A University of Sussex PhD thesis Available online via Sussex Research Online: http://sro.sussex.ac.uk/ This thesis is protected by copyright which belongs to the author. This thesis cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the Author The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the Author When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given Please visit Sussex Research Online for more information and further details Pragmatic Criticism: Women and Femininity in the Inauguration of Academic English Studies in the U.K., 1900-1950 Natalie Francesca Wright Ph.D. University of Sussex August 2020 2 I hereby declare that this thesis has not been and will not be, submitted in whole or in part to another University for the award of any other degree. Signature: ……………………………………… 3 University of Sussex Natalie Francesca Wright Doctorate of Philosophy Pragmatic Criticism: Women and Femininity in the Inauguration of Academic English Studies in the U.K., 1900-1950 This project looks at how gender operates in literary-critical values during the formation of U.K. English departments in the early twentieth century through the lives and work of three pioneering women scholars: Edith Morley, Caroline Spurgeon, and Q. D. Leavis. It argues that academic literary studies inculcated masculine critical rhetoric into the discipline, revolving around the conceptual pillars of stoicism, seriousness, and hard work, and that this rhetoric had a material impact on early women scholars. This project finds that these three women did not uphold the emerging critical paradigm, however, but that they produced work concerned with writers’ personal lives, socio-political contexts, and readerly emotion. In chapter one, I find that academia discriminates against Morley and Leavis using a gendered professional lexicon and that, correspondingly, these women are highly politicized workers with pioneer mentalities. In chapter two, I find that early male scholars use scientific discourse to promote unemotional and impersonal criticism as internal intellectual virtues. On the contrary, I find that Morley, Spurgeon, and Leavis perceive critical bias as a methodological issue and understate their own agency in their statistical work. In chapter three, I find that Spurgeon and Leavis represent collegiate environments using queer codes and tropes and respond to other writers’ representations of university life with paranoid criticism. In chapter four, I find that Morley and Spurgeon appreciate women novelists for representing feminine subject matter, whereas Leavis argues that they are valuable because they are serious and hard-working. My research interweaves textual analysis and material social history, using personal and institutional archives, life-writing, and published criticism. This project intervenes in the history of literary studies as it the first to look at early women scholars’ work in tandem or at gender ideology in literary-critical discourse in their era, and it is the first project to narrate the birth of the discipline as it was experienced by women. 4 Contents List of Figures 5 Acknowledgements 6 Introduction: Gender in Early Academic Literary Studies 7 Women in Early Literary Studies 9 Three Pioneers 14 Women and Femininity 22 Existing Scholarship 27 Methodologies 35 Chapter Summaries 38 Chapter One: Rogue Professionals: Gender in Academic Literary Labours 42 Professionalism, Or…? 42 A Soft Subject 48 A Rogue Professor 52 A Profession So Arduous 56 The One Great Profession 60 The Partnership Principle 66 Pioneer Politics 69 Doubly Feminised 73 Chapter Two: Assays of Bias: Women’s Literary Statistics and Sociologies 75 Objective Criteria 75 A Personal Count 82 Images and Bodies 94 Biographical Sociology 99 Literary Anthropology 106 Partial Objectivity 114 Chapter Three: The Room Behind the Mind: Queer Collegiate Reading 116 Women in College 116 The Room is a Shrine 122 Crypto-lesbian Affections 129 An Academic Literary Taste 134 An Exceptionally Valuable Center of Hospitality 143 A Place That Alters All One’s Values 153 Chapter Four: Jane Austen, Miracle-worker: Women Canonising Novels 155 Raising Novels to the Level of Art 155 The Half-forgotten Sentimental Novel 159 The Nature of a Miracle 165 Trained to Reproduce 175 A Great Tradition? 181 More than a Classic 190 Conclusion: After the Pioneers 191 Bibliography 197 5 List of Figures Figure 1: Recipe for Meatballs and Sausage Casserole on the Back of Legal Correspondence 69 Figure 2: Chart Showing Frequency of Various Themes in Shakespeare’s Imagery p. 417 88 Figure 3: Index Card Box for Edward III 89 Figure 4: Index Card Showing an Image Categorised under ‘Books’ from Richard III 89 Figure 5: Handwritten Sub-Categories of Death Imagery 90 Figure 6: Handwritten Table Counting Images in Five Plays 91 Figure 7: Letter from Caroline Spurgeon to Meta Tuke, Friday November 29 1918 151 Figure 8: Letter from Caroline Spurgeon to Meta Tuke, 21st August 1922 151 Figure 9: Spurgeon’s Abbreviations in Manuscript Draft of Shakespeare’s Imagery 152 6 Acknowledgments My thanks go first and foremost to my supervisor, Professor Sara Crangle, who has seen me through this research over the past six years. It is difficult to count the ways in which her input has helped bring the project to completion, but I am extremely grateful for, among other things, her considered scrutiny and meticulous editorial eye, her unwavering support and conscientiousness. Dr Sam Solomon has continually gone above and beyond the remit of a secondary supervisor, reading extensive sections of my work and offering reading suggestions and stimulating discussions, especially on feminist theory and the nature of the university. Dr Natalia Cecire made incisive and clarifying comments on chapter two, to its substantial improvement. Many friends have contributed to the making of this thesis. David Miller has been a consistent source of friendship and intellectual provocation, bringing nuances to queer theory and giving extremely helpful comments on various parts of this project. Eleanor Careless has been there throughout for coffees, complaints, creeping late into poetry readings, and all kinds of literary discussions. Our reading group series in the first year of the Ph.D. germinated many of my ideas about feminism. Frith Taylor is a long-time friend and interlocutor with whom it has been delightful to share many hours and exchange anecdotes about queer literary ladies. Georgia Mulligan was a treasured lunchtime companion in the early days and read some of my work in its final form. Charlotte Terrell is another important luminary of the British Library days and offered her thoughts on the practice of reading. Katherine Parker-Hay has been a crucial support during the later stages of the PhD, particularly the period marked indelibly by the coronavirus pandemic. Other friends who deserve mention for seeing me through the past six, often difficult years are Ruth Watkinson, Ruzina Choudhury, and Abigail Williams. The participants of the Undercommons reading group in 2017 helped form many of my critiques of the university as an elite institution within the U.K.’s capitalist, cripplingly class- obsessed society. I deeply appreciate the many conversations with James Goodwin, in particular. Nat Raha introduced me to the radical possibilities of feminist historical-materialism and social reproduction theory. Halimah Manan carefully combed through chapter three. Derawan Rahmantavy kindly scrutinised chapter two. Callie Gardner generously offered comments on chapter four. I have also shared the plight and the pleasures of being a postgraduate student with Kiron Ward, Shalini Sengupta, and Alice Meyer. My counsellor, Sara Angelini, has been invaluable. Finally, I want to thank those members of my family who have patiently been there even when I have been overwhelmingly preoccupied with this project, as well as those who are no longer here, but encouraged me to read and learn in earlier years. This thesis was possible due to the financial support of a University of Sussex English Department Scholarship and a grant from the British Federation of Women Graduates. I am grateful to the McCarthy Fund for enabling a trip to the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C.. The project has benefitted from the kind assistance of several archivists and librarians, especially Hannah Westall at Girton College, who helped me navigate the college’s papers and its history. Q. D. Leavis’s and F. R. Leavis’s personal papers are reproduced with the permission of the Estate of Q. D. and F. R. Leavis. The English Director of Studies notebook is transcribed with the permission of the Mistress and Fellows of Girton College, Cambridge. I. A. Richards’s notebooks are transcribed by permission of the Master and Fellows of Magdalene College, Cambridge. Q. D. Leavis’s thesis and the minutes of the Faculty of English meetings are transcribed by permission of the Chancellor, Masters, and Scholars of the University of Cambridge. Edith Morley’s personal papers are transcribed with the permission of the University of Reading. 7 Introduction: Gender in Early Academic Literary Studies It is important to remember that the growth of English as an academic subject in the twentieth century was closely bound up with the increased educational opportunities for women, since a majority of the students of the subject, and a higher proportion of its teachers than in most other disciplines, have been women. Stefan Collini, 1998 The sociology of the academic world is a sadly neglected subject. Q. D. Leavis, 1943 Once, there was a time when poetry was for dandies, novels were for ladies, and reviewing books was a gentleman’s hobby. Then, around the turn of the twentieth century, the invention of academic English studies transformed the study of literature into a thoroughly manly pursuit.