LAUGHTER SHARED OR THE GAMES POETS PLAY: THE ETHICS AND AESTHETICS OF IRONY IN POSTWAR AMERICAN POETRY by STEPHEN J. SUMMERS A DISSERTATION Presented to the Department of English and the Graduate School of the University of Oregon in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy June 2014 DISSERTATION APPROVAL PAGE Student: Stephen J. Summers Title: Laughter Shared or the Games Poets Play: The Ethics and Aesthetics of Irony in Postwar American Poetry This dissertation has been accepted and approved in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Doctor of Philosophy degree in the Department of English by: Mark Whalan Chairperson John Gage Core Member Paul Peppis Core Member Mark Johnson Institutional Representative and Kimberly Andrews Espy Vice President for Research and Innovation; Dean of the Graduate School Original approval signatures are on file with the University of Oregon Graduate School. Degree awarded June 2014 ii © 2014 Stephen J. Summers iii DISSERTATION ABSTRACT Stephen J. Summers Doctor of Philosophy Department of English June 2014 Title: Laughter Shared or the Games Poets Play: The Ethics and Aesthetics of Irony in Postwar American Poetry During and after the First World War, English-language poets employed various ironic techniques to address war’s dark absurdities. These methods, I argue, have various degrees of efficacy, depending upon the ethics of the poetry’s approach to its reading audience. I judge these ethical discourses according to a poem’s willingness to include its readers in the process of poetic construction, through a shared ironic connection. My central ethical test is Immanuel Kant’s categorical imperative and Jurgen Habermas’s conception of discourse ethics. I argue that without a sense of care and duty toward the reading other (figured in open-ended ironies over dogmatic rhetorics), there can be no social responsibility or reformation, thus testing modernist assumptions about the political usefulness of poetry. I begin with the trench poets Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen, whose sarcastic and satirical ironies are constructed upon a problematic consequentialist ethos. Despite our sympathy for the poets’ tragic positions as soldiers, their poems’ rhetoric is ultimately coercive rather than politically progressive. It negates the social good it intends by nearly mimicking the unilateral rhetoric that gave rise to the war. iv The next chapter concerns Ezra Pound’s Hugh Selwyn Mauberley and T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land, fundamental modernist poems defining the postwar Anglo-American era. In contrast to the trench poets, I argue these two poems at their best manage to create an irony of free play, inviting the audience’s participation in meaning-making through the irony of self-parody. Traditional ethical critiques of these poets’ troubling politics, I argue, do not negate the discourse ethics present in these texts. The final three chapters follow the wartime and postwar ironies of the American poets William Carlos Williams, Marianne Moore, and Wallace Stevens. Williams, a medical doctor, makes use of the ironic grotesque in his poems to offer the voice of poetry to the disenfranchised, including individuals with disabilities. Moore, a modernist and early feminist, pairs her poems to decenter poetic authority, depicting possible ethical poetic conversations. Finally, Stevens’s democratic, pragmatic ethics appears within poetry that continually invites its readers to fill in gaps of meaning about the war and beyond. v CURRICULUM VITAE NAME OF AUTHOR: Stephen J. Summers GRADUATE AND UNDERGRADUATE SCHOOLS ATTENDED: University of Oregon, Eugene Oregon State University, Corvallis DEGREES AWARDED: Doctor of Philosophy, English, 2014, University of Oregon Master of Arts, English, 2010, University of Oregon Honors Bachelor of Arts, English, 2008, Oregon State University Honors Bachelor of Arts, Philosophy, 2008, Oregon State University AREAS OF SPECIAL INTEREST: Anglo-American Modernist Poetry Ethics and Literature PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE: Instructor of Record, Department of English, University of Oregon, Fall 2009- Spring 2014 Research Assistant and Grader, Department of English, University of Oregon, Fall 2008-Spring 2009 GRANTS, AWARDS, AND HONORS: Graduate Teaching Fellowship, English Department, University of Oregon, 2008- present Kirby Essay Award (nominated twice), English Department, University of Oregon, 2010 Weaver University and College Prize, Oregon State University, Academy of American Poets, 2008 Summa cum Laude, English and Philosophy, Oregon State University, 2008 Waldo-Cummings Outstanding Senior in Liberal Arts, Oregon State University, 2008 vi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS My sincere thanks are due to the members of my committee—scholars for whom I have the utmost respect—for their input, feedback, and assistance in producing this dissertation. In particular, to Mark Johnson for assistance untangling my ethical stances, and to John Gage for his early suggestions and for introducing me to the world of academic publishing. I must give a special thanks as well to Paul Peppis, for continual, generous advice and aid throughout my entire tenure at the University of Oregon, ever since the first phone call he made asking me to study in Eugene; I could not have survived the process without your support and insights. Also a very special thanks to Mark Whalan—whose arrival in America coincided with my interest in modernist American poets—for the substantial sacrifice of time and effort he gave in helping me produce the best dissertation I could. Naturally, any errors in this text are my own. Further, Professors Martha Bayless, Liz Bohls, Lara Bovilsky, Suzanne Clark, Dianne Dugaw, Jim Earl, Karen Ford, Tres Pyle, Mark Quigley, Ben Saunders, Deb Shapple, Helen Southworth, Betsy Wheeler, George Wickes, Harry Wonham all contributed something (if indirectly) to this final project, for which I am thankful. Thanks also to Carolyn Bergquist and Jim Crosswhite in teaching instruction. Further back, my Oregon State Professors Kerry Ahearn, Neil Davison, Royce Jones, Barry Lawler, Michael Scanlan, and Tara Williams still develop my thinking and writing through their past instruction. The same goes for my Teachers Mike Barnett, John Colvett, Paul Dage, Will Greenleaf, Pat Mikulec, Joe Minson, and so many others. Thanks to my friends at UO—Anthony, Karl, Matt, Jenny, Dan and the rest of you—as well as a big shout-out to my friends in the UO Graduate Student Fellowship, vii Zhen, Amy, Ben, Paul; to Dick, Emily, and the rest of University Christian Fellowship, and to friends like Jimmy, Santana, Brian, Sarah, David, and the rest of you—as well as those at First Baptist and Willamette Christian Center for spiritual, emotional, intellectual, and cultural support and care. To InterVarsity and my friends within it, Michael, Kit, Fredrick, and many others, thanks for the worldviews. To friends who were there to listen and help, thanks to Dennis, Britten, Jadon, Aleasha, Michael, Ryan, and many others. To my students, at least to the ones who laughed at my jokes, I salute you. To my family, near and far, thanks: in particular to Mom and Dad for, quite literally, everything; it helped to know I never had to do any of this for you to earn your love! To Joseph, for keeping me grounded on whatever planet you happen to be occupying at the given moment. To Andrew, for inspiring me to keep thinking about the absurd, abstract, awe-inspiring world in all your wonderful awkwardness. To Dave and Cheryl, my “cool” parents. To Grandma and Grandpa and Grandma and Grandpa for the love, the means, and the fun. To Chrissi’s family—mine now—and the rest of mine. Thanks to the Corkums, Joneses, Ayres, Johnsons, Maphets, and assorted Summers. To the Ettlichs for being my academic—and real—family, thanks always. To B.K. for translation help. To my other friends: do not go to graduate school! Importantly, none of this would have been possible without the agricultural revolution. To Christina, who loved me anyway, no matter what. Thanks for accepting my gross life choices and letting me read you poetry. And, finally, from I Corinthians 15:57, “But thanks be to God who giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” viii To my “Uncle” Ernie, whose love of wisdom helped shaped my path and inspires me still. “How much better is it to get wisdom than gold! Yea, to get understanding is rather to be chosen than silver.” Proverbs 16:16 ix TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter Page I. INTRODUCTION: DISCOURSE ETHICS IN THE AGE OF IRONY.................. 1 Discourse Ethics and the Centrality of Irony......................................................... 6 The Role of the Reader.......................................................................................... 14 Critical Intersections.............................................................................................. 16 II. WARTIME ETHICS: SATIRE, SARCASM, AND IRONIC PROTEST.............. 21 Discourse Ethics: The Trouble with Satire and Sarcasm....................................... 24 The Irony of War and Siegfried Sassoon’s Myriad Fools..................................... 34 “The Hero”....................................................................................................... 36 “‘Blighters’”..................................................................................................... 41 Wilfred Owen’s Dark Laughter............................................................................. 47 “Apologia Pro Poemate Meo”........................................................................