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Elegiac Rhetorics: from Loss to Dialogue in Lyric Poetry

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Elegiac Rhetorics: from Loss to Dialogue in Lyric Poetry ELEGIAC RHETORICS: FROM LOSS TO DIALOGUE IN LYRIC POETRY A Dissertation by SARAH ELIZABETH HART Submitted to the Office of Graduate Studies of Texas A&M University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY August 2012 Major Subject: English Elegiac Rhetorics: From Loss to Dialogue in Lyric Poetry Copyright 2012 Sarah Elizabeth Hart ELEGIAC RHETORICS: FROM LOSS TO DIALOGUE IN LYRIC POETRY A Dissertation by SARAH ELIZABETH HART Submitted to the Office of Graduate Studies of Texas A&M University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Approved by: Chair of Committee, M. Jimmie Killingsworth Committee Members, C. Jan Swearingen Marian Eide Linda Radzik Head of Department, Nancy Bradley Warren August 2012 Major Subject: English iii ABSTRACT Elegiac Rhetorics: From Loss to Dialogue in Lyric Poetry. (August 2012) Sarah Elizabeth Hart, B.A, Southwestern University; M.A., Texas A&M University Chair of Advisory Committee: Dr. M. Jimmie Killingsworth By reading mournful poems rhetorically, I expand the concept of the elegy in order to reveal continuities between private and communal modes of mourning. My emphasis on readers of elegies challenges writer-centered definitions of the elegy, like that given by Peter Sacks, who describes how the elegy's formal conventions express the elegist's own motives for writing. Although Sacks's Freudian approach helpfully delineates some of the consoling effects that writing poetry has on the elegist herself, this dissertation revises such writer-centered concepts of the elegy by asking how elegies rhetorically invoke ethical relationships between writers and readers. By reading elegiac poems through Kenneth Burke's rhetorical theories and Emmanuel Levinas's ethics, I argue that these poems characterize, as Levinas suggests, subjectivity as fundamentally structured by ethical relationships with others. In keeping with this ethical focus, I analyze anthology poems, meaning short lyric poems written by acclaimed authors, easily accessible, and easily remembered— including several well-known poems by such authors as Emily Dickinson, Gerard Manley Hopkins, and Robert Frost. Anthology pieces invite ethical evaluation in part because they represent what counts as valuable poetry—and also, by implication, what iv does not. Because anthology poems are read by broad, diverse audiences, I suggest that a rhetorical methodology focusing on writer-reader relationships is essential to evaluating these poems' ethical implications. This rhetorical approach to poetry, however, questions rhetoricians and aesthetic theorists from Aristotle and Longinus to Lloyd F. Bitzer and Derek Attridge who emphasize distinctions between rhetoric and poetics. I address the ongoing debate about the relationship between rhetoric and poetics by arguing, along the lines of Wayne C. Booth's affirmation that fiction and rhetoric are interconnected, that poetry and rhetoric are likewise integrally tied. To this debate, I add an emphasis on philosophy—from which Plato, Ramus, and others exclude rhetoric and poetry—as likewise essential to understanding both poetry and rhetoric. By recognizing the interrelatedness of these disciplines, we may better clarify poetry's broad, ethical appeals that seem so valuable to readers in situations of loss. v DEDICATION For my family, for whose generous support I am most grateful vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am quite fortunate to have had such helpful support from my family, friends, and professors throughout my graduate school career. I greatly appreciate the guidance and support of my committee chair, Dr. Killingsworth, and my committee members, Dr. Swearingen, Dr. Eide, and Dr. Radzik, who so generously shared their expertise not only during the development of this dissertation, but also since I first started graduate school. In helping me refine and improve my scholarship, they have also made the process even more pleasurable and meaningful. I am very grateful for Dr. Killingsworth's always prompt and practical responses to my work, and especially for his commitment to helping me to enjoy writing. Having grown up in a literary family, I am not quite certain at which moment other people started helping me to think through the ideas developed in this dissertation. My family has always encouraged my love of literature, and kernels of my ongoing conversations with them persist in this dissertation. I am especially grateful for my family's generous support of my graduate work, which provided an invaluable opportunity to refine my ideas and responses to our conversations. And finally, I would like to thank Kevin for listening patiently and responding so caringly. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ABSTRACT .............................................................................................................. iii DEDICATION .......................................................................................................... v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ...................................................................................... vi TABLE OF CONTENTS .......................................................................................... vii CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION: ETHICAL DIALOGUE BETWEEN RHETORIC AND POETICS .................................................................................... 1 Poetry, Rhetoric, and Mourning ..................................................... 1 Artistic and Constitutive Approaches to Rhetoric .......................... 8 Poetry vs. Rhetoric ......................................................................... 15 Reading, Writing, Responsibility ................................................... 19 Cultural Contexts of Elegiac Loss .................................................. 24 Elegiac Rhetorics ............................................................................ 29 II DEATH: WHAT LOSS IMPLIES ....................................................... 34 Personhood and Loss ...................................................................... 34 Rhetorics and Ethics of Loss .......................................................... 36 Poetics of Loss ............................................................................... 39 Loss in Critical and Biographical Contexts .................................... 42 Rhetorical Losses and Poetic Dialogues ........................................ 49 The Problem of Loss as a Reminder of Death................................ 55 Loss, Death, and Narcissism .......................................................... 60 From Rhetorical Loss to Emotional Connection ............................ 70 Rhetorical Dialogue as Ethical Responsibility ............................... 79 Conclusion ...................................................................................... 86 III THE MANY FACES OF LOSS ........................................................... 89 Epideictic Poetry in Our Day ......................................................... 89 viii CHAPTER Page Ethics as Elegiac Subjectivity ........................................................ 93 Personal Rhetorics in Poetry of Loss ............................................. 97 Rhetorical and Poetic Values of Death .......................................... 99 Absences of Affect ......................................................................... 102 Levinas's Ethical Affect ................................................................. 104 The Ambiguity of Personal Presence ............................................. 106 Poetry's Personal Relations ............................................................ 110 Richard Wilbur's Many Faces of Loss ........................................... 112 Personifying Presence: Metapoetics as Ethics ............................... 120 Lyric as a Genre of the Wound ...................................................... 124 Elegy vs. Anti-Elegy ...................................................................... 134 Poetry as a Healing Process ........................................................... 135 Epideictic Rhetoric as Poetry's Healing Power .............................. 140 Poetics of Loss ............................................................................... 142 The Value of Rhetoric .................................................................... 143 IV ELEGIAC RESPONSIBILITIES: CONSOLATION IN DIALOGUE 145 Consolation and Its Discontents ..................................................... 145 Self as Loss of the Other ................................................................ 151 Anti-elegiac Attenuations of Loss .................................................. 156 Personal and Poetic Encounters with Loss ..................................... 158 Donne ............................................................................................. 166 Keats ............................................................................................... 175 Keats's Anti-Elegy .......................................................................... 183 Lyric Responsibility ....................................................................... 184 Rossetti ........................................................................................... 190 Memory and Poetic Form ............................................................... 201 Poetic Form and Responsibility ..................................................... 208 Dialogue beyond Death .................................................................
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