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Modernist Pedagogies: Conrad, Woolf, Pound, and the Reading Public

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Modernist Pedagogies: Conrad, Woolf, Pound, and the Reading Public MODERNIST PEDAGOGIES: CONRAD, WOOLF, POUND, AND THE READING PUBLIC by Ellen Gerber B.A. in English, Muhlenberg College, 2000 M.A. in English, University of Pittsburgh, 2005 Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of Arts and Sciences in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Ph.D. in English: Cultural and Critical Studies University of Pittsburgh 2007 UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH ARTS AND SCIENCES This dissertation was presented by Ellen Gerber It was defended on March 19, 2007 and approved by James Seitz, Ph.D., Associate Professor Troy Boone, Ph.D., Associate Professor Colin MacCabe, Ph.D., Distinguished University Professor Philip Watts, Ph.D., Associate Professor Dissertation Co-Directors: James Seitz, Ph.D., Associate Professor Troy Boone, Ph.D., Associate Professor ii Copyright © by Ellen Gerber 2007 iii MODERNIST PEDAGOGIES: CONRAD, WOOLF, POUND, AND THE READING PUBLIC Ellen Gerber, Ph.D. University of Pittsburgh, 2007 “Modernist Pedagogies: Conrad, Woolf, Pound, and the Reading Public” challenges the widely held belief that modernist writers were uninterested in reaching the emerging reading public that developed as a result of the 1870 Education Act and subsequent reforms in Britain. I contend that Conrad, Woolf, and Pound were largely optimistic that, with a particular type of guidance, the reading public was capable of engaging with difficult texts. Conrad’s prefaces, Woolf’s lectures and BBC broadcasts, and Ezra Pound’s How To Read and ABC of Reading offer varied pedagogical motivations and methods with implications for not only how we teach these major authors but also how we teach reading and writing at the university level. By challenging prevailing understandings of the modernists’ attitudes toward the reading public, this study offers a more complex rendering of the modernists’ relationships with the expanded reading public, thereby enabling a fuller understanding of the modernist project. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS 1.0 (RE)INTRODUCING THE MODERNISTS............................................................. 1 1.1 MODERNIST DIFFICULTY............................................................................. 9 1.2 THE PUBLIC SPHERE.................................................................................... 11 1.3 THE EXPANDED READING PUBLIC AT THE TURN OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY ................................................................................................ 15 1.4 THE IMPULSE TO INSTRUCT ..................................................................... 22 2.0 CONRAD’S AUTHOR’S NOTES............................................................................ 29 2.1 JOSEPH CONRAD: A MODERNIST? ......................................................... 34 2.2 CONRAD’S VEXED RELATIONSHIP WITH POPULARITY.................. 38 2.3 THE EARLY AUTHOR’S NOTES: ALMAYER’S FOLLY, THE NIGGER OF THE “NARCISSUS,” SOME REMINISCENCES, AND VICTORY .................... 52 2.4 THE LATER PREFACES: AN OUTCAST OF THE ISLANDS, TALES OF UNREST, LORD JIM, YOUTH, TYPHOON AND OTHER STORIES, NOSTROMO, THE MIRROR OF THE SEA, THE SECRET AGENT, A SET OF SIX, UNDER WESTERN EYES, A PERSONAL RECORD, TWIXT LAND AND SEA, CHANCE, WITHIN THE TIDES, VICTORY, THE SHADOW LINE, THE ARROW OF GOLD, THE RESCUE, AND NOTES ON LIFE AND LETTERS........ 76 3.0 VIRGINIA WOOLF AND THE READING PUBLIC........................................... 88 v 3.1 RECASTING THE “SNOB” ............................................................................ 89 3.2 VIRGINIA WOOLF’S COLLABORATIVE PEDAGOGY ......................... 95 3.2.1 Virginia Woolf’s Connections to Educational Enterprises ..................... 95 3.2.2 Virginia Woolf’s Lectures .......................................................................... 96 3.3 VIRGINIA WOOLF’S OWN EDUCATION................................................ 100 3.4 WOOLF REACHES WORKING WOMEN................................................. 103 3.5 THE REALIZATION OF WOOLF’S MESSAGE ...................................... 108 3.6 THE HOGARTH PRESS................................................................................ 114 3.6.1 The Press’s Inception................................................................................ 114 3.6.2 The Expansion Begins .............................................................................. 117 3.6.3 The Press’s Commitment to Accessibility and the Reading Public...... 119 3.6.4 The Hogarth Press’s Brushes with Popular Books................................ 127 3.6.5 The Press Educates Through Lectures and Pamphlets......................... 129 3.7 WOOLF AND THE BBC................................................................................ 135 3.7.1 The BBC’s Education Department.......................................................... 135 3.7.2 Woolf’s Broadcasts ................................................................................... 137 3.8 THE POLITICAL IMPLICATIONS OF WOOLF’S COLLABORATIVE PEDAGOGY..................................................................................................................... 143 4.0 EZRA POUND’S RENAISSANCE ........................................................................ 151 4.1 POUND’S CRITIQUE OF MODERN EDUCATION ................................. 155 4.2 POUND DEFINES LITERATURE ............................................................... 164 4.3 COMPLICATING POUND’S RELATIONSHIP TO MODERN EDUCATION.................................................................................................................... 170 vi 4.4 QUESTIONS OF GENRE: HOW TO READ AND ABC OF READING 176 4.5 PEDAGOGY AND HOW TO READ ............................................................ 178 4.6 PEDAGOGY AND ABC OF READING....................................................... 184 4.7 POUND AND THE LITTLE MAGAZINES ................................................ 195 4.8 POUND’S ANTHOLOGIES........................................................................... 205 4.9 THE PARADOX OF POUND’S CULTURAL RENAISSANCE ............... 212 5.0 REIMAGINING THE STUDENT-TEACHER RELATIONSHIP..................... 218 5.1 WOMEN AND LITERATURE...................................................................... 222 5.2 TEACHING AFTER HAVING NOT TAUGHT.......................................... 229 APPENDIX A............................................................................................................................ 240 APPENDIX B ............................................................................................................................ 241 APPENDIX C............................................................................................................................ 242 APPENDIX D............................................................................................................................ 243 WORKS CITED........................................................................................................................ 244 NOTES....................................................................................................................................... 264 vii LIST OF TABLES Table 1 ........................................................................................................................................ 224 Table 2 ........................................................................................................................................ 230 viii LIST OF FIGURES Figure A ...................................................................................................................................... 184 Figure B ...................................................................................................................................... 187 Figure C ...................................................................................................................................... 189 ix PREFACE Acknowledgments In A Room of One’s Own, Virginia Woolf writes, “Masterpieces are not single and solitary births; they are the outcome of many years of thinking in common.” Dissertations are no different. I feel fortunate to have worked with so many people who committed themselves to thinking with me over the years. I am grateful to my dissertation committee, and particularly my co-chairs, Jim Seitz and Troy Boone. Jim, you had faith in my project and encouraged me to pursue my interests in both literature and pedagogy despite challenges I was facing at the time. You restored my faith in myself and my work, and for that I am forever indebted to you. Thank you, as well, for helping me to assemble a stellar committee and for introducing me to Troy Boone, to whose expertise in modernism you were willing to defer. I admire your humility and commitment to collaboration. Troy, I appreciate your taking the risk of co-chairing the committee of a student whom you had never met. Thank you for your thorough and thoughful comments on every draft of every chapter (and then some) I produced. I am also grateful to you for pointing me to Conrad’s prefaces, and for your guidance as I wrote this most difficult chapter. Thank you to Colin MacCabe and Phil Watts. Colin, I feel fortunate to have studied modernism and completed this dissertation under your tuteledge. Phil, despite your role as my x “outside” reader, you took just as active a role as my “inside” readers. I appreciate your taking time away from your own work to read and comment on mine. Thank you to all of my undergraduate professors at Muhlenberg College, especially
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