 “A Bash in the Tunnel”: Envoy reclaims Joyce .................................................................... 122 The Bloomsday “Pilgrimace” .............................................................................................. 130 O’Nolan and the Overthrow of Joyce ................................................................................... 135 After 1954: Bloomsday’s Legacy ........................................................................................ 137 Conclusion ................................................................................................................. 143 Bibliography………………………………………………………………………………….148 v List of Figures Figure 1: The Gilbert Schema Stuart Gilbert, James Joyce’s Ulysses, (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1963), 41. vi 1 Chapter One: “I was perhaps not altogether guiltless of trailing my coat”: Hamlet and Character in Modern Criticism Why is it that between 1919 and 1960, a significant number of British academic critics agreed that either Hamlet the character or
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