Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses Graduate School 1972 Yvor Winters: the Critic as Moralist. Shirley Sternberg Fraser Louisiana State University and Agricultural & Mechanical College Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_disstheses Recommended Citation Fraser, Shirley Sternberg, "Yvor Winters: the Critic as Moralist." (1972). LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses. 2208. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_disstheses/2208 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses by an authorized administrator of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. INFORMATION TO USERS This dissertation was produced from a microfilm copy of the original document. 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University Microfilms 300 North Zeeb Road Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106 A Xerox Education Company 72-28,342 FRASER, Shirley Sternberg, 1934- YVOR WINTERS: TOE CRITIC AS MORALIST. The Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, Ph.D., 1972 Language and L iteratu re, modem University Microfilms, A XEROX Company, Ann Arbor, Michigan © 1972 SHIRLEY STERNBERG FRASER ALL RIGHTS RESERVED YVOR WINTERS: THE CRITIC AS MORALIST A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in The Department of English by Shirley Fraser B.S., The University of Texas, 1955 M.A., University of Houston, 1966 May, 1972 PLEASE NOTE: Some pages may have indistinct print. Filmed as received. University Microfilms, A Xerox Education Company DEDICATION To Dana acknowledgment To acknowledge a debt is not to pay it but merely to admit that you owe it. With this in mind, I want to tender my deepest thanks to Dr. Donald E. Stanford, whose help in writing this dissertation has been invaluable. I a ls o wish to thank Dr. John o liv e and Dr. John Wildman for their help and guidance and Dr. Lawrence Sasek, and Dr. Nicholas canaday, for their participation in the project. My special thanks to Mrs. Donald E. Stanford for much-needed moral support. i i TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGMENT............................................................................................ i i ABSTRACT ............................................................................................................ V CHAPTER I . YVOR WINTERS: THE CRITIC AS MORALIST ................................................................................. 1 Literary Moralism............................................................ I Winters and Johnson...................................................... 36 I I . WINTERS AND AQUINAS............................................................ 57 I I I . WINTERS AND LYRIC POETRY............................................ 76 Romanticism............................................................................ 84 Deism............................................................................................ 87 Determinism ............................................................................ 91 H ed o n ism ................................................................................. 93 C alvin ism ................................................................................. 94 Unitarianism ....................................................................... 96 C l a s s i c i s m ............................................................................ 98 F o r m ............................................................................................ 100 S t y le............................................................................................ 110 Balance and Control...................................................... 123 Hart C r a n e............................................................................ 127 William Butler Yeats ................................................. 132 Wallace Stevens and Jones v e r y...................... 139 Edwin A rlin gton Robinson ...................................... 148 T. Sturge Moore................................................................. 155 Gerard Manly Hopkins ................................................. 158 T. S. Eliot ............................................................................ 165 Post-Symbolists................................................................. 172 J . V. C unningham............................................................ 179 IV. THE EMPEROR'S NEW CLOTHES, A TISSUE OF IRRELEVANCES ............................................ 186 The Emperor and the T a ilo r s................................. 191 The M inisters ....................................................................... 193 The Truth-Teller ............................................................ 217 i i i TABLE OP CONTENTS ( c o n tin u e d ) Page ABBREVIATIONS..........................................................................................................222 LIST OP WORKS CONSULTED................................................................................223 VITA ................................................................................................................................226 i v ABSTRACT As a critic, Yvor Winters is an enigma. He is an absolutist in a relativist age; he insists on morality in literature in a century in which the term "moral" is all but pejorative. Yet, notwithstanding the controversial quality of his criticism, he attracts a growing number of f o llo w e r s . Although many soundly approve winters' moral doctrine, little has been written to clarify it. Most of the work has been in defense of the man and his character just as most of the attacks have been leveled at Winters himself rather than at his criticism. The purpose of this dissertation is to furnish a foundation for understanding Winters' critical doctrine, to show the moral-ethical basis from which he worked, to apply his ethics and pro­ cedures to specific poems and poets in order to demonstrate the internal consistency in Winters' criticism, and f in a l l y by a d isc u ssio n o f trends in modern c r itic is m to show that Winters' moralist criticism deserves more serious consideration than it has heretofore received. The first chapter of the dissertation is concerned with the moral tradition in literature. The purpose of the chapter is twofold. First, Winters' definition of moralism is explained with emphasis on the important dis­ tinction between moralism and didacticism. While Winters sees didacticism as a technique external to the work of art, he believes that a poem achieves form through the poet's efforts to perfect a moral attitude toward a particular experience. in the second part of the chapter, Winters' relation to the moral tradition as epitomized by Plato, Sidney, Johnson, Arnold, Babbitt, and More, is discussed. The critical relationship between Dr. Johnson and Winters is explored at some length with the final observation that although Winters can be placed in the * moral tradition, he emerges ultimately, like Johnson, as a solitary figure belonging to no particular school. Chapter Two involves a consideration of the moral- ethical basis of Winters' criticism. Winters says of morality: "It guides us toward the greatest happiness which the accidents of life permit; that is, toward the fullest realization of our nature in the Aristotelian and Thomistic sense." Winters' insistence on the balance between rational meaning and feeling, his belief that literature should enrich the moral temper, and his empha­ sis on absolute