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Durham E-Theses Making Beauty: Basil Bunting and the Work of Poetry HAYNES, ANNABEL,STELLA How to cite: HAYNES, ANNABEL,STELLA (2015) Making Beauty: Basil Bunting and the Work of Poetry, Durham theses, Durham University. Available at Durham E-Theses Online: http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/11179/ Use policy This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial No Derivatives 3.0 (CC BY-NC-ND) Academic Support Oce, Durham University, University Oce, Old Elvet, Durham DH1 3HP e-mail: [email protected] Tel: +44 0191 334 6107 http://etheses.dur.ac.uk Abstract This thesis investigates the representation of labour in the poetry of Basil Bunting, an aspect of his oeuvre hitherto critically overlooked, partly because of his avowed wish to keep politics out of poetry. Bunting constantly regarded the composing of poetry as work, and related the work of the poet to that of the traditional craftsman or skilled manual labourer. This conviction that poetry is work undermines his claim that his writing is apolitical, for work inevitably involves politics. Thus this thesis aims to demonstrate that political notions of work inform the form and prosodic techniques of Bunting’s poetry as well as its thematic content. While his subject matter ranges from mining disasters, money and music hall, through to Persian myths, the universalising theme of work is present throughout. His presentations of artisanal, agricultural, industrial and artistic forms of work and, significantly, his gendered treatment of domestic labour, are all addressed in this thesis. Looking at the poet in this new light entails a study of the background to his views about labour. The first part reads his early and later work alongside theories of labour by Marx and William Morris, and also investigates his correspondence with the leftist activist Objectivist poets. The second part frames Bunting’s ‘alternative’ labour- focused modernism within the wider literary culture of the 1930s, with chapters on Bunting and Bloomsbury, on Bunting and Lorine Niedecker, and on his poetic portrayals of social inequality during the Depression era. The final part examines Bunting’s role as a master-craftsman: it considers, firstly, his, and Pound’s, anti- institutional models for poetic schooling, and, secondly, the work of one of his most important ‘apprentices’, Tom Pickard. Making Beauty Basil Bunting and the Work of Poetry Annabel Haynes PhD Thesis Department of English Studies Durham University 2014 1 Contents Note on referencing major primary sources: .................................................................. 2 Statement of Copyright ......................................................................................................... 3 Acknowledgements ................................................................................................................ 4 Introduction ....................................................................................................................................... 6 Part 1: Work ..................................................................................................................................... 9 Chapter One: ‘Useful Work’: Bunting’s Craft Models and Creative Labour .............. 10 Chapter Two: The Poet, the Mason; the Pen, the Chisel: Marx, Morris, Bunting and the Politics of Labour ................................................................................................................ 31 Chapter Three: ‘The Peasant’s Bent Shoulders’/ ‘Gritty Grinding’: Ezra Pound, Basil Bunting and the Politics of Artifice ........................................................................................ 52 Chapter Four : ‘Becks, flocks / and axe-knocks’: Tracing Nature and Work in Briggflatts ...................................................................................................................................... 96 Chapter Five: Celebrating Man’s Craft! Work, Nature and Politics in Poetry ......... 110 Part 2: Tradition ........................................................................................................................... 126 Chapter Six: Beware Bull: Bunting and Women .............................................................. 127 Chapter Seven: Shifting Peripheries : Basil Bunting and Lorine Niedecker Outside the Modernist Canon ..................................................................................................................... 171 Chapter Eight: O Ubi Campi! Basil Bunting’s Disaster Period ...................................... 186 Part 3 Knowledge ......................................................................................................................... 213 Chapter Nine: The Poet’s Apprentice: Pound, Bunting, Pickard and Poetic Pedagogy ..................................................................................................................................................... 215 Chapter Ten: A Long Apprenticeship: Tom Pickard and the Bunting Tradition ...... 235 Conclusion: Now We’ve No Hope of Going Back .............................................................. 254 Appendix ............................................................................................................................... 264 Works Cited ........................................................................................................................ 268 2 Note on referencing major primary sources: Most references appear in footnotes at the end of each page, and an accompanying works cited list provides further finding information. However, all poems by Bunting (unless indicated) come from the Complete Poems (Bloodaxe, 2001) since this is the most definitive collection of Bunting’s work to date, and is the only edition that is still in print. References to poems from this collection appear in the main body of in the following form: (CP, p. [page number]) . When a subsequent quotation from the same page (of CP) just quoted appears, no page reference will follow: its page number will be the last-quoted in the main body of the text. The 2001 version of the Complete Poems organizes Bunting’s odes into two ‘books’. Numerical references to the odes refer to the book number, first, and then the ode number. For example, “Nothing”, ode number fifteen in the first book of odes, appears as Ode 1.15. When appropriate the title of the ode, or its opening line, may be used in addition, or instead, of its numerical reference. His previously uncollected odes (those in neither Book One or Book Two) are referred to by their first lines or title. Because of their major status among Bunting’s poems, and existence as individually- printed volumes, Briggflatts and The Spoils appear in italics. All of Bunting’s other works, if quoted from the Complete Poems, will appear in double quotation marks. Archival material that I have quoted comes from the following places (abbreviated forms appear in the footnotes of the thesis, as shown below). I have, where possible, included the manuscript numbers: Bloomington, Indiana: The Lilley Library at Indiana University. Basil Bunting correspondence with Dorothy and Ezra Pound is part of the Pound MSS II, 1900-1973. (Bunting correspondence, Bloomington) Durham, U. K., Durham University, Palace Green Library, Basil Bunting Poetry Archive. (Bunting archive, Durham) London, U. K., Kings College London, KCL Library, Eric Mottram Archive. (Mottram archive, London) 3 Statement of Copyright The copyright of this thesis rests with the author. No quotation from it should be published without the author's prior written consent and information derived from it should be acknowledged. 4 Acknowledgements Thanks and love to all my friends and family for their tolerance and support. Special mention must go… To my parents, Roy and Liliana for everything; to my Grandma, who has helped me so many times over these years; to Doug for the company; to Zoe and Raphael Cormack for Latin translation help and friendship; to Kaja Marczewska and Marc Botha for their friendship, for the fun, and for their spare rooms; to Richard Parker and Jessica Pujol for the jokes, the knowledge, and the most comfortable sofa in London; to Tom and Gill Pickard with love and admiration; to Colin Simms for being sage and kind; to my fellow Durham Bunting-ites: Jack Baker, John Clegg and Matthew Griffiths, and to all the other Bunting-ites around the world; to Peter Nicholls and Peter Howarth who saw this work in its various states of becoming, and without whom it wouldn’t have become; to Stephen Regan for the supervisory support, the chats about Marx, and all the advice; to Jason Harding, for the pep talks and his expertise; to Sam Solnick and Steven Quincey Jones for good times and heated debates; to all the archivists and librarians at the Basil Bunting Archive at Palace Green, Durham; to the Eric Mottram Archive at Kings College London; to the wonderful doctors and nurses at Brighton Royal Sussex Hospital. Finally, very special and heartfelt thanks are due to my supervisor, Gareth Reeves, who supported, advised, and inspired me all the way through this project – may he (at last!) have a very happy retirement. This work was supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (Grant Number: AH/G01518X/1) 5 For Doug 6 Introduction ‘Poetry is seeking to make not meaning but beauty’. Basil Bunting, “A Statement” in Descant on Rawthey’s Madrigal Making Beauty: Basil Bunting and the Work of Poetry investigates the representation of labour in the verse
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