War and the Writing of Henry Green

WAR AND THE WRITING OF HENRY GREEN Thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the University of Leicester by Geoffrey Easeman Department of English University of Leicester May 2001 UMI Number: U139323 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. Dissertation Publishing UMI U139323 Published by ProQuest LLC 2013. Copyright in the Dissertation held by the Author. Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. ProQuest LLC 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 Contents Abstract: War and the Writing of Henry Green by Geoffrey Easeman................................................i Acknowledgements.................................................................................................................................................ii Preface.....................................................................................................................................................................iii Chapter 1:Pack My Bag: shame remembered..............................................................................................1 Chapter 2: Blindness: it isn't the war that matters, it's the after-war................................................. 31 Chapter 3.Living: we stand between two worlds.......................................................................................69 Chapter 4:Party Going: what targets for a bomb...................................................................................101 Chapter 5:Caught: we were told to expect air raids.............................................................................. 137 Chapter 6:Loving: the focus necessary for art........................................................................................ 174 Chapter 7:Back: it was a time of war......................................................................................................... 214 Chapter 8: Concluding: frozen in the high summer of the State......................................................... 251 Chapter 9: Nothing and Doting: their time is practically over.............................................................272 Bibliography........................................................................................................................................................295 Primary Texts.........................................................................................................................................................295 1. Henry Green's Writings - in order of first publication.................................................................... 295 2. Henry Green's Writings - Editions used in this Thesis ................................................................... 297 War and the Writing of Henry Green Secondary Texts................................................................................................................................................... 298 1. W ritings About Henry G reen..................................................................................................................298 2. General Texts ............................................................................................................................................. 302 War and the Writing of Henry Green Abstract: War and the Writing of Henry Green by Geoffrey Easeman Henry Green belongs to a generation of English writers formed by the following experiences: bom in the early years of the twentieth century; educated at private preparatory school, public school and Oxbridge; their formative years at school coinciding with the First World War; having been prepared by their schools to fight in a war which, once it had; settled into a trench bound war of attrition, appeared to have no end; schoolboy consumers of stories of the heroism of war but also aware, after the battle of the Somme, of the horror of trench warfare; consigned, by the relatively sudden ending of the war, to be the generation just too young to have fought. These experiences led Green's generation to develop a dichotomy of heroism and horror as their reaction to the First World War. Henry Green embodied the dichotomy into the form of his writing, producing a complexity and ambiguity of expression. This thesis argues that the dichotomy of heroism and horror as a reaction to war, learned by Green at school, present, in varying degrees, in the writings of the contemporary writers that form his generation, can be found in the form and subject matter of all his novels and his interim autobiography, Pack My Bag. The dichotomy remains constant, deriving its force of expression from the changing historical context in which Green's writings were published, similar to a musical motif, which remains constant as the underlying chords change. Length: 97530 words War and the Writing of Henry Green Acknowledgements I am deeply grateful to a number of people and institutions who have helped me both directly and indirectly in writing this thesis. Michael Meredrith, the Librarian at Eton College kindly allowed me time to read through and take notes from the letters that Henry Yorke wrote to the Oxford Don Neville Coghill. The Imperial War Museum provided much help in locating letters written by convalescent officers during the First World War. The British Library and the University of Leicester Library provided access to the specific critical texts that I required. I borrowed general texts and the hardback editions of Green’s novels from Sevenoaks and the Barbican Public Libraries. The Local Studies Department at Gloucester Library provided me with information about Forthampton Cottage. I would also like to thank British Airways and Virgin Atlantic for the use I made of their lounges and planes to continue writing this thesis whilst on business trips, especially the staff at Virgin Atlantic's lounge at Newark Airport who photocopied an article on Henry Green that I found in their library so that I could read it on the plane. I also owe much thanks to my wife, Sue, and my sons, Richard and Joe, without whose interest, support, encouragement and provision of space, I could not have written this thesis. Finally I would like to thank my supervisor Dr Mark Rawlinson for the many discussions we have had about Henry Green and for reading and commenting upon the various drafts I have made of this thesis. -11 - War and the Writing of Henry Green Preface This thesis will examine the extent to which war is reflected and represented in Henry Green's nine novels and interim autobiography. War, in the context of this thesis, is a general concept - comprising preparation, experience on combat and home fronts, and aftermath - arrived at from a specific historical process experienced by Green and his generation. This historical process takes Green’s generation from their childhood during the First World War, experienced whilst at private preparatory school; to their adolescence during the war’s aftermath, experienced whilst at public school and Oxbridge; and into their adult years - comprising the inter-war years and the growing anticipation of death in a second world war, their experience of that war and its aftermath. These experiences led Green’s generation to desire a paradise of war heroism lost whilst simultaneously recoiling from the horrors of the First World War as represented in the poems, novels and memoirs of combatants such as Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon. George Orwell, a contemporary of Green’s described their generation both writing off the First World War as ‘meaningless slaughter’ and being ‘conscious of the vastness of the experience they had missed.’1 This dichotomy produced an ambiguous stance towards war, which is foregrounded in both the content and style of Green’s writing. This foregrounding of war-influenced ambiguity positions Green as the foremost representative of his generation. 1 George Orwell, 1940, “My Country Right or Left” from Orwell, 1968, The Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters of George Orwell: Volume 1 An Age Like This 1920-1940), p.589 (Penguin, 1970). War and the Writing of Henry Green Green published nine novels and an interim autobiography between 1926 and 1952. This thesis concentrates upon these texts but also refers to Green’s other writings - mostly literary journalism and some short stories published in literary journals during the Second World War. The novels and the interim autobiography represent a chronology of the influence of the twentieth century's two world wars. They move through a historical process determined by these wars: from the aftermath of the First World War, through the anticipation and actuality of the Second World War to the early post-war years in London. Green was aware that he represented his time in his writing, telling Terry Southern, ‘After all, no one knows what he is like, he just tries to give some sort of picture of his time'.2 Green's early novels were published in milestone years in the transition from First to Second World War: Blindness, published in 1926, the year of the General Strike;Living , published in 1929, the year of the Wall Street Crash; Party Going, published in 1939, the

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