University of Plymouth PEARL https://pearl.plymouth.ac.uk 04 University of Plymouth Research Theses 01 Research Theses Main Collection 2001 THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING The Autobiographical Subject in the Drama and Memoirs of Ronald Duncan TRUSSLER, ANNA CLAIRE http://hdl.handle.net/10026.1/2207 University of Plymouth All content in PEARL is protected by copyright law. Author manuscripts are made available in accordance with publisher policies. Please cite only the published version using the details provided on the item record or document. In the absence of an open licence (e.g. Creative Commons), permissions for further reuse of content should be sought from the publisher or author. THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING The Autobiographical Subject in the Drama and Memoirs of Ronald Duncan by ANNA CLAIRE TRUSSLER A thesis submitted to the University of Plymouth in partial fulfilment for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY UNIVERSITY OF PLYMOUTH School of Humanities and Cultural Interpretation Faculty of Arts and Education in collaboration with THE RONALD DUNCAN FOUNDATION August 2001 University of Plymouth Library Anna Claire Trussler THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING: The Autobiographical Subject in the Drama and Memoirs of Ronald Duncan This study developed after considerable time spent collating and cataloguing data contained in Ronald Duncan's archive. Familiarisation with the material led to my identifying a need to explore the elusive nature of the personality that biographical material should hope to uncover. Duncan was prone to mainly confessional writing, a kind of writing that demands a causal inference between life and work. Further­ more, the archive supplies multiple data sources that serve to aid chronology, trace reliability, provide external corroboration and investigate truth-value. My study follows a loosely chronological structure after discerning shifts in his thematic concerns. The years up until the mid-' 60s are detailed because, from his youth until that time, Duncan is consistently idealistic but expresses preoccupations particularly manifest in society in each period. Chapters 1 and 2 study Duncan's concern with utopian politics (1930s); Chapter 3, his relationship to religion (1940s); Chapter 4, his part in West End Theatre in the 1950s; and Chapters 5 and 6, his tackling of issues of gender and sexuality (1950s and '60s). Each chapter draws upon the autobiography and-related documents of those years. The thesis refers particu­ larly to Duncan's dramatic writing, avoiding serious analysis of the poetry because it has been recently researched. Because theatre movements are imbued with popular cultural codes, these and his memoirs are chosen to convey how his texts centralise the idea of authenticity but also manipulate the idea using subjects and characters caught between idealism and despair, the textual and the historical. Consequently, my approach to Duncan's work emphasises subject-hood rather than a pre-textual authorial presence which prompts the reader to seek an explanation for the work in its producer. Theoretical implications emerge from the association of Duncan's autobiographical personalities with the notion of writerly authority and its creations. With Duncan the 'question' of self-hood is ultimately conceived as a pro­ cess whereby the text is attributed to the author through a complex and disparate set of operations, not referential simply to a real individual, but to several simultaneous selves and subject positions. Displacing a perception of the author as the origin of meaning, webs of intertextual voices are discerned within the texture of discourse. 3 Contents Acknowledgements 7 Abbreviations 8 Author's Declaration 9 Introduction 10 t. Literary Profile 10 tt. Life Comes Breaking In 13 m. Presence and Personality 14 w. The Autobiographical Subject 17 Conclusion 19 1. Duncan's Childhood and the Search for Utopia 20 1. The Early Works 20 tt. All Men Are Islands 27 m. Self-identity and the Psyche 32 tv. Th_e Adversarial Subject 43 v. Man as an Island 44 vt. Down the Holmwood Mine 49 Conclusion 56 2. From Utopia to Dystopia: Pacifism, War and the Mass 58 Introduction 58 1. Duncan as Pamphleteer 59 11. The Search For Gandhi: The Dream Diary 70 m. Duncan's Dramas of Birth and Death 76 tv. The Townsman Manifesto 89 Conclusion 96 4 3. Acts of God: Drama of Struggle and Transcendence 98 Part 1. Duncan's Poetic Drama Theory 98 Introduction 98 1. The 1940s 100 11. Duncan's Poetic/Dramatic Theory 102 m. Post-War Verse Drama 103 IV. Poetry, Language and Beyond Language 106 v. The Restraint of Form 120 v1. Religion and Redemption 123 Part 2. Locating a Historical Subject 130 Introduction 130 1. Post-War Faith and Doubt 131 11. Personalffextual History 134 111. The Determinants of Duncan's Dramatic Success in the '40s 139 IV. An Effective Critical Voice 143 v. Subjectivity and the Existential Vision 1458 VI. Acting Out Angst: The Divided Self 155 Conclusion 161 4. The Royal Court Years 162 Introduction 162 1. The 1950s and Beyond 163 11. Duncan's 'Angry' Voice 166 111. The ESC: a Radical Standpoint? 170 Conclusion 184 5. Women at the Kitchen Sink: Representations of Gender and Sexuality 186 Introduction 186 t. Sex and the Double Standard 187 11. Bisexuality 197 111. New Themes: Matters of the Heart 203 IV. Infidelity: Duncan's Private Religion 206 v. Gender and Psychoanalysis 216 VI. Repetition of Desire in Art: Structuring the Fantasy 222 Conclusion 233 5 6. Drama, Desire and the Divided Self 235 Introduction 235 I. The Censorship Debate 236 11. Different Worlds 242 Ill. The Voice in Counterpoint 247 IV. Releasing the Female 250 v. The Subject: Desire and Division 263 VI. Transgressions of the Self 268 VII. Negotiating Duncan's Writing: Between Autobiography and Fiction 274 Conclusion 282 Conclusion 283 I. The Dying Fall 283 11. Theoretical Conclusions 284 Ill. The Last Word 286 Chronology 287 Bibliography 291 Anna Truss/er: Publications and Conference Papers· -- 297 6 Acknowledgements My principal thanks go to the Ronald Duncan Literary Foundation for supporting my work on the Ronald Duncan Collection: The New Papers (as Archivist, 1993- 2000) and for funding and organising my studentship in 1996. Many thanks especi­ ally for their support of my research trips, interviews and other related projects.The Duncan family themselves, especially Briony, have provided wonderful hospitality, given continual advice and shown patient understanding of the demands and nature of my work with the archive and study of their father/husband/grandfather. My gratitude goes also to the University of Plymouth, who established a storage agreement with the Foundation for the housing of Duncan's papers in 1992, and also provided funding for my research. I must specially acknowledge the invalu­ able help given by Robert Gee, my initial supervisor, who was behind the inception of the Foundation-University of Plymouth partnership. The University has sustained an administrative and environmental commitment to its researchers, mainly through the good offices of Karen Somerfield, Professor Andrew Hannan at the Wandale Research Base, and the campus librarian, Rosemary Smith. The friendship, encouragement and sympathy of fellow research students has been invaluable. Thanks go to: Amy Williams, Sarah Davies, Misri Dey, Dan-Lane and Simon Rippingale. I would like to express particular appreciation to my parents for their support and special help, to Mum for her regular proof-reading and to Dad for his professional formatting and layout of my thesis, both despite their own heavy work-loads. Many other individuals have provided emotional guidance through their amity, humour and love. I am indebted to: Nick, Suky, Phoebe, Jonathan, Meryl, Pete, Bev, Carly, Robin, Naomi, Emma, Wendy, Victoria and, not least, Chris, for his unstinting forbearance of my eccentricities. My thanks too to the staff of principal collections: Pat Fox, William Hetherington and Jenny Doctor. Best wishes to my predecessor as Archivist, Madeleine Midgeley and my successor, Alan Munton. This thesis would not have been completed without the enthusiastic super­ vision and encouragement of my Director of Studies, Professor Linda Fitzimmons. I am obliged to The Ronald Duncan Literary Foundation and to Duncan's Literary Executor who have allowed me access to his published and unpublished works. (Oh, and thanks to myself as Archivist for diligent consultation of records.) 7 The following principal collections allowed me to study their records: the British Theatre Museum, the Bodleian Library, the University of Oxford, the British Library, the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, the University of Texas at Austin, the Peace Pledge Union Archives and the Britten-Pears Library. Acknowledge­ ments are also due to the Estates of Ezra Pound and T.S. Eliot. My gratitude to the following who contributed copies of private papers and their time for extended interviews: the Earl of Harewood, Paul Almond, George Marchi, Rose-Marie Duncan, John and Antionette Moat, Christopher Fry, Colin Wilson, Rodney Blumer and Frank Lissauer. (I should add posthumous acknowledge­ ment to Tom Eastwood, John Reid, Virginia Maskell and of course, Ronald Duncan himself, to whose memory this thesis could only be dedicated.) Abbreviations BOD The Arthur Ponsonby Papers, the Bodleian Library, University of Oxford, Oxford. ESC English Stage Company. FL Duncan papers in the private hands of Mr. Frank Lissauer. HRHRC The Ronald Duncan Papers at the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Texas at Austin. LCP The Lord Chamberlain's Papers, the British Library, London. PPU The Peace Pledge Union Archives, London. RDF Papers held in the Ronald Duncan Collection: The New Papers, under the auspices of the The Ronald Duncan Foundation. 8 Author's Declaration At no time during the registration for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy has the author been registered for any other University award. This study was completed with the aid of a studemship jointly funded by the University of Plymouth and the Ronald Duncan Literary Foundation.