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Laura Riding Pointed to the Fact That, Looking at the Canon Of UNIVERSIDADE FEDERAL DE SANTA CATARINA PÓS-GRADUAÇÃO EM LETRAS/INGLÊS E LITERATURA CORRESPONDENTE MINDSCAPES: LAURA RIDING’S POETRY AND POETICS por RODRIGO GARCIA LOPES Tese submetida à Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina em cumprimento parcial dos requisitos para obtenção do grau de DOUTOR EM LETRAS FLORI.\NOPOLIS Dezembro de 2000 Esta Tese de Rodrigo Garcia Lopes, intitulada MINDSCAPES: LAURA RIDING’S POETRY AND POETICS, foi julgada adequada e aprovada em sua forma final, pelo Programa de Pós-Graduação em Letras/Inglês e Literatura Correspondente, da Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, para fms de obtenção do grau de DOUTOR EM LETRAS Área de concentração; Inglês e Literatura Correspondente Opção: Literaturas de Língua Inglesa Anelise Reich Corseuil Coordenadora BANCA EXAMINADORA; é Roberto O ’Shea ientador e Presidente 'h/y Maria Lúcia MiUéo Martins Examinadora Susana Bornéo Funck Examinadora J^iz Angé^o da Costa Examinador ífid Renaux Examinadora Florianópolis, 11 de dezembro de 2000 In the memory of Laura (Riding Jackson (1901-1991) To my parents, Antonio Ubirajara Lopes and Maria do Carmo Garcia Lopes IV ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank the several people and institutions that helped me, in inestimable ways, to succeed in accomplishing the present thesis. To my advisor, José Roberto O’Shea, for his infinite patience, collaboration, and understanding. To CAPES, for conceding me the scholarship that provided the necessary means to carry out original research on Laura Riding collections in the United States. To The Board of Literary Management of tiie late Laura (Riding Jackson: Dr. James Tyler, Dr. William Harmon, Robert Nye, Theodore Wilentz, Joan Wilentz, and especially to Alan J. Clark, Elizabeth Friedmann, Dr. Mark Jacobs, and Dr. John Nolan. To Lorna Knight, from Carl A. Kroch Library, and the Division of Rare and Manuscript Collection of Cornell University Library, To Susana Bornéo Funck, Elizabeth Horan, and David William Foster, for being earlier supporters and readers of my research. To the staff of Hayden Library, at Arizona State University To Lisa Samuels, Charles Bernstein, Jerome Rothenberg, Ben Friedlander, Chris Daniels, with whom I maintained an extended dialogue on the complexity and peculiarity of Riding’s work, and who helped me with important materials, insists, and encouragement. ABSTRACT i MINDSCAPES: LAURA RIDING’S POETRY AND POETICS RODRIGO GARCIA LOPES UNIVERSIDADE FEDERAL DE SANTA CATARINA 2000 Supervising Professor: José Roberto O’Shea This thesis proposes a revisionist reading of contemporary poetry by examining the case of one of the most forgotten American writers of the twentieth century: Laura (Riding) Jackson (1901-1991). The goal is to demonstrate that Riding not only had a definite and unique poetics, but that hers stands as one of the most extreme and paradoxical stances in Anglo-American modernism, to the point of abandoning the writing of poetry in 1938. Drawing on the concept of “canon formation” as well as the Foucaultian concepts of “discourse” and “author-fiinction,” I investigate the construction of the modem Anglo-American poetic canon, recovering the context and the circumstances of Riding’s “disappearance.” While I cover the “discourses” on poetry circulating in the first half of the twentieth century—Pound’s (“imagism”), Eliot’s (“dissociation of sensibility,” “impersonality,” and “tradition”), and the New Critics’ (“organic unity,” “ambiguity”)—^I offer a critical overview of alternative modernisms being articulated at the time. My intention is to demonstrate that Riding’s poems are telling expressions of a writer to whom “the mind thinking becomes the active force of the poem,” to use Charles Bernstein’s apt formulation. Among my findings is that the reasons for Riding’s non-canonization are many and complex: tlie hegemony of New VI Criticism, her voluntary exile from the literary scene (where reputations are made or thwarted), her refusal to be anthologized and to be explained in critical terms other dian her own. All tiiese factors, together with the “difficulty” of her poetry, contributed to make of Riding “the greatest lost poet of American poetry,” as wrote Kennedi Rexroth. Helped by the insights of two important critics of American poetry, Charles Bernstein and Marjorie Perloff, I defend that Riding’s “poetry of mind”—where what is at stake is that which we think to be our reality—represents a radical shift in modernist poetics from an image-centered to a language-centered poetry. Focusing on the conscious experience and die durational time of thought present in her poems, I conclude that Ridings mindscapes have the precise goal of identifying a universal fact: as human and thinking beings, we are in a permanent condition called language. Número de páginas: 228 Número de palavras: 73.658 V ll RESUMO Esta tese propõe uma leitura revisionista da poesia contemporânea através do exame do caso de um dos mais esquecidos escritores norte-americanos do século XX: Laura (Riding) Jackson (1901-1991). O objetivo é demonstrar que Riding não apenas possuía uma poética definida e singular, mas que ela permanece uma das instâncias mais extremas e paradoxais do modernismo anglo-americano, a ponto de Riding abandonar a escrita da poesia em 1938. Recorrendo a conceitos de “formação do cânone” bem como às noções de “discurso” e “função do autor”, em Foucault, investigo a construção do cânone da poesia moderna anglo-americana, recuperando o contexto e as circunstâncias da ocultação de Riding. Enquanto cubro os “discursos” poéticos em circulação na primeira metade do século XX— o “imagismo” de Pound, a “dissociação da sensibilidade”, “impersonalidade” e “tradição” de Eliot, a “unidade orgância” e “ambigüidade” da Nova Crítica—ofeçeço um panorama crítico de modernismos alternativos sendo articulados à época. Minha intenção é demonstrar que os poemas de Riding são expressões vigorosas de um escritor para quem “a mente pensando se toma a força ativa do poema”, para usar a apta formulação de Charles Bernstein. Entre minhas descobertas sobre as várias e complexas razões que levaram à não-canonização de Riding estão a hegemonia da Nova Crítica, o exílio voluntário de Riding da cena literária (onde são feitas ou desfeitas as reputações), sua recusa em ser antologiada, bem como em ser explicada em termos críticos que não os dela. Todos esses fatores, mais a “dificuldade” de sua poesia, contribuíram para fazer de Riding “a maior poeta esquecida da poesia norte-americana”, como escreveu Kenneth Rexroth. Ajudado pelos insights de dois importantes críticos de poesia norte-americana. Charles Bernstein e Marjorie Perioff, defendo que a “poesia da mente” de Riding—onde o que está Vlll em jogo é que o que pensamos ser a nossa realidade— ^representa uma mudança radical no paradigma da poética modernista: de uma poesia centrada na imagem para uma poesia centrada na linguagem. Focalizando a experiência consciente e o tempo duracional do pensamento presente em seus poemas, concluo que as “pensagens” de Riding têm o objetivo preciso de constatar um fato universal: enquanto seres humanos e pensantes, estamos numa condição permanente chamada linguagem. IX TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements.............................................................................................................................iv Abstract.................................................................................................................................................. v Resume.................................................................................................................................................vii INTRODUCTION: TOPICS FOR A READING OF LAURA RIDING ....................1 A Foucaultian Viewpoint.................................................................................................................... 1 The Problem o f the Canon................................................................................................................. 5 Open Reading................................................................................................................... ..................13 Modern/Modemism/Avant-Garde............................................................................................... 17 The Case o f Laura Riding................................................................................................................. 24 A Life Dedicated to Language.........................................................................................................34 CHAPTER 2: THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE POETIC CANON OF MODERNIST POETRY ...... ....................................................................................................39 Ezra Pound..........................................................................................................................................40 T. S. Eliot and the Impersonal Theory o f Poetry........................................................................ 41 Dissociation o f Sensibility................................................................................................................ 45 The New Criticism.............................................................................................................................51 Close Reading......................................................................................................................................54 Problems witli the New Criticism...................................................................................................56
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