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Cambridge University Press 0521841232 - T. S. Eliot and the Art of Collaboration Richard Badenhausen Frontmatter More information

T. S. ELIOT AND THE ART OF COLLABORATION

Richard Badenhausen examines the crucial role that collaboration with other writers played in the development of T. S. Eliot’s works from the earliest poetry and unpublished prose to the late plays. He demonstrates Eliot’s dependence on collaboration in order to create, and also his struggle to accept the implications of the process. In case-studies of Eliot’s collaborations, Badenhausen reveals for the first time the complexities of Eliot’s theory and practice of collaboration. Examining a wide range of familiar and uncollected materials, Badenhausen explores Eliot’s social, psychological, and textual encounters with collaborators such as , John Hayward, Martin Browne, and Vivien Eliot, among others. Finally, this study shows how Eliot’s later work increasingly accommodates his audience as he attempted to apply his theories of collaboration more broadly to social, cultural, and political concerns.

RICHARD BADENHAUSEN is Professor and Kim T. Adamson Chair at Westminster College in Salt Lake City, Utah, where he also directs the Honors Program. He has previously taught at Marshall University. His essays on Eliot have appeared in several books and journals, most recently in Gender, Desire, and Sexuality in T. S. Eliot, edited by Cassandra Laity and Nancy Gish (Cambridge, 2004). This is his first book.

© Cambridge University Press www.cambridge.org Cambridge University Press 0521841232 - T. S. Eliot and the Art of Collaboration Richard Badenhausen Frontmatter More information

T. S. ELIOT AND THE ART OF COLLABORATION

RICHARD BADENHAUSEN

© Cambridge University Press www.cambridge.org Cambridge University Press 0521841232 - T. S. Eliot and the Art of Collaboration Richard Badenhausen Frontmatter More information

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# Richard Badenhausen 2004

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First published 2004

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© Cambridge University Press www.cambridge.org Cambridge University Press 0521841232 - T. S. Eliot and the Art of Collaboration Richard Badenhausen Frontmatter More information

‘‘No writer is completely self-sufficient’’ T. S. Eliot, ‘‘The Function of Criticism’’ (1923)

© Cambridge University Press www.cambridge.org Cambridge University Press 0521841232 - T. S. Eliot and the Art of Collaboration Richard Badenhausen Frontmatter More information

Contents

Acknowledgments page viii List of abbreviations x

Introduction – Reaching the stillness of music 1 1 ‘‘Speaking as ourselves’’: Authorship, impersonality, and the creative process in the early essays 27 2 A conversation about ‘‘the longest poem in the English langwidge’’: Pound, Eliot, and 62 3 ‘‘Helping the poets ...write for the theatre’’: The transitional essays on collaboration, community, and drama 111 4 A dramatist and his midwives: Eliot’s collaborations in the theatre 142 5 The Possum and the ‘‘creating critick’’: Eliot’s collaboration with John Hayward 165 Conclusion – Placing collaboration in perspective: Voice and influence in the late essays 213

Notes 224 Index 249

vii

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Acknowledgments

This project has had many collaborators. I am grateful to Mrs. T. S. Eliot for her assistance during the writing of this book, and for her permission to examine and quote from unpublished writings. Quotations from the work of T. S. Eliot are the copyright of the Eliot Estate and Faber & Faber, and are included with their permission. Publication of a few of these items is also by permission of the Houghton Library, Harvard University. I would like to thank the following people who, during the research for this book, responded graciously to queries, offered illuminating sugges- tions, or helped secure materials: John Bodley, Jewel Spears Brooker, Ronald Bush, Michael Coyle, Greg Foster, Lyndall Gordon, William Harmon, Victor Li, Jim Loucks, Randy Malamud, William Matchett, James Miller, Christopher Ricks, Ronald Schuchard, Michael Stevens, and Michael Wood. I am grateful to the staffs of numerous libraries for assistance. They include Jacqueline Cox and Rosalind Moad at the Modern Archive Center at King’s College, Cambridge; Colin Harris and the staff at the Bodleian Library, Oxford; Henri Bourneuf, Head Reference Librarian, Harvard College Library; Patrice Donoghue, Assistant Archivist, Harvard University Archives; Katie Dobson at the Tate Picture Library, and librar- ians at Magdalene College, Cambridge, the British Library, Ohio State University, Ohio University, Utah State University, University of Virginia, the Humanities Research Center at the University of Texas, and the Houghton Library at Harvard University. For their creativity in securing essential documents, I am especially grateful to the librarians at Marshall University, especially Tim Balsch and his staff, and at Westminster College, especially David Hales, Jerry Jensen, and their staffs. Friends, colleagues, and mentors have been instrumental in the evolu- tion of this book. I want to acknowledge Susan Cerasano, who first showed me how to write about literature, and George Bornstein, who first taught me how to read Eliot and demonstrated through his stellar example how to balance the lives of teaching and scholarship. I would also like to thank viii

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Acknowledgments ix Steve Haslam for help with French editions of Eliot’s poetry, Charles Lloyd for his assistance with classical allusions, Ed Taft for his rich commentaries on Shakespeare, and especially Lee Erickson, who read entire drafts at various stages and whose insightful commentary helped make this book possible. Administrators at my previous institution, Art Stringer, Joan Mead, Sara Denman, and Leonard Deutsch, helped arrange release time and financial support at key moments. Administrators at my current institution, espe- cially Mary Jane Chase, Cid Seidelman, and Steve Baar, have been espe- cially supportive. I have also benefited from the assistance of my colleagues Peter Goldman and Jeff McCarthy, who strengthened the introduction. As usual, Michele Schiavone has made many improvements to my phrasing and caught many errors that I would have otherwise missed. My research assistant, Heather Brown, did a marvelous job helping prepare the manu- script for publication. I am grateful to Ray Ryan, my editor at Cambridge, for his patience and perseverance in shepherding this project forward, and to the press’s anonymous reader, whose astute suggestions helped give focus and shape to the book. Finally, I wish to acknowledge my wonderful family: my parents, Richard and Margot, who always stressed the importance of language and literature; my children, Will and Liza, whose presence gives me joy every day; and Katherine, my first and last collaborator in all things great and small. I dedicate this book to them.

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Abbreviations

ASG T. S. Eliot, After Strange Gods: A Primer of Modern Heresy (: , 1934) CC T. S. Eliot, Christianity and Culture (New York: Harvest, 1968) CFQ Helen Gardner, The Composition of (London: Faber and Faber, 1978) CPP TheCompletePoemsandPlaysofT.S.Eliot(1969; reprint, London: Faber and Faber, 1985) ENL Lyndall Gordon, Eliot’s New Life (New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1988) IMH T. S. Eliot, Inventions of the March Hare: Poems 1909–1917, ed. Christopher Ricks (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1996) L The Letters of Ezra Pound, 1907–1941, ed. D. D. Paige (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1950) L1 The Letters of T. S. Eliot, vol. I, ed. Valerie Eliot (San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1988) LE Literary Essays of Ezra Pound, ed. T. S. Eliot (New York: New Directions, 1968) LM1 F. M. [Vivien Eliot], ‘‘ Letters of the Moment – 1,’’ 2 (1924) LM2 F. M. [Vivien Eliot], ‘‘ Letters of the Moment – 2,’’The Criterion 2 (1924) MP E. Martin Browne, The Making of T. S. Eliot’s Plays (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969) OPP T. S. Eliot, On Poetry and Poets (1957; reprint, London: Faber and Faber, 1984) SE T. S. Eliot, Selected Essays, 3rd edn. rev. (1951; reprint, London: Faber and Faber, 1980) SL The Selected Letters of Ezra Pound to , 1915–1924, ed. Timothy Materer (Durham: Duke University Press, 1991)

x

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List of abbreviations xi SW T. S. Eliot, : Essays on Poetry and Criticism, 7th edn. rev. (London: Methuen, 1957) TCC T. S. Eliot, To Criticize the Critic (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1965) TWLF T. S. Eliot, The Waste Land: A Facsimile and Transcript of the Original Drafts Including the Annotations of Ezra Pound, ed. Valerie Eliot (San Diego: Harvest, 1971) UPUC T. S. Eliot, The Use of Poetry and the Use of Criticism (1933; reprint, London: Faber and Faber, 1980)

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