The Forties: a Doctorate in Creative and Critical Writing
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The Forties: A Doctorate in Creative and Critical Writing Todd Swift Thesis submitted in fulfilment of the degree of PhD University of East Anglia Faculty of Humanities School of Literature and Creative Writing August, 2011 © This copy of the thesis has been supplied on condition that anyone who consults it is understood to recognise that its copyright rests with the author and that use of any information derived therefrom must be in accordance with current UK copyright law. In addition, any quotation or extract must include full attribution. ABSTRACT Todd Swift, 2011, ‗The Forties: A Doctorate in Creative and Critical Writing‘ This work is in two parts: a portfolio of creative writing (poetry), preceded by a critical thesis. In the critical aspect of my dissertation I contest a dominant account of poetic creation and influence in the period 1938–1954, and consider a third line of influence that arose in post-war British poetry. The methodology follows in the footsteps of Other Traditions by John Ashbery: literary criticism by a practitioner. My critical writing complements my poetry collection, whose various styles and registers relate to the poetic influences discussed. My first three chapters develop the argument as follows: Chapter One considers ideas of ‗style‘ and ‗poetic style‘. Chapter Two narrows in on the idea of ‗period style‘ in poetry and turns more specifically into a discussion of the Forties Style in Poetry. Chapter Three looks directly at the period under question, the Forties, and its key poet, Dylan Thomas, as read by critics. Chapter Four discusses F.T. Prince, a major poet much overlooked. Chapters Five, Six and Seven consider the poets Terence Tiller, Nicholas Moore and Philip Larkin, in the light of their writing when young, often concerned with love and desire. Finally, I conclude that Forties stylishness is an option still available to the poet who wants to access it. The Forties Style is another kind of late modernism – a viable one, ripe for revaluation, enjoyment and deployment, in contemporary poems and poets. My poetry collection follows, exhibiting how the Forties Style can be employed by a contemporary poet. The collection is in three sections: ‗The Serious Business‘; ‗God Has Left Us Like A Girl‘; and, ‗Start Again‘. Part One explores a poetics of style; Part Two explores a ‗personal mythology‘ occasioned by grief; and Part Three combines style and the personal with a new note of optimism. 2 TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT ................................................................................................................. 2 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ......................................................................................... 5 INTRODUCTION ....................................................................................................... 6 CRITICAL THESIS: Five British Poets, 1938–1954 – ............................................. 10 Towards a Poetics of Style ......................................................................................... 10 CHAPTER 1 .............................................................................................................. 11 ON STYLE ............................................................................................................ 11 1. Problems of Style .................................................................................................................... 14 2. Poetic Style ............................................................................................................................. 20 CHAPTER 2: ............................................................................................................. 26 PERIOD STYLE AND THE FORTIES ................................................................. 26 CHAPTER 3: ............................................................................................................. 42 POETRY OF THE LONG DECADE AND DYLAN THOMAS .......................... 42 1. The Long Decade .................................................................................................................... 42 2. Dylan Thomas in the Forties and His Critics ......................................................................... 46 3. Critical Responses to 1940s Poetry ........................................................................................ 55 CHAPTER 4: ............................................................................................................. 60 F.T. PRINCE‘S OVERLOOKED LUSTRE OF LANGUAGE ............................. 60 1. ................................................................................................................................................. 60 2. ................................................................................................................................................. 64 3. ................................................................................................................................................. 69 4. ................................................................................................................................................. 74 5. ................................................................................................................................................. 79 CHAPTER FIVE: ...................................................................................................... 84 TERENCE TILLER‘S LOVELY SHAPES OF RHETORIC ................................ 84 CHAPTER SIX: ....................................................................................................... 110 THE ELEGANT POETRY OF NICHOLAS MOORE ........................................ 110 CHAPTER SEVEN: ................................................................................................ 120 PHILIP LARKIN IN THE GRIP OF GIRLS ....................................................... 120 CONCLUSION ........................................................................................................ 132 CREATIVE THESIS: .............................................................................................. 134 POEMS, October 2006–July 2011 ......................................................................... 134 NOTE ON THE POEMS ..................................................................................... 135 Part One: The Serious Business ............................................................................. 136 The Serious Business .......................................................................................... 137 It‘s not a poem unless it‘s seen ........................................................................... 138 On Reading Martin Mooney ............................................................................... 139 The Teetotaller‘s Song ........................................................................................ 140 The Shelf ............................................................................................................. 141 The land I‘d wish to describe ............................................................................. 143 In Memory of F.T. Prince ................................................................................... 144 ‗Send for the boys who do not care‘ .................................................................. 146 A Covenant At Mary Le Bone ............................................................................ 147 I Think of Delmore Schwartz, Beside My Sleeping Love ................................ 150 New Country ....................................................................................................... 152 Song In A Time of Inflation ................................................................................ 153 New Theology ..................................................................................................... 155 3 Hedda Gabler ....................................................................................................... 156 The Forties ........................................................................................................... 157 Michael Kohlhaas ............................................................................................... 158 ‗Somewhere the mimetic is having more fun than I am‘.................................. 160 My 43rd Year ........................................................................................................ 161 Seven Good Fridays ............................................................................................ 162 Part Two: God Has Left Us Like A Girl ................................................................ 165 God has left us like a girl ................................................................................... 166 An England .......................................................................................................... 167 ‗There is, in it‘ ..................................................................................................... 168 Fertility ................................................................................................................ 169 When all my disappointments came at once ..................................................... 170 After riding the escalator back ........................................................................... 171 Canadian Fiction ................................................................................................