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INFORMATION TO USERS This manuscript has been reproduced from the microfilm master. UMI films the text directly from the original or copy submitted. Thus, some thesis and dissertation copies are in typewriter face, while others may be from any type of computer printer. The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. Broken or indistinct print, colored or poor quality illustrations and photographs, print bleedthrough, substandard margins, and improper alignment can adversely afreet reproduction. In the unlikely event that the author did not send UMI a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if unauthorized copyright material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. Oversize materials (e.g., maps, drawings, charts) are reproduced by sectioning the original, beginning at the upper left-hand comer and continuing from left to right in equal sections with small overlaps. Each original is also photographed in one exposure and is included in reduced form at the back of the book. Photographs included in the original manuscript have been reproduced xerographically in this copy. Higher quality 6” x 9” black and white photographic prints are available for any photographs or illustrations appearing in this copy for an additional charge. Contact UMI directly to order. UMI A Bell & Howell Infonnation CcmpaxQ^ 300 North Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor MI 48106-1346 USA 313/761-4700 800/521-0600 Huxley’s ‘Lost’ Play,N ow More Than Ever. A Scholarly Edition by James Penman Sexton B.A., University of British Columbia, 1969 M.A., University o f British Columbia, 1971 . D.A. University of Oregon, 1980 A Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in the Department of English We accept this dissertation as conforming to the required standard Dr. A. Jenkins, SupepEqs^(Department of English) ________________________________ Dr. D. Tha^tgher, Departmental Member (Department of English) _______________________________ Dr. T. Williams, Departmental Member (Department of English ) Dr. J. Your^,/pi^tside Member (Department of Philosophy) Dr. R. Maud, External Examiner(Departmentof English, Simon Fraser University) © James Penman Sexton, 1996 U ni versi ty o f Vic to ria All rights reserved. This thesis may not be reproduced in whole or in part, by photocopy or other means, without the permission of the author. 11 Supervisor; Dr. Anthony Jenkins ABSTRACT Aldous Huxley completed a three-act play called Now More Than Ever'm the autumn of 1932. After trying unsuccessfully for over two years to persuade theatre producers in both New York and London to stage the play, he abandoned the project, turning his full attention to other work in progress, particularly the novel Eyeless in Gaza, which he completed in 1936. The core of this dissertation (Chapter Three) is an annotated edition of Huxley's "lost" play. Now More Than Ever, based on the only extant script, housed in the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Texas, Austin, and indexed as "An Unpublished Play, t ms, corrected. 92 pp." The thesis argues that the play is an important document in Huxley's intellectual and spiritual development and should not merely be regarded as a minor and fruitless theatrical adventure. In fact, it is best understood as part of the author's ongoing discussion of spiritual and social concerns to which he consistently returned in his fiction and journalism of the inter-war period. Written in 1932, midway between two major novels. Brave New World and Eyeless in Gaza (1932-36), and resonating with ideas put forward in his volumes of linked philosophical essays—Do What You W0'7/(1929) and M usic a t N ight (1931)— Now More Than Æve/-should be recognized as an important part of an Ill ongoing discussion with himself, which grew less and less provisional until his arrival at the definitive outlook on life that amounts to a spiritual conversion in 1936. Like most o f Huxley’s fiction and drama. Now More Than Ever'is partly autobiographical. Some of the male characters embody, at least in part, Huxley’s earlier positions before his spiritual conversion, specifically the sceptical/aesthete and the extremist anti-democrat. Now More Than Overtakes the reader to the threshold of that conversion. Chapter One briefly summarizes the play then discusses the social, political and economic background, with particular emphasis upon the historical events surrounding the economic crisis which forms the backdrop for Huxley’s play. Chapter Two discusses Huxley as drama critic as well as apprentice and journeyman playwright. Although this aspect of Huxley’s career has received scant attention from the critics, he left behind a significant body of dramatic work—three full-length plays. The World o f Light {\92>\), Now M ore Than Ever (1932), and The Gioconda i ’n7/7e(1948)—and co-authored stage adaptations of his novels. The Genius and the Goddess {\951) and A fte r M a n y a S u m m er In addition, he published over eighty drama reviews and several short dramatic pieces. After discussing Huxley’s monetary and artistic goals as a dramatist, the chapter describes his early, apprentice plays and his dramatic precepts as revealed IV in the reviews. Next, I examine his full-length plays within a context of the post-Ibsen "drama of ideas" in Britain, pointing to technical and thematic analogues in the dramatic works of Shaw, Munro, and Galsworthy, especially as these authors treat what Galsworthy termed "the parlous state of England". The chapter concludes with an analysis of The World o f Light and The Gioconda Smile. Chapter Three introduces the play text with an analysis and evaluation of the themes and symbolic structure of N o w M ore Than Ever. The appendices present several of Huxley’s Hearst essays which illumine various aspects of Now More Than E’ver followed by a list of all significant deletions that Huxley made to his typescript. Exam iners: Dr. A. Jenkins, Supervisorj^Department of English) Dr. D. Thatcher, Departmental Member (Department of English) _____________________________ Dr. T. Williams, Departmental Member (Department of English) Dr. J. Young, o/a side Member (^f^^rtment of Philosophy) Dr. R. Maud, External Examiner (Department of English, Simon Fraser University) TABLE OF CONTENTS A BSTRACT .................................................................................. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS ......................................................... v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ..................................................... vii INTRODUCTION ......................................................... 1 I. THE POLITICAL BACKGROUND ....................... 10 1. The Kreuger Affair ................................................. II 2. Extreme Solutions .................................................... 18 3. Rationalization or Fascism? Britain's "Supremely Uncomfortable Moment of History" ................................................................ 26 4. Capitalism as Seen from the Left ........................ 44 5. Now More Than £‘nerand the Novels: 1928-1936 62 II. THE THEATRICAL BACKGROUND ................ 74 1. Huxley's Theatrical Apprenticeship ...................... 75 2. Drama Reviews ........................................................ 81 3. The Shavian Pedigree of Huxley's Discussion Plays .................................................... 88 4. The Political Plays of Munro and Galsworthy ............................................................. 103 5. The W orld o f Light dind The Gioconda Smile .............................................. 115 VI TABLE OF CONTENTS (coni’d) III. NOW MORE THAN EVER ............................................. 137 1. Lidgate Agonistes ................................................... 139 2. Idolatries ................................................................... 143 3. Now More Than Ever.'Y\\e.'?\d,'j'XtyA ................. 153 BIBLIOGRAPHY ...................................................................... 252 APPENDIX A Selected Essays, 1931-34 268 1. "Gossip" ................................................................... 269 2. "Hyde Park on Sunday" ........................................ 271 3. "Forewarned is not Forearmed" .......................... 275 4. "Hocus Focus" .......................................................... 279 5. "Compulsory Suicide" ............................................ 283 6. "Swindlers and Swindlees" ..................................... 287 7. "Idolatry" ................................................................... 290 8. "Christ and the Present Crisis" ............................ 293 APPENDIX B List of Significant Deletions to Typescript of N ow M o re Than E v e r 298 vil ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to express my gratitude to Laura and Matthew Huxley for permission to quote from copyright materials belonging to the Aldous Leonard Huxley Literary Estate. I also wish to thank Cathy Henderson and the staff at the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Texas, Austin for their assistance in allowing access to the Huxley archive and for unbinding the typed manuscript of Now More Than Everso as to facilitate the incorporation of Huxley's marginal emendations. In addition, I wish to thank the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada for a doctoral research grant. For his willingness to use my edition of Now More Than EverdiS the acting text for the world premiere of the play in Münster,