ABSTRACT Human Hagiography: the Saint Figure in Modernist British
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ABSTRACT Human Hagiography: The Saint Figure in Modernist British Literature Denise Galloway Crews, Ph.D. Mentor: Richard Rankin Russell, Ph.D. Somewhat unexpectedly, saints’ lives provided rich material for literary writing in the first half of the 20th century or modernist period. This study examines commonalities in how George Bernard Shaw’s Saint Joan, T. S. Eliot’s Murder in the Cathedral, and Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited interpreted and portrayed saints’ lives and in how they used allusions to the saints to create a particular type of character, what I call the modernist saint figure, and a particular genre, what I call “human” hagiography. Some of these characters are actual saints, but others are fictional characters who possess the traditional characteristics of a medieval saint while bearing the marks of the modernist period. Many authors of the prewar and interwar period seem particularly interested in overturning prejudice against the medieval and the religious, instead appropriating spirituality as a contrary to some tendencies of modern thought and modern society. Specifically, these works often explore spirituality, subjectivity, humanism, compassion, aestheticism, and femininity as opposed to rationalism, legalism, absolutism, ideology, statism, and patriarchy. Although modernists often emphasized newness in all things and the breakdown of civilization, these works do not reject tradition, instead reinterpreting stories and beliefs with an emphasis on artistic innovation and individual authenticity. One of the most interesting aspects of this modernist “hagiography” is that it does not idealize the saint but instead shows his or her moral failure and reluctance towards spiritual commitment. That this reluctance is overcome emphasizes the powerful compulsion of love and compassion in the saint while also establishing ordinariness as necessary for the modernist saint. The process of becoming a saint is an irrational, i.e. supernatural, process, not the product of the will, self-control, or reason. Fate, providence, miracles, and grace are present and challenge modern materialism. The saint figure is an individual, often at odds with institutions, even religious institutions, and with English notions of propriety and modern notions of the state. Spontaneity and paradox, as well as social exile, freedom, suffering, and disillusionment, are all important motifs. The freedom and exhilaration of Dionysian experience is an important analogy for spirituality and an essential component of modernism. Human Hagiography: The Saint Figure in Modernist British Literature by Denise Galloway Crews, B.A., M.A. A Dissertation Approved by the Department of English ______________________________________ Dianna M. Vitanza, Ph.D., Chairperson Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of Baylor University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Approved by the Dissertation Committee ____________________________________ Richard Rankin Russell, Ph.D., Chairperson ____________________________________ Phillip J. Donnelly, Ph.D. ____________________________________ Jeffrey S. Hamilton, Ph.D. ____________________________________ Jay B. Losey, Ph.D. ____________________________________ Ralph C. Wood, Ph.D. Accepted by the Graduate School May 2014 _________________________________ J. Larry Lyon, Ph.D., Dean Page bearing signatures is kept on file in the Graduate School. Copyright © 2014 by Denise Galloway Crews All rights reserved TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS…………………………………………….…………………vii DEDICATION…………………………………………………….……………………...ix CHAPTER 1: Introduction: The Modernist Saint: The Exile from Polite Society……….1 The Non-Orthodox Saint…………………………………………………………20 Chapter Abstracts………………………………………………………………...23 CHAPTER 2: “She did come from God”: Shaw’s Heretic Saint as Modernist Genius....26 Joan’s Virtuous Pride…………………………………………………………….31 Joan’s Miracles: “The girl herself is a bit of a miracle”…………………………36 Imagination and Ideology………………………………………………………..40 Irrationalism and the Saint……………………………………………………….49 Joan and Gender………………………………………………………………….58 The Dauphin as Cowardly Saint….……………………………………………...62 The English Soldier as Ruffian Saint…………………………………………….67 Shaw’s Preface and Modernity…………………………………………………..81 Shaw’s Modernist Rejection of Realism…………………………………………94 CHAPTER 3: “Where is England?”: T. S. Eliot’s Disillusioned and Suffering Saints...104 England as the Wasteland………………………………………………………113 The Chorus, the Seasons, & Suffering………………………………………….117 The Violent Peace of the Christmas Sermon…………………………………...138 The Tempters, Time, and the Will…………………………………………...…142 The Knights, the State, and “Order”……………………………………………159 The Priests and Survival………….…………………………………………….174 The Hope of the Chorus and the Conversion of the Priests…………………….182 CHAPTER 4: “Abjuring the realm”: Evelyn Waugh’s Unlikely Fictional Saints……..189 Edmund Campion and the Reformation………………………………………..206 The Flytes as Unlikely Saints…………………………………………………..208 Anti-English Sainthood…………………………………………………………217 Remoteness and Agelessness…………………………………………………...227 Vocation and Work……………………………………………………………..230 Emptiness and Charm…………………………………………………………..241 Leisure and Happiness………………………………………………………….253 Luxury and Suffering…………………………………………………………...259 v Feminine Sainthood…………………………………………………………….263 Alcoholism and Freedom……………………………………………………….265 Naughtiness and Sainthood..........………………………………………………283 Providence and the Reluctant Saint…………………………………………….286 CHAPTER 5: Conclusion: The Paradoxes of the Modernist Saint………………….....289 ENDNOTES….…………………………………………………………………...........296 WORKS CITED………………………………………………………………………..302 vi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank my advisor, Dr. Richard Rankin Russell, for being a great teacher of literature who models both precision and enthusiasm to his students. As an advisor, he combines sincere encouragement with accurate criticism, and both are needed. I would also like to thank my other professors at Baylor University for so clearly articulating their thoughtful perspectives on faith and literature; they have deepened my understanding of both. Thank you to my wonderful mentors in the M.A. program at Grand Valley State University, Dr. Avis Hewitt and Dr. Ben Lockerd. They embody the type of professor— and person—I would like to be. Thanks also to Dr. William Cohen, Dr. Marc Baer, and Dr. Julie Kipp at Hope College for challenging me and inspiring me as an impressionable college youth. Thank you to Dr. Cohen for making it his business to teach research and writing to undergraduates and for being a true friend through the years. Thank you to Mrs. Liz Volpe at Lahser High School in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, for enabling me to discover both literary analysis and Oscar Wilde. Without the generosity of the Maley family—Ruby, Kathleen, and Pete—I would not have had the courage or the push to start graduate school. They, and it, have been an immense blessing. My friends in Holland: Melissa Lam, Rachel Henderson, and Heather Swier, have reminded me through the years that “I’m not really a waitress.” Tony Reed, Thomas vii Nikkel, Laura Senti, and the rest of the book club are also responsible for the intellectual enjoyment and confidence that enabled this dissertation. I was trying to create a perpetual book club by coming to graduate school. It’s only too bad I couldn’t move the entire town of Holland with me. Peggy Maley and Matthew Galloway, my parents, have always generously provided their love, support, encouragement, and advice. With them as parents, it seemed inevitable that I would earn an advanced degree or two—or at least that I would take up an avid Scrabble or debate hobby. Thank you to my sister Erin Groeber, and to her children, Seannie, Jamesie, and Annalisa, for their love. Without Erin, I wouldn’t have made it, truly. I hope Seannie will be proud of us “doctors of literature.” Thanks to Cody Groeber for inspiring me as a reader and for being one of the nicest brothers-in-law around. The theme of this dissertation was inspired by the life of my brother, Sean Galloway, who was unexpected and inspiring to everyone who encountered him. Thank you to him for forcing me to probe beyond the surface, to question my assumptions, and for raising the question of spirituality, even in polite company. Last, thanks to Michael for making this sojourn worth it, for having a vision of happiness, and for sharing life with me and Jane. I look forward to our imminent adventures and to your success. viii DEDICATION To Michael and Jane ix CHAPTER ONE Introduction: The Modernist Saint: The Exile from Polite Society Is religion, especially orthodox Christianity, compatible with an examination of modernist literature? Orthodoxy may seem irrelevant in the period from roughly 1900- 1945. Society seemed to have lost a sense of the real presence and action of God in the world, whether through grace, providence, or the miraculous, and in England the church seemed to be merely an extension of the secular state, irrelevant to actual life. A memorable scene in Evelyn Waugh’s A Handful of Dust (1934) exemplifies this absence. Tony Last has lost his son in a hunting accident, and describes a visit from the local vicar: “I only wanted to see him about arrangements. He tried to be comforting. It was very painful … after all the last thing one wants to talk about at a time like this is religion” (158). The loss of real religious faith was actually lamented by imaginative writers. In “The Decay of Lying” (1889), Oscar Wilde attributes