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The Literary Criticism of Randall Jarrell

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The Literary Criticism of Randall Jarrell INFORMATION TO USERS This was produced from a copy of a document sent to us for microfilming. While the most advanced technological means to photograph and reproduce this document have been used, the quality is heavily dependent upon the quality of the material submitted. The following explanation of techniques is provided to help you understand markings or notations which may appear on this reproduction. 1. The sign or "target" for pages apparently lacking from the document photographed is "Missing Page(s)". If it was possible to obtain the missing page(s) or section, they are spliced into the film along with adjacent pages. This may have necessitated cutting through an image and duplicating adjacent pages to assure you of complete continuity. 2. When an image on the film is obliterated with a round black mark it is an indication that the film inspector noticed either blurred copy because of movement during exposure, or duplicate copy. 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ZEEB ROAD, ANN ARBOR, Ml 48106 18 BEDFORD ROW, LONDON WC1R 4EJ, ENGLAND 8011207 MONROE, HAYDEN KEITH AN ORNAMENT OF CIVILIZATION: THE LITERARY CRITICISM OF RANDALL JARRELL The University of North Carolina at Greensboro PH.D. 1979 University Microfilms International 300 N. Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, MI 48106 18 Bedford Row, London WC1R 4EJ, England Copyright 1980 by Monroe, Hayden Keith All Rights Reserved AN ORNAMENT OF CIVILIZATION: THE LITERARY CRITICISM OF RANDALL JARRELL by Hayden Keith Monroe A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School at The University of North Carolina at Greensboro in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy Greensboro 1979 Approved by Dissertation Adviser We were talking about survival and over- refinement. Marc said he didn't like to feel that, if his survival depended on being able to kill and dress an animal, for in­ stance, he couldn't do it. The rest of us agreed we felt ashamed of our squeamishness, but Randall disagreed. "I consider myself the ornament of civilization 1" he declared. "When it perishes, let me perish!" Eleanor Taylor ii MONROE, HAYDEN KEITH. An Ornament of Civilization. The Literary Criticism of Randall Jarrell. (1979) Directed by: Dr. Robert Watson. Pp. 276 Randall Jarrell, one of America's foremost postwar poets, was also a distinguished literary critic, a man Alfred Kazin once described as a "prince of reviewers." This study traces the course of Jarrell"s critical development. It begins with a trio of chapters detailing his apprenticeship when, as a young man at Vanderbilt and Kenyon in the late thirties, he came under the influence of the New Critics. His first work tor national magazines such as The New Repub­ lic, The Nation and Partisan Review is also examined, in­ cluding the early support he received from Edmund Wilson. The fact that Jarrell made his early reputation by writing high-spirited attacks on inept or imitative poets is exam­ ined, particularly as this practice contrasts markedly with his later role as an appreciator of too little regarded poets of real worth. The natural hiatus in Jarrell's work occasioned by World War II allows the inclusion of three more chapters on special topics. First, a discussion of the aesthetic behind Jarrell's reviewing is undertaken, based largely on Jarrell's "The End of the Line." The author contends that the ground­ work laid in this early theory of modernism enabled Jarrell, in the ten years between 1946 and 1956, to become an extreme­ ly influential interpreter of the shape and meaning of American poetic achievement in the first half of the twen­ tieth century. A chapter on Jarrell's criticism of Auden follows. It suggests that Jarrell's development as a critic may be seen in microcosm in his work on that poet. Finally, a chapter on Jarrell's style as displayed in reviews, long critical essays and polemics is included. It argues that Jarrell's technique resembles that of earlier poet-critics, notably Matthew Arnold. The study's last three chapters treat Jarrell's mature work as a critic in the last twenty years of his life. The first concerns his minor reviews from this period when he served as poetry editor for The Nation and later for the Yale Review. His adoption of the roles of appreciator, teacher and sage in his criticism is noted. This was the period when, in Robert Lowell's words, it became true to say that "eulogy was the glory of Randall's criticism." A second chapter examines his most important essays on eight poets— Frost, Whitman, Williams, Moore, Stevens, Lowell, and Graves —several of which altered permanently the reputations of their subjects. The final chapter discusses the polemics and fiction criticism of Jarrell's last years. APPROVAL PAGE This dissertation has been approved by the following committee of the Faculty of the Graduate School at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Dissertation Adviser Committee Members 141* iesea- £ux<;C\ 0\J. g , 14 7Q Date of Acceptance by Committee f Ml (j Date of Final Oral Examination in ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The author would like to express his appreciation for their cooperation and suggestions to his advisor, Dr. Robert Watson, and the other members of his committee: Dr. Randolph Bulgin, Dr. Charles Davis, Dr. Keith Cushman. He is also especially indebted to Mrs. Mary Jarrell for her willingness to discuss the subject of this study at length and for making available invaluable unpublished materials in her possession, particularly letters and the never completed "Audeni From Poems to The Shield of Achilles." Finally, he is grateful to Mrs. Josephine Monroe for secretarial aid, to Mrs. Lorraine Harris for editorial assistance, and to his wife, Patricia, for unflagging support and encouragement. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Page APPROVAL PAGE iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS iv PART ONE. 1914-1943 1 CHAPTER ONE. THE APPRENTICE 2 First Reviews and Thesis 14 Critic of Critics . 20 CHAPTER TWO. THE ASSASSIN 38 The Inept 43 The Imitators 44 The Diminished ...... 47 The Dishonest 49 CHAPTER THREE; CONSOLIDATION 53 Wilson 53 Reviewer Reviewed 56 First Appreciations 64 PART TWO; HIATUS 74 CHAPTER FOUR; AESTHETICS 75 Poets and Poetry 76 Modern Times 88 Morlocks and Eloi 96 CHAPTER FIVE; AUDEN 102 CHAPTER SIX; STYLE 130 PART THREE; 1945-1965 157 CHAPTER SEVEN; PRINCE OF REVIEWERS 158 At War with War Poets 167 Brief Murders . 170 Little Lessons 176 Praise 179 v Page CHAPTER EIGHT. THE POET CRITIC 186 Frost 190 Whitman 197 Ransom 201 Williams 204 Moore 213 Stevens 218 Lowell 223 Graves . 230 Conclusion 237 CHAPTER NINE; LAST THINGS 244 Polemics 244 Fiction 257 BIBLIOGRAPHY 271 vi 1 PART ONE: 19 35-1943 2 CHAPTER ONE: THE APPRENTICE Nothing will satisfy a finished taste The soul that still is growing, still is grateful. Goethe Randall Jarrell thought of himself and wanted to be thought of as a poet. But he admitted that poets must spend much of their time "waiting for the spark from heaven to fall."1 He envied men like Wallace Stevens who apparently could wait for poems writing poems. Jarrell could not. He filled the time between them with teaching and lecturing, which he loved, and which he said he would have paid to be allowed to do. He also did translations, wrote children's books, one novel and criticism. All of these activities helped him promote the cause of literature, enlist an audience for it, and enhance his own reputation. He was probably most ambivalent about the writing of criticism since it was farther from poetry than was translation and farther from an audience than teaching. And yet there was a demand for it which was both fxattering and distressing. He solved the problem in part by making criticism out of lectures, and by using his criticism as a kind of crusade against defective poetry, and the enemies of poetry. Still, once when he found it hard to produce poems, but was in demand as a critic, he cried: "Help! Help! A wicked fairy has turned me into a prose writer!"2 He could also 3 complain in his criticism of criticism that "They'll pay us to do anything, so long as it isn't . writing poems" (SH:86). It isn't hard to get the impression that he felt about the writing of criticism as he felt about painting the walls of an apartment: caught in that act and woebegone, he said, "I don't like it. I just happen to be good at it" (RJ: 2 3 5). His being good at it has provoked this study of the literary criticism of Randall Jarrell, an undertaking that probably would have neither surprised nor pleased the author of "The Age of Criticism," in part at least criticism of criticism of criticism.
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