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This electronic thesis or dissertation has been downloaded from the King’s Research Portal at https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/ Rosamond Lehmann : a modern writer. Pfaltz, Katherine The copyright of this thesis rests with the author and no quotation from it or information derived from it may be published without proper acknowledgement. END USER LICENCE AGREEMENT Unless another licence is stated on the immediately following page this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International licence. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ You are free to copy, distribute and transmit the work Under the following conditions: Attribution: You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work). Non Commercial: You may not use this work for commercial purposes. No Derivative Works - You may not alter, transform, or build upon this work. Any of these conditions can be waived if you receive permission from the author. Your fair dealings and other rights are in no way affected by the above. Take down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact [email protected] providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. Download date: 06. Oct. 2021 Rosamond Lehmann: A Modern Writer Katharine Pfaltz King's College, London Supervisor: Dr. Max Saunders LONDIM. UNIY. Abstract This study argues for Rosamond Lehmann's place among enduring women writers of the twentieth century. Lehmann has been criticized by reviewers for being too much of a "women's novelist". She is typically regarded as a romantic novelist whose forte lies in exploring the hearts of women in love. From her lyrical descriptions, she is shown to be skilled in the use of image, but often little else. Likewise her texts have been reproached for being too narrow in scope and for failing to deal with the social issues of her time. By placing her work within the modernist tradition of literary experiment and its related examination of gender, this dissertation will challenge the view of Rosamond Lehmann as seen as a "feminine" novelist, with limited scope. It will examine Lehmann's work over the years, and argue for her place, not as a "Modernist", such as Virginia Woolf or Dorothy Richardson, but as a pioneer of twentieth-century fiction, beginning with Dusty Answer. Accordingly I will study Lehrnann's narrative technique, and the influence of the two World Wars in her texts. I will explore the role of self, :1. and address the problem of individuality, as Lehmann saw it, and of preserving this self within the confines of society. And I will demonstrate how her examination of the inner lives of her characters, and her treatment of gendered identities establishes her as an prominent figure in the exploration into the modern consciousness, more often associated with her acclaimed contemporaries, such as Elizabeth Bowen, Virginia Woolf, Doris Lessing, May Sinclair and Dorothy Richardson. Throughout the examination of the above, this thesis will also attempt to illustrate that Lehmann's work is distinct in its tendency not to judge. Yet she has been criticized for not taking a moral stand on her characters. This paper will show that if she were to do so, one point her work is trying to reveal would be lost: Lehmann's aim is to show the limitations of a judgmental, as opposed to an aesthetic, attitude. 2 Contents I. Introduction.......................................4 II. Background .........................................9 II. Narrative Technique and Time Sequence ..............13 III. The Influence of War ...............................67 and resulting Isolation..........................105 IV. The Inner Lives of Women...........................144 V. Gez.dered Identities ................................156 Hmosexua1ity and Female Friendship VI. Prc^b.ens of ZTjzdent am Interpretation ............214 vii. Coxc1usion.........................................221 Bibliography .......................................230 ApPendix ............................................240 P binner Speech "Letter to My Brother" "The Bay" 3 Rosamond Lehmann: A Modern Writer Introduction In 1927 Dusty Answer was published and made Rosamond Lehmann famous overnight. The novel became an instant best seller in England, France and M'Lerica. Dusty Answer more than any of Lehmann's other novels draws on the traditions of the past, and we see Lehmann as a product of Edwardian England. Three years later A Note in Music was published, and outwardly appeared the opposite of Dusty Answer with its differences in setting and style. But technically these two novels were similar. Then in 1932 came the seemingly simplistic Invitation to the Waltz. Yet its more comic tone was a departure from Lehmann's earlier works. Its sequel Th Weather in the Streets (1936) was yet again a departure from prior works with its psychological approach and greater emotional depth. Eight years later The Ballad and the Source was published and nearly ten years after it The Echoing Grove. With their experiments in narrative and chronology, these two novels were different from any of Lehmann's previous texts. The harsh realism of The Echoing Grove was far removed from the romantic tone of Dusty Answer. By 4 this time Lehmann, while ever aware of her debt to Victorianism, was welcoming the innovation of the twentieth century, with its changes in societal structure and artistic expression, due primarily to the First and Second World Wars. Her short stories were published in 1946; her partial autobiography, The Swan in the Evening: Fragments of an Inner Life in 1967; and finally, in 1976, her last work, A Sea-Grape Tree Thus, Lehmann's work spanned nearly sixty years and yet she wrote only seven novels, one play and one book of short stories. Throughout all her works her focus remained the inner lives of her heroines. Yet her works should not be dismissed as narrow or mere romance plots 2 , for they encompass much more. Lehmann's novels clearly illustrate that she was sensitive to the cultural changes brought about by the wars, and she attempted to convey these feelings in a narrative that was distinct from previous modes of fictional expression. Reviews of Lehmann's works usually took two forms: praise for her "lyrical prose" and "feminine sensibility," and praise of these, followed by a caveat that these must be combined with more substantial material--without which she can not be considered a serious author. George Dangerfield states that she must enlarge her 'Rosamond Lehmann wrote one play, published in 1939 titled "No More Music." This thesis does not address the play. 2 See Rosalind Miles, The Fiction of Sex: Themes and Functions of Sex Difference in the Modern Novel (London: Vision Press, 1974) pp. 122-23. 5 horizon and move away from memory and childhood; if she does not her beautiful writing will lose its power with us, delicate observation grow stale, even enchantment itself become no more than a conjuring with words. And Miss Lehmann, if she set her imagination free, could take a major place in modern British Fiction. He also criticizes her delight in the minor situation; [...] her preoccupation with people who , by age or character, are incapable of full experience- - Another reviewer stated that so long as her characters overindulge introspection (however accurate and stimulating) MISS Lehmann's novels will continue to lack vigor and depth. They remain frail and exquisite perfections; records of infinite sensitivity, small moments of beauty, tragedies muffled in cerebration. Seldom have so many gifts been concentrated on so few values.4 I hope to show that Lehmann indeed deserves a place in modern British fiction, and that her characters' introspection is a part of the reason for thinking so. Lehmann's perceptive examination of the human heart and female emotions is decisively important in understanding an era, for personal and sexual experience is often intrinsically related to the social and historical. Lehmann, along with several of her contemporaries, was expressing dissatisfaction with the existing novel. She would break 3George Dangerfield, "Rosamond Lehmann and the Perilous Enchantment of Things Past," The Bookman, LXXVI, February 1933, pp. 172-73. 4 lsabel Mallet, Review of The Ballad and the Source, New York Times, 1 April 1945, p. 4. 6 with convention by shifting the focus from the outer world to the inner world, from the omniscient narrator to the limited point of view, and from action to thinking and dreaming. In all her novels Lehmann's writing combines an understanding and implementing of new techniques, such as questioning of sexual identities, a psychoanalytic approach to character and experiments in narrative perspective and time sequence. This dissertation will examine various related areas in which Lehmann is either a pioneer, or representative of modern developments in fiction: narrative technique; the response to both world wars; a resulting sense of isolation, and how this redefines the inner lives of women; new senses of difference and conflict in gender and sexuality; and finally how Lehmann's experience of modernity and individual alienation results in fictional forms which eschew judgmental objectivity. By placing her work within the modernist tradition of literary experiment, this study will also challenge the view of Rosamond Lehmann as an amateur' writer and a "feminine" novelist, criticized for her limited scope and failure to deal with the social issues of her time.' "Feminine" in this sense is a derogatory term used to 'Comment by J.B. Priestley to Rosamond Lehmann. See Mary Chamberlain, ed. Interview by Janet Watts, Writing Lives Conversations Between Women Writers (London: Virago, 1988) p. 156. 'See George Dangerfield, "Rosamond Lehmann and the Perilous Enchantment of Things Past," The Bookman, February 1933; Clifton Fadiman, The Nation, June 1927; Diana Trilling, The Nation, vol. 160, 14 April 1945; Honor Tracy, "New Novels," The New Statesman 7 imply limitations in scope and subject.