The Poetry of John Davidson by Hazel
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TRADITION AND REBELLION: THE POETRY OF JOHN DAVIDSON BY HAZEL HYND In fulfilment of the degree of PhD Department of Scottish Literature Faculty of Arts, University of Glasgow, August 2001 ProQuest Number: 13833904 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 com plete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. uest ProQuest 13833904 Published by ProQuest LLC(2019). Copyright of the Dissertation is held by the Author. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States C ode Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. ProQuest LLC. 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106- 1346 'GLASGOW UNIVERSITY LIBRARY: 1221 1 -C oal 2 ABSTRACT John Davidson (1857-1909): Tradition and Rebellion The thesis is in four chapters with an introduction and conclusion. It deals principally with the poetry of John Davidson though, where appropriate, there is discussion of his plays, novels and short-stories. Chapter 1 deals with Davidson’s formative influences and stresses the importance of his background in forming some of the most fundamental and enduring concerns within his writing. Particular focus is given to outlining the influence of factors such as Knoxian Calvinism, the Scottish social environment and landscape, and issues of rebellion and dissociation expressed through recurrent themes of familial tension and division. Chapter 2 aims to illustrate that Davidson's displaced status is a key factor in producing the innovative modernist propensity and style of his work. Issues of identity and displacement are examined as factors which motivated Davidson’s experiments with the form and subject-matter of his poetry and influenced his use of multiplicity of voice, dramatic persona, irony, dualism and contradiction. Davidson’s subsequent influence upon the writing and thought of Hugh MacDiarmid is also examined in this section. Chapter 3 examines Davidson's attempts to engage with and manipulate concepts of Scottish and British identity; and his preoccupation with themes of war, empire and the nature of the heroic nation. Chapter 4 examines the relationship of Davidson's ideas to Scottish thought. Davidson is contextualised in this respect through the use of comparison with writers such as James Thomson and Robert Buchanan, and more particularly to Thomas Carlyle. This chapter also deals with features of irony and dualism and with Davidson's use of language in relation to the subject of identity and the nature and function of the writer. 3 Table of Contents ABSTRACT......................................................................................................................2 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS........................................................................................... 7 INTRODUCTION REASSESSING DAVIDSON............................................................... 8 CHAPTER 1 FORMATIVE INFLUENCES...................................................................19 Davidson and the Dissociative Sensibility......................................................................19 Patriarchal Authority, Filial Piety and the Divided Family........................................... 41 Conceptual Oppositions within Knoxian Calvinism.......................................................58 CHAPTER 2 THE DISPLACED SCOT AS PROTO-MODERNIST............................. 74 Multiplicity of Voice and Perspective.............................................................................74 Dissociation and the Proto-Modernist Sensibility..........................................................89 The Authority of Influence: John Davidson and Hugh MacDiarmid........................... 112 CHAPTER 3 CONCEPTS OF NATIONAL AND CULTURAL IDENTITY...............132 The Issue of ‘Scottish Identity’..................................................................................... 132 Exploring Concepts of Scottish Identity......................................................................141 War, Empire and the Nature of the Heroic Nation....................................................... 161 CHAPTER 4 DAVIDSON'S IDEAS IN RELATION TO SCOTTISH THOUGHT.... 187 Davidson and the Secular Prophets...............................................................................187 The Authority of Influence: John Davidson and Thomas Carlyle.................................191 Irony and Dualism.........................................................................................................208 Davidson and Language............................................................................................... 225 CONCLUSION JOHN DAVIDSON: PRISONER AND PIONEER............................. 246 BIBLIOGRAPHY.........................................................................................................250 Dedicated to my mother and father 5 Acknowledgements My first debt of thanks is to Professor Douglas Gifford for his guidance in the preparation of this thesis. My special thanks to Gerry Carruthers, Carol Collins, Sarah Dunnigan and Alan Riach for their advice and guidance. My thanks to Judith Harriman and Jean Anderson for their technical guidance and assistance. I would also like to thank Robert A.H. Smith, Curator, Modem Political Papers of the British Library; Colin Harris and Judith Priestman of the Department of Special Collections and Western Manuscripts of the Bodleian Library, Oxford and Peter Asplin, Curator of Special Collections at Glasgow University Library. Additional thanks to Strathclyde University Library, the Mitchell Library of Glasgow and The National Library of Edinburgh for having provided me with essential material in support of my research. Thanks also to Amanda J. MacLeod, Hanne Tange and Inga Agustsdottir for their support. Declaration This thesis represents my own unassisted work, and no part of it has been submitted previously for any academic qualification. The views expressed are my own and not those of the University of Glasgow. Hazel Hynd 7 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS The following forms of reference are used throughout. BL Baptist Lake (London: Ward and Downey, 1894) C ‘Characteristics’, The Works of Thomas Carlyle, ed. by H.D. Traill, Centenary Edition, 30 vols. (London: Chapman and Hall, 1896-99), vol. 28 DA Diabolus Amans (Glasgow: Wilson and McCormick 1885) GMPN The Great Men and a Practical Novelist (London: Ward and Downey, 1891) MAOC Miss Armstrong and Other Circumstances (London: Methuen and Co., 1896) MH In A Music-Hall and Other Poems (London: Ward and Downey, 1981) OHHW On Heroes and Hero Worship, and the Heroic in History, The Works of Thomas Carlyle , Centenary Edition, vol. 5 PP Past and Present, The Works of Thomas Carlyle, Centenary Edition, vol. 10 R Reminiscences, vol. 1, ed. by James Anthony Froude (London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1881) S Smith: A Tragic Farce in Plays by John Davidson (London: Matthews and Lane, 1894) SP Sentences and Paragraphs (London: Lawrence & Bullen, 1893) SR Sartor Resartus, The Works o f Thomas Carlyle, ed. by H.D. Traill, Centenary Edition, vol. 1 ST 'Signs of the Times', The Works of Thomas Carlyle, Centenary Edition, vol. 27 THN David Hume,A Treatise of Human Nature (London: Penguin, 1986) TJD The Testament of John Davidson (London: Grant Richards, 1908) TM The Triumph of Mammon (London: Grant Richards, 1907) WR 'Wotton Reinfred', inThe Last Words of Thomas Carlyle (London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1892), pp. 1-148 INTRODUCTION REASSESSING DAVIDSON This thesis is intended to constitute a long overdue reassessment of Davidson’s writing within a Scottish literary context. In so doing the aim is to complement rather than replace existing studies which neglect this area. Davidson has traditionally been viewed either as a minor English writer or, at best, as a marginal figure within Scottish literature. In comparison with contemporaries such as R.L. Stevenson and James Barrie, Davidson remains the lesser known figure. Apart from short essays by Tom Hubbard, R.M. Wenley, Andrew Turnbull and Hugh MacDiarmid, none of the major studies of Davidson (including book-length works) deal in any depth with his relationship to Scottish literature or culture. In the majority of critical accounts Davidson has been readily compared with a variety of writers and thinkers ranging from Nietzsche1, Ibsen and Swinburne to Eliot and Woolf2, and to a range of literary movements from the fin de siecle and decadence of the 1890s3 to the development of modernism and post-modernism4. What the reader will not find is an extended analysis of Davidson within a Scottish literary context or detailed comparison with other Scottish writers. Critics have failed to appreciate the extent to which many of Davidson’s ideas have their origins in his formative experience or the enduring influence of that experience upon him. Most commentators and critics ignore or forget the fact that Davidson was bom in Scotland and did not leave until he was thirty-two years of age;5 he therefore spent roughly two-thirds of his life in Scotland. Davidson was brought up directly under the influence of the Scottish religious and educational system. He was educated at Edinburgh university, he worked in laboratories as an analyst's assistant and was privy to the practical rational tradition of Scottish thought and industry; he