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Randolph Bourne on education

Item Type Authors Publisher Rights text; Thesis-Reproduction (electronic) Horsman, Susan Alice, 1937- The University of Arizona. Copyright © is held by the author. Digital access to this material is made possible by the University Libraries, University of Arizona. Further transmission, reproduction or presentation (such as public display or performance) of protected items is prohibited except with permission of the author.

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http://hdl.handle.net/10150/317858

RANDOLPH BOURNE ON EDUCATION by
Susam Horsmam

A Thesis Submitted t© the Faculty of the
DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY
In Partial Fulfillment of the.Requirements
For the Degree of

MASTER OF ARTS
In the Graduate College THE. UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA

19 6 5
STATEMENT BY AUTHOR
This thesis has been submitted in partial fulfillment of requirements for an advanced degree at the University of Arizona and is deposited in the University Library to be made available to borrowers under rules of the Library0

Brief quotations from this, thesis are allowable without special permission, provided that accurate acknowledgment of source is made. Requests for permission for extended.quotation from or reproduction of this manuscript in whole or in part may be granted by the head of the major department or the Dean of the Graduate College when in his judgment the proposed use of the material is in the interests of scholarship. In all other instances, however, permission must be obtained from the author.

APPROVAL BY THESIS DIRECTOR
This thesis has been approved on the date shown below?

. J. WILSON
Professor of History

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  • Jj'ate

PREFACE

It is net difficult to select an episode in history that is merely ninteresting1’0 Many of us are sufficiently gossips and meddlers to discover that probing past events and lives is, in many respects, a pleasant diversion» Randolph Bourne’s career bore many aspects of martyrdom as well as a touch of Bohemianism, and the study of his life easily becomes seductive and the fine, lucid style of his essays and criticism infectious„ It would be difficult not to sympathize with and admire Bourne, and equally as difficult not to become impatient, in time, with his naivety and petulance» Perhaps Bourne did have the ’’prophetic” destiny he claimed for himself, the enigmatic quality of ’’charisma”o
One escape from mere sympathy is to attempt to set
Bourne firmly in his historical context, and the most obvious setting is alongside John Dewey, his professor at Columbia, his philosophical mentor, and, at last, his rival for the position of intellectual leadership in the editorial offices of Hew York’s literary publications0 A comparison of Bourne’s and Dewey’s ideas is historically significant, also, because of the frequency of their selections of the same topics for discussion— socialism, democracy, liberalism, military conscription, America’s foreign policy and public education0
Their debates provide perspective oa the problems and proposals that characteristically are compiled to describe the elusive movement called wPr©gressivism1?o Terms, such as localism, middle class, progress and, especially, liberalism, become both more specific and complex with the realization that the ^Progressive^ generation had arrived at no consensus of definitions. Still they considered such concepts, vague as they were, the basic elements of a formula that would assure a democratic future for America. Bourne and Dewey— and, most likely, Herbert Croly, Charles Beard, Walter Lippman, ?an Wyek Brooks and Lewis Mumford— agreed on one essential point, that America had not yet achieved democracy. They thought of themselves as advance agents of an evolving reality. To make the world safe for democracy was not, in the thinking of these men, to conserve tradition but to insist on the future.
But Bourne fell out of step with Dewey, and with other Progressives, when he tried to envision and describe the promised house of many mansions. The Progressive movement was concerned with Americars democratic mission as a practical social problem. Bourne’s Utopianism was of another spirit than the instrumentally-oriented program of his contemporaries for political, economic and social revision. Bourne could net sustain his optimism about America’s promise because he lacked the circumspect attitude which was an integral part of the
Vqualified optimigm that made ^Progressivism” a hybrid phil©- sephy of practical ideals0
I would like to thank the Columbia University
Libraries for making readily available the Bourne Manuscript Collection, as well as their other facilities and source material; the University of Arizona Interlibrary Loan department; Professor Russell C0 Ewing, head of the History Department, and Professor Herman E„ Bateman, for their active interest in my academic efforts, and Professor Ro J= Wilson, for his guidance and encouragemento

TABLE OF CONTENTS

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I, FROM PROPHECY TO RESIGNATION Ho MAN OF A NEW FAITH = e « © » <, . © « -„ © = « 35 III© WITHOUT HONOR ©= © © © © © © © © © © =© © © ©

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I?© CONCLUSION

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vi
ABSTRACT

Randolph Bourne$ a literary and social critic in
New York from 1911 until 1918s when he died, achieved most of his notoriety as the result of a series of essays opposing the war and the Progressives<= Early in his career Bourne had been interested in radical political theory as the solution t,o the materialism of middle class America, but he became disillusioned at the outbreak of war in Europe, when the people in whom he had hoped proved to be an inarticulate mass subject to the manipulation of the ruling classes*
As a contributor to The Seven Arts and The Dial magazines, he allied himself, rather, with a new literary philosophy which proposed that the artist assume the responsibility of inspiring the gregarious masses to a sense of dedicated individualism, a necessary prerequisite for the evolution of America to democracy* Bourne?s pacifist essays blamed the Progressive leadership for abandoning their responsibility and allowing America to drift into the arena of imperialist polities* Bourne himself, however, abandoned his dreams for a revolutionized social order* His final thoughts were that progress toward a rejuvenated America could be measured only in terms of personal integrity*

Ic FROM PROPHECY TO RESIGNATION
Even before Randolph Bourne died, his reputation had some of the qualities of a mytho His body was maimed, and to himself and to his friends the physical distortion seemed literally to embody the distortion of the times» Arthur Maemahon, a classmate of Bourne8s at Columbia University, once told how peasant women in Italy would cross themselves in awe when Bourne visited their village streets, and crowds of children trail in wonder after the young stranger from America0 Bourne appeared as fia bird-like apparition® to Van Wyck Brooks when he first met Bourne, wrapped in a German student’s cloak«• James Oppenheim, editor of The Seven Arts, recalled recoiling in horror when Bourne first introduced himself, seeking a position on the magazine’s editorial board=
I shall never forget how I first had to overcome my repugnance when X saw that child’s body, the humped back, the longish, almost medieval face, with a sewed up mouth, and an ear gone awry* But he wore a cape, carried himself with an air, arid then you listened to marvellous speech, often brilliant, holding you, spell-bound, and looked into blue eyes

  • as young as a Spring dawn,
  • ‘

Maemahon, who was also Bourne’sEuropean traveling companion, thought that Bourne’s deformed ear was almost more repulsive than his hunched back. Bourne had a well-formed forehead,

mose and eyes- and a powerfuls large jaw* But, according to Macmahon, a receeding chin bothered Bourne more than anything about his appearance*^
Bourners hunched back was a defect almost from birth, but aside from the fact that he was born whole, no one, apparently, knew for certain the exact circumstances of his disfigurement* Some believed that, as an infant, he fell from a high window; others, that the spinal deformity resulted from tuberculosis which he contracted at the age of four*2 Just as Bourne never discussed his physical disability, he rarely talked about his father, Charles Bourne, who left his family when Bourne was almost too young to remember him* Charles Bourne, whose ancestors were traditionally ministers, apparently was engaged in business enterprises that failed* Macmahon, reminiscing, ^assumed® that there was a divorce and surmised that "from some ?indeterminate date* the small Bourne family was virtually subsidized*" Randolph Bourne and his sister, Natalie, just two years younger than he, used to

Columbia University Libraries, Randolph Bourne
Manuscript Collection, Arthur Macmahon to Louis Filler, undated; All letters cited hereafter are part of this collection; Manuscripts from the collection will be designated, "Bourne MSS;" James Oppenheim, "The Story of the Seven Arts," The American.Mercury* 20 (June, 1930), 163;and Van Wyck Brooks, ed*, The History of a Literary Radical and Other Papers (New York: S* A* Russell,

^Agnes Delima to Dorothy Teall, undated; B* S<
Bates, "Randolph Bourne," The Dictionary of American Biographs* eds=, Allen Johnson and Dumas Malone, (new York: Charles Seribner*s Sons, 1937) H, 4$6* visit with their father after the separation, until Charles Bourne withdrew from their lives and became a part of Bourne?s somewhat obscure originso3
His mother, Sara, ”a well-bred person, kindly, genuine, quite naive,1*and "vaguely ineffectual," brought her two sons and two daughters home with her to Bloomfield, Hew Jersey, when Bourne, the eldest, was eight years old. Her family was an old and respected pillar of the quiet town, some thirty miles distant from Hew York. Its sons were traditionally lawyerso The family regularly attended the Presbyterian church and consistently voted Bepubliean<A Once, after he had reached his years of discretion. Bourne described his youngest sister, with a shudder for what might have been his fate, as "a passionate vulgarian*11•. She was virtuously indignant, he said, at any deviation from the norm of popular music, the movies, Chamber*s novels, Billy Sunday, musical comedy, tennis, anti-suffragism and the rest of the combination that makes up the healthy, hearty, happy young normal person of the well-brought up family of the day of the middle classo5

3Agnes DeLima to Dorothy Teall, undated; Macmahon to
Filler, undatedo

^Tbido; Carl Besek, ed»,War and the Intellectuals,
Essays by Bandolph So Bourne„ 1915-1919 (Hew York: Harper Torehbooks, 1964) viiio

^Bourne to Elisabeth So Sargeant, June 9, 1915°
4
Bourne remembered that as a child he always walked to church at the side of his soft and comfortable grandmother, fearful the whole way that they would be lateo They never were, but he always remembered the relief he experienced once they were seated in their pew in time to hear the minister^ voice begin its droneo He remembered his grandmother’s home as *stifling The parlor was kept closed except on company occasions,

\

and the books, an ordinary collection of the ^classics,® were locked inside glass doors» There was a long, curved banister, but he was forbidden to slide down it— a ruling he made bold, on occasion, to defy. *It was one instance, he wrote, ’’where his fiercely clutching guilt melted away before the thrill of that slideo
But as a whole, Bourne recalled, his childhood was like the long, hot summer afternoons on which he was made to sit quietly indoors with his mother and sistersc
He was suddenly conscious of time, endlessly flowing and yet somehow dreadfully static0 Nothing was ever going to happen again| he was as if alive in a tomboooo The world was a great vaccum with nothing to experience and nothing to do*

And somehow this ’’tedium vitae got transmuted,” in his mind, ’’into the colossal ennui of heavens”?
Bourne’s ruminations, written when he was a young man, about his childhood experiences were an attempt to de-

^Bourne, ’’Autobiographical Chapter,” The Dial, 60
(January, 192©), 1^21o

7Ibido

5scribe the pewer, in an immature, mind, of fear and the desire to conformo These were the instruments of terror used by his elders to mold his character according to traditional religious and social standards« He resented, for instance, having to memorize the Westminster catechism, especially the first response, MThe chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy him forevero11 ,fSomething, obscure, unconscious, revolted in him at the base eommereiality of the transaction0tf As a boy, he spent much guilt on his inability to cultivate a love for G©do His grandfather, the only old man with a long, white beard that he could picture, had always seemed clammy to him. He never objected to giving his Sunday School offering of pennies ^everyone to Jesus,n but at the same time, he never really cared. Sin, he remembered, was #a vague idea.* He would "screw up his muscles* but to no avail*— he was unable to make himself love God. And he was never fully convinced that "the thrill of that slide" down the banister was merely a joy ride to a place he had heard called perdition. The older generation with the powerful weapons of fear and ingratiating love at their disposal, he wrote, almost succeeded in turning out "a priggish® young man at the age of seventeen, with a built-in and indestructible control mechanism of guilt.9

^Bourne, "Autobiographical Chapter

9Bourne, "The History of a Literary Bqdical,""
Yale Beview. S (April, 1919)» 468=484o
6
Bourne described himself at the age of seventeen as
"priggishg" but his friend Maemahon thought that Bourne had been merely slow in maturingo He cited as an example the speech that Bourne delivered upon his graduation from Bloomfield High School, a speech about "Washington1s Campaigns in Hew Jerseyo" On the same night, June

2 8

, 1903, Maemahon, four years younger than Bourne, delivered a speech on the Battle of Trenton at his own grammar school graduationo Within a year, Maemahon claimed, he was "mortified at so trivial a themeo" Bourne, the high school graduate, however, was vain about his achievements in classical scholarship0 He could read Greek and Latin literature and despaired when he learned that his younger sister was reading a prose translation of the Odysseyo Translations were "implements of deadly sin that boys,used to cheat with," "sneaking entrances into the temple of lighto" At the age of seventeen, Bourne passed all his examinations for entrance to Princeton University, but financial difficulties prohibited him from enrolling= For the next six years, Bloomfield7s prize scholar worked for his livingo He was employed for three years as a secretary, then as an assistant in a pianola factory and finally as an accompanist in a vocal studioo-*-®

^Maemahon to Filler, undated| Van Wyck Brooks,
"Randolph Bourne," Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, edo, Eo Bo Ao Seligman (New Yorki The Macmillan Company, 1930), II,

6 5 8

.
7
Bemrne was 23 when he worn a scholarship and entered
Columbia University in 1909= Four years later he graduated with a master’s degree in sociology= The years at Columbia were a turning point in Bourne’s life. Teachers and students took second looks at ’’this misshapen gnomeo” Enrolled in a ’’History of Philosophy” course* Bourne* along with three other students* was selected by the professor* Frederick Woodbridge* to meet George Santayana at the old Faculty Club where they heard the distinguished philosopher read am unpublished essay on Shelley. Woodbridge recalled that in 1911 he suggested to Bourne that he answer an article which appeared in The Atlantic Monthly attacking the younger generation for being weak and morally insipid. Bourne’s response* an essay entitled ’’The Two Generations*” was published two years later with other essays in a book* Youth and Life. The essays were a declaration of independence on behalf of the younger genera-- tiom from the authoritarian moral code foisted upon it by its elders* entrenched within established institutions. The essays placed upon the youth the specific obligation of leading American society out of what Bourne thought was its materialistic morass* and on the pathway to a life of ’’creativity” and ’’adventure.” Bourne wrote*”We feel social injustice as our father’s felt personal sin.” The essays were inspirational in form and intent* and earned Bourne the reputation of a prophet, a leader of youth. He had dared to slide down the banister
Looking back on his college career* Bourne in 1915 advised a Bloomfield neighbor and Barnard student* Dorothy Teall* that
College is* in spite of everything* a place to grow* and you play fast and loose with yourself when you let yourself even speculate about dropping ito It's like stirring up the ground around your rootsall the timeo You can’t expect to grow unless you serenely drink up the sunlight and air* and soak yourself in this environmentooo<,I shall leave you with the comforting conviction that however much you struggle to mangle your destiny* it will probably get you yeto

Bourne’s conviction that he had a destiny, that he had ’’unsuspected powers of incompatibility with the real world,” was perhaps the most telling ’’growth” that unfolded during his years at Columbia0
I want to be a prophet, if only a miner one, he wrote ooool can almost see now that my path in life will be on the outside of things* poking holes in the holy, criticizing the established* satirizing the self-respecting and contentedo

-The career he envisioned for himself was as a social critic*

S 11

Frederick Voodbridge to Blanche Messite, September
5, 1937) Bourne* ’’The Two Generations,” The Atlantic Monthly, 10? (May, 1911)* 590-59$o The article which Bourne answered was by Cornelia A, F, Goner* ”A Letter to the Rising Generationo” Dixon Ross, wrote about Bourne’s contributions to The Columbia Monthly, ’’It would be stupid to compare them with any other undergraduate contributions as he was writing with the greatest authority and maturity on the most difficult subject—-the meaning of criticism* His ideas and their expression were even then,,,quite the equal of those of our foremost professors, Dixon Ross to Blanche Messite* 193$0
9not a mere impotent iconoclast<, A critic ought to hammer out mew moral armor to replace the fortresses of tradition he set out to smash because they hid men from social issues with which they ought to grapple* He thoughtof criticism as an effort similar to describing the shadings of a landscape to a friend* It was the attempt to express that appreciation, conscious^ however, of its limitations, and indeed its impossibilities* It is struggling heroically and resolutely up a path to a goal that it knows itwill never aehieve* And yet somehow that march,predestined as it is to failure, aids countless wayfarers, whose eyes would otherwise be fixed stonily on the ground to see the vision at the goal and be glad*

The life of a critic was a dedicated life, as Bourne interpreted it, the life of service and sacrifice he felt called

And yet as he concluded his studies at Columbia and took leave of campus life, he confided to a close friend, nI never felt as uninspired as I do now* My graduate work has just about ruined me, I guess, unfitted me for literary labor and not trained me for scientific sociology*’7 Referring to The Atlantic Monthly as his "good angel," having "poked" topics at him through his college years, he admitted desperately that he was speechless, bereft of ideas, cut loose and adrift* Bourne’s vocational dilemma was to revolve around

1OBourne to Dorothy Teall, July 9$, 1915; to Alyse
Gregory, July 24$ 1915; to Prudence Winterrowd, May 8, 1913$ and to Carl Zigrosser, March 16, 1913*
10 his conception that an effective life was divorced from the ivory tower "scholarly labor" of the intellectualso "I get restless over details and indignant with academic attitudes," he wroteo He thought that facts and research were dull and confining and that theorizing or prophecy would be more significant in providing intellectual "control" ever American so= cietyo But he admitted also that he suffered from "shamefaced timorousness" and faked "a Captain Kidd swaggero" His imagination, or vision, of the new social order, he complained, was cloudyo "low this is no attitude for a would-be man-ofletters, a would-be man with a message, who wants to be a preacher, and even a prophetd"^3
Bourne was, in fact, a religious man, although he summarily rejected Protestantism as an institutionalization of the guilt mechanism with which the older generation trapped youth0 Guilt was merely the product of playing an individual’s inclination to conform against his fear that he might be unacceptable to his group» Bourne conceived his role as "a prophet of youth" in the form of a disseminator of the gospel of the truly free democratic society which
, America promisedo That society would emancipate its people from all the many institutions held together by fear and

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    THE UNIVERSITE OF OKLAHOMA GRADUATE COLLEGE M ANALYSIS OF JOHN DOS PASSOS’ U.S.A. A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE FACULTY in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHE BE F. UILLIAIl NELSON Norman, Oklahoma 1957 All ANALÏSIS OF JOHN DOS PASSOS' U.S.A. APPROVED 3Ï ijl^4 DISSERTATION COmTTEE TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter Page I. THE CRITICS....................................... 1 II. THE CAST .......................................... III. CLOSE-UP .......................................... ho IV. DOCUMENTARY ....................................... 63 V. MONTAGE........................................... 91 VI. CROSS-CUTTING ...................................... Il4 VII. SPECIAL EFFECTS .................................... 13o VIII. WIDE ANGLE LENS .................................... l66 IX. CRITIQUE .......................................... 185 APPENDK ................................................. 194 BIBLIOGRAPHY ............................................. 245 111 ACKNOWLEDGEI'IENT Mjr thanks are due all those members of the Graduate Faculty of the Department of English who, knowingly and unknowingly, had a part in this work. My especial thanks to Professor Victor Elconin for his criticism and continued interest in this dissertation are long overdue. Alf ANALYSIS OF JOHN DOS PASSOS' U.S.A. CHAPTER I THE CRITICS The 42nd Parallel, the first volume of the trilogy, U.S.A., was first published on February 19, 1930- It was followed by 1919 on March 10, 1932, and The Big Money on August 1, 1936. U.S.A., which combines these three novels, was issued on January 27, 1938. There is as yet no full-length critical and biographical study of Dos Passes, although one is now in the process of being edited for publication.^ His work has, however, attracted the notice of the leading reviewers and is discussed in those treatises dealing with the American novel of the twentieth cen­ tury.
  • Van Wyck Brooks and the Progressive Frame of Mind 30

    Van Wyck Brooks and the Progressive Frame of Mind 30

    van wyck brooks and the progressive frame of mind peter w. dowel I It has long been recognized that Van Wyck Brooks's America's Coming-of-Age (1915) and its companion piece Letters and Leadership (1918) captured the insurgent mood of a young generation of intellec­ tuals who themselves came of age with an outburst of critical and artistic activity in the years just prior to America's entry into World War I.1 To those of his contemporaries espousing a literature in touch with the wellsprings of modern American life, Brooks gave, as one of them put it, "an afflatus inchoate, vague, sentimental," but one that brought vital energy and creative focus to their cause.2 Although his demand for a truly national literature growing out of a healthy national culture was hardly new, harking back to Emerson and Whitman among others, Brooks's vigorous restatement of this theme expressed particularly the concerns of the present moment: a belief in self-expression as an ideal of personal growth and the basis for a flourishing artistic tradition; a sense of social responsibility, often tinged by some form of political radicalism; an emphasis on freedom, experiment and creativity in all phases of the national life, and especially a youthful rejection of all that smacked of the "old America." The diverse ideas and interests of Randolph Bourne, Floyd Dell, Max Eastman, Waldo Frank, Walter Lippmann, John Reed, Paul Rosenfeld and Harold Stearns, to name but a few, indelibly stamped what Brooks called "the newness." Having come into their own at the high-water mark of the Progressive era, these young men felt that the current reform agitation had fallen far short of creating a new social and cultural order.
  • Glastonbury Companion

    Glastonbury Companion

    John Cowper Powys’s A Glastonbury Romance: A Reader’s Companion Updated and Expanded Edition W. J. Keith December 2010 . “Reader’s Companions” by Prof. W.J. Keith to other Powys works are available at: http://www.powys-lannion.net/Powys/Keith/Companions.htm Preface The aim of this list is to provide background information that will enrich a reading of Powys’s novel/ romance. It glosses biblical, literary and other allusions, identifies quotations, explains geographical and historical references, and offers any commentary that may throw light on the more complex aspects of the text. Biblical citations are from the Authorized (King James) Version. (When any quotation is involved, the passage is listed under the first word even if it is “a” or “the”.) References are to the first edition of A Glastonbury Romance, but I follow G. Wilson Knight’s admirable example in including the equivalent page-numbers of the 1955 Macdonald edition (which are also those of the 1975 Picador edition), here in square brackets. Cuts were made in the latter edition, mainly in the “Wookey Hole” chapter as a result of the libel action of 1934. References to JCP’s works published in his lifetime are not listed in “Works Cited” but are also to first editions (see the Powys Society’s Checklist) or to reprints reproducing the original pagination, with the following exceptions: Wolf Solent (London: Macdonald, 1961), Weymouth Sands (London: Macdonald, 1963), Maiden Castle (ed. Ian Hughes. Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1990), Psychoanalysis and Morality (London: Village Press, 1975), The Owl, the Duck and – Miss Rowe! Miss Rowe! (London: Village Press, 1975), and A Philosophy of Solitude, in which the first English edition is used.
  • In Defense of Academic Free Dom and Faculty Governance: John Dewey, the 100Th Anniversary of the AAU P, and the Threat of Corpor

    In Defense of Academic Free Dom and Faculty Governance: John Dewey, the 100Th Anniversary of the AAU P, and the Threat of Corpor

    ARTICLE IN DEFENSE OF ACADEMIC FReeDOM AND FACULTY GOVERNANCE: JOHN DEWEY, THE 100TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE AAUP, AND THE THREAT OF CORPORATIZATION Nicholas J. Eastman and Deron Boyles ABSTRACT This essay situates John Dewey in the context of the founding of the Ameri- can Association of University Professors (AAUP) in 1915. We argue that the 1915 Declaration of Principles, together with World War I, provides contemporary academics important historical justification for rethinking academic freedom and faculty governance in light of neoliberalism and what we argue is an increased corporatization of higher education in the United States. By revisiting the founding of the AAUP and John Dewey’s role in the various debates surrounding the establishment of the organi- zation—including his broader role as a public intellectual confronted by war, questions of duty and freedom, and the shifting boundaries of the professoriate—we argue that professors today should demonstrate aca- demic freedom and reclaim faculty governance for the public good over private interests. INTRODUCTION On the verge of the one hundredth anniversary of the founding of the American As- sociation of University Professors (AAUP), we examine the organization’s focus on academic freedom, shared governance, and the challenges the AAUP faced during its early years. The history is a fairly uncontested one: higher education in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in the United States was the context for the struggle over academic freedom and shared governance. Dismissed professors, resignations by colleagues, and the struggle of professionalization characterize the period.1 A century later, we wonder about the state of academic freedom and shared governance.
  • Limestone and the Literary Imagination: a World-Ecological Comparison of John Cowper Powys and Kamau Brathwaite

    Limestone and the Literary Imagination: a World-Ecological Comparison of John Cowper Powys and Kamau Brathwaite

    ORE Open Research Exeter TITLE Limestone and the literary imagination: a world-ecological comparison of John Cowper Powys and Kamau Brathwaite AUTHORS Campbell, C JOURNAL Powys Journal DEPOSITED IN ORE 03 April 2020 This version available at http://hdl.handle.net/10871/120529 COPYRIGHT AND REUSE Open Research Exeter makes this work available in accordance with publisher policies. A NOTE ON VERSIONS The version presented here may differ from the published version. If citing, you are advised to consult the published version for pagination, volume/issue and date of publication The Powys Journal XXX (2020) “Limestone and the Literary Imagination: a world-ecological comparison of John Cowper Powys and Kamau Brathwaite” Chris Campbell, University of Exeter This paper represents an attempt to think through some of the connections – concrete and abstracted -- between the work of the Powyses, Caribbean literature, and world literary theory. It affords a chance to test out some theoretical approaches for reading literature of the English South West (often typified as local, provincial or even parochial) within a global, environmental framework. To begin, I want to introduce some of the salient features of world-ecological literary comparison: first, by recalling the most important and empirical textual link between the world of the Powyses and the Caribbean region (focussing in on Llewelyn Powys’s perception of the connections between the islands of Portland and Barbados); and then, by bringing into fuller dialogue the work of John Cowper Powys with that of Bajan poet and historian Kamau Brathwaite. I suggest that this pairing of authors opens up new ways of reading literary works and also produces new ways of comprehending the connected ecologies of the limestone formations of South Dorset (Portland’s quarries, say, or the chalk downland of the ridgeway and Maiden Castle) with the coral capped limestone outcrops of the Eastern Caribbean.
  • Historic Library & Rare Book

    Historic Library & Rare Book

    HISTORIC LIBRARY & RARE BOOK COLLECTION SHERBORNE SCHOOL THE POWYS LIBRARY Albert Reginald POWYS (1881-1936). Bor The Green (c) 1895-1899. A.R. Powys, Repair of Ancient Buildings (J.M. Dent & Sons Ltd., 1929) A.R. Powys, From the Ground Up: Collected Papers of A.R. Powys. With an introduction by John Cowper Powys (JM Dent & Sons Ltd., 1937). A.R. Powys, The English House (The Powys Society, 1992). John Cowper POWYS (1872-1963). Wildman’s House (Mapperty) 1886-1891. John Cowper Powys, After My Fashion (London, Pan Books Ltd., 1980). John Cowper Powys, All or Nothing (London, Macdonald, 1960). John Cowper Powys, All or Nothing (London, Village Press, 1973). Presented to Sherborne School Library by M.R. Meadmore, April 1984. John Cowper Powys, Autobiography (London, Macdonald, 1967). With an introduction by J.B. Priestley. John Cowper Powys, The Brazen Head (London, Macdonald, 1969). John Cowper Powys, In Defence of Sensuality (London, Victor Gollancz Ltd., 1930). John Cowper Powys, The Diary of John Cowper Powys 1931 (London, Jeffrey Kwintner, 1990). John Cowper Powys, Dorothy M. Richardson (London, Village Press, 1974). Presented to Sherborne School Library by Gerald Pollinger, September 1977. John Cowper Powys, Dostoievsky (London, John Lane The Bodley Head, 1946). John Cowper Powys, Ducdame (London, Village Press, 1974). John Cowper Powys, A Glastonbury Romance (London, Macdonald, 1966). John Cowper Powys, Homer and the Aether (London, Macdonald, 1959). Presented to Sherborne School Library by Gerald Pollinger, September 1977. John Cowper Powys, The Inmates (London, Village Press, 1974). Presented to Sherborne School Library by M.R. Meadmore, April 1984. John Cowper Powys, In Spite of.