LYRIC NARRATIVE IN LATE MODERNISM: VIRGINIA WOOLF, H.D., GERMAINE DULAC, AND WALTER BENJAMIN DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Cheryl Lynn Hindrichs, M.A. * * * * * The Ohio State University 2006 Dissertation Committee: Professor Sebastian Knowles, Adviser Approved by Professor Brian McHale ______________________________ Professor James Phelan Adviser Graduate Program in English ABSTRACT This dissertation redefines lyric narrative—forms of narration that fuse the associative resonance of lyric with the linear progression of narrative—as both an aesthetic mode and a strategy for responding ethically to the political challenges of the period of late modernism. Underscoring the vital role of lyric narrative as a late- modernist technique, I focus on its use during the period 1925-1945 by British writer Virginia Woolf, American expatriate poet H.D., French filmmaker Germaine Dulac, and German critic Walter Benjamin. Locating themselves as outsiders free to move across generic and national boundaries, each insisted on the importance of a dialectical vision: that is, holding in a productive tension the timeless vision of the lyric mode and the dynamic energy of narrative progression. Further, I argue that a transdisciplinary, feminist impulse informed this experimentation, leading these authors to incorporate innovations in fiction, music, cinema, and psychoanalysis. Consequently, I combine a narratological and historicist approach to reveal parallel evolutions of lyric narrative across disciplines—fiction, criticism, and film. Through an interpretive lens that uses rhetorical theory to attend to the ethical dimensions of their aesthetics, I show how Woolf’s, H.D.’s, Dulac’s, and Benjamin’s lyric narratives create unique relationships with their audiences. Unlike previous lyric narratives, these works invite audiences to inhabit multiple standpoints, critically ii examine their world, and collaborate in producing the work of art. Hence, contrary to readings of high modernist experimentation as disengaged l’art pour l’art, I show that avant-garde lyric narrative in the late 1920s—particularly the technique of fugue writing—served these authors as a means of disrupting conventional, heterosexual, patriarchal, and militarist social and political narratives. During the crises of the 1930s and the Second World War, Woolf, H.D., Dulac, and Benjamin turn to the lyric narrative technique of montage to advance a vision of the collaborative work of art as a means to critically engage with history, illuminate the stakes of the present moment, and inspire creative work for a different future. iii Dedicated to my parents, Janice and Walter Hindrichs, whose boundless love and life-giving laughter baffles and sustains me. iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I wish to thank my committee members James Phelan, Brian McHale, and my adviser Sebastian D.G. Knowles. At a key moment, Professor Phelan introduced me to a methodological approach that would enable me to pursue the granite and the rainbow; Jim’s encouragement, wisdom, and thoughtful guidance proved vital to this journey and my growth as a scholar. I am grateful to Professor McHale for the elegant skepticism of his scholarship and for the grace and wit of his support throughout this project. As a teacher, Professor Knowles has taught me the value of performing passion in the classroom, and, as a scholar, he dazzles in his passion for his performance whether on the page or conference stage. Throughout my time at Ohio State, Seb’s mentorship, idiosyncratic mind, and joy in the arts has been a steady beam and gem-like flame, kindling my own passion to connect. Morris Beja first introduced me to Woolf and Joyce and, with characteristic greatheartedness, humor, and enthusiasm, set me off on this lark and plunge into modernism and film. I am indebted to Murray for introducing me to such a jovial and varied community of scholars and for the amazing opportunities the International James Joyce Foundation afforded. I also wish to thank David Herman for helping me to see my work from a fresh vantage, inspiring me in the final lap, and for his astute career advice and guidance. Philip Armstrong, Kristin Bluemel, Jennifer Camden, Teresa Kulbaga, v Dana Oswald, James Weaver, and Susan Williams all read earlier drafts of this project and offered incisive and generous feedback. I wish to thank the Department of English and Graduate School at the Ohio State University for the quarter-long summer fellowship and year-long Presidential fellowship that made all the difference in my ability to research and write this dissertation. Finally, I am grateful for the inspiring conversations, insights, and companionship of Scott Banville, David Earle, Louis Goldstein, Brian Hauser, Chene Heady, Michael Meagher, Matthew Williams, and Molly Youngkin. I am humbled by the belief, love, and joy in life that my parents, Janice and Walter Hindrichs, and my brothers, Mike and Bryan Hindrichs, have shown me. I am most grateful that you listened, and agreed, when in a sudden intensity, I would say of some ordinary experience, “It’s a miracle, it’s an ecstasy.” vi VITA September 13, 1977 ...........................Born - Colorado Springs, Colorado, U.S. 1998....................................................B.A., English, Truman State University 2001....................................................M.A., English, The Ohio State University 2001....................................................M.A., Women’s Studies, The Ohio State University 1999 - present.....................................Graduate Teaching and Research Associate The Ohio State University PUBLICATIONS 1. “Wish You Were Here: A Bloomsday Postcard.” The James Joyce Literary Supplement 18.2 (Fall 2004): 19-20. FIELDS OF STUDY Major Field: English vii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Abstract.......................................................................................................................... ii Dedication......................................................................................................................iv Acknowledgments...........................................................................................................v Vita............................................................................................................................... vii List of Figures................................................................................................................xi List of Abbreviations ................................................................................................... xii Chapters: Part I. Lyric Narrative in the Late Twenties 1. Introduction.................................................................................................................1 1.1 Lyric Narrative in Late Modernism .....................................................................1 1.2 Lyric Narrative.....................................................................................................3 1.3 Late Modernism ...................................................................................................9 1.4 An Outsiders’ Society ........................................................................................11 1.5 “The Narrow Bridge of Art” ..............................................................................22 2. Fugues in Words: Virginia Woolf and H.D.............................................................45 2.1 Lyric Narrative in Woolf’s “Slater’s Pins Have No Points”..............................45 2.2 Cultivating a Lyric Vision: Woolf’s Readers and the Work of Art in The Waves.........................................51 2.3 The Art of Fugue................................................................................................57 2.4 Axifugal: Attending to the Dimensions of the Text...........................................66 2.5 Sappho’s Lyrics: “having come from heaven wrapped in a purple cloak”........75 2.6 Fugues in Words: Space, Time, Sexuality and Textuality in the Late Twenties.............................88 2.7 “Stars Wheel in Purple”: H.D.’s HERmione......................................................98 2.8 Meta-fictional Metaphors and Woolf’s Narrative Turn...................................114 2.9 Catching Light and Heat ..................................................................................126 viii 3. The Palimpsestuous Text ........................................................................................144 3.1 H.D.’s Lyric Narrative in Palimpsest...............................................................144 3.2 Psycho-analytic Progression and the Pleasure-Principle: Woolf, Proust, H.D. .........................................................................................157 3.3 Composing the Unconscious: “On the Mimetic Faculty”................................165 3.4 The Work of Art in Palimpsest ........................................................................175 3.5 To Write or Not to Write: The Art of Work ....................................................190 3.6 Was James Joyce Right? ..................................................................................208 Part II. Lyric Narrative in Film 4. Currents of Lyric Narrative Cinema: Germaine Dulac...........................................216 4.1 Seeing Music: Germaine Dulac’s The Smiling Madame Beudet .....................216 4.2 The Cinematic Eye: