Modernist Vintages: The Significance of Wine in Wilde, Richardson, Joyce and Waugh by Laura Waugh A Dissertation Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy Approved March 2013 by the Graduate Supervisory Committee: Mark Lussier, Chair Daniel Bivona Patrick Bixby ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY May 2013 ABSTRACT “Modernist Vintages” considers the significance of wine in a selection of modernist texts that includes Oscar Wilde’s Salomé (1891), Dorothy Richardson’s Honeycomb (1917), James Joyce’s Ulysses (1922), and Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited: The Sacred and Profane Memories of Captain Charles Ryder (1945). The representations of wine in these fictions respond to the creative and destructive depictions of Wine that have imbued the narratives of myth, religion, and philosophy for thousands of years; simultaneously, these WorKs recreate and reflect on numerous Wine-related events and movements that shaped European discourse in the nineteenth and tWentieth centuries. The modernists use Wine’s conventional associations to diverse and innovative ends: as the playWright August Strindberg Writes, “NeW forms have not been found for the neW content, so that the neW Wine has burst the old bottles.” Wine in these works alternately, and often concurrently, evoKes themes that Were important to the modernists, including notions of indulgence and Waste, pleasure and addiction, experimentation and ritual, tradition and nostalgia, regional distinction and global expansion, wanton intoxication and artistic clarity. This project also discusses various nineteenth- and twentieth- century contexts that informed these WorKs and that continue to shape our reading of them, including the propagation of restaurant culture; the development of a gastronomic literary tradition; the condemnation of alcohol by temperance strategists; the demarcation of Wine as a “luxury good”; the professionalization and sloW democratization of Wine drinking and buying; the rise of popular, i philosophical, and professional interest in the psychological and physiological effects of intoxication; and the influence of War on Wine marKets and popular attitudes toward wine. “Modernist Vintages” aims to demonstrate that the inclusion of objects liKe Wine in modernist fiction is purposeful and meaningful, and thus inspires new and fruitful discussion about the works, writers, and nature of literary modernism in Europe. ii DEDICATION Dedicated to, and in memory of, James N. Pfeffer. iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS My profound thanks go to Dr. Mark Lussier, Dr. Daniel Bivona, and Dr. Patrick Bixby for their Wisdom and Kindness throughout the dissertation process. I am deeply indebted to my parents, Linda and Bill Pettit, for their unrelenting support and love. Thank you to Sarah Grieve for being a great reader and Wonderful friend. Many thanks also to Jason Bryant, Dotty Dye, Jean-PatricK Dye, Jeremy Hurley, and Bryan VanGinhoven for their unrelenting willingness to read, translate, and commiserate. Finally, so much love and gratitude goes to Craig, my husband and best friend. There are no Words to express hoW grateful I am for your love and faith in me. I could not have done this without you. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Page CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION.............................................................................................................1 2 SYMBOLS OF HIS OWN CREATING: WINE, MYTH, AND RELIGION IN OSCAR WILDE’S SALOMÈ........................................................................................37 3 HELIOGABALUS’ REVELRY: WINE AND “HABITUS” IN DOROTHY RICHARDSON’S HONEYCOMB...............................................................................71 4 “I’LL TAKE A GLASS OF BURGUNDY AND... LET ME SEE”: WINE AND PHILOSOPHY IN JAMES JOYCE’S “LESTRYGONIANS”..............................107 5 “AT LAST FIT FOR THE TABLE”: WINE AND MEMORY IN EVELYN WAUGH’S BRIDESHEAD REVISTED..................................................................143 6 CONCLUSION.............................................................................................................173 WORKS CITED...............................................................................................................................................178 v Chapter 1 INTRODUCTION “‘I KnoW hoW hard you’ve WorKed those hills aflame With summer sun to plucK from each young vine The WhereWithal to maKe me What I am HoW could I be ungrateful, or malign?’” - Charles Baudelaire, “The Spirit of the Wine" In Baudelaire’s The Flowers of Evil (1857), wine sings through the walls of a glass prison, lingers on the breath of Parisian rag pickers, and enrobes the corpse of a murderer’s Wife.i Though vanguard in their unflinching depiction of urban street life, Baudelaire’s poems WorK Within a long tradition of Western literature that taKes Wine as its muse: from Gilgamesh to Ecclesiastes, Homer to ShaKespeare, and Keats to Kerouac, the language of Wine has saturated the literary text for almost as long as we have record.ii In the folloWing chapters, I examine the significance of Wine in a selection of modernist texts that includes Oscar Wilde’s Salomé (1891), Dorothy Richardson’s Honeycomb (1917), James Joyce’s Ulysses (1922), and Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited: The Sacred and Profane Memories of Captain Charles Ryder (1945).iii I argue that references to wine and wine drinking in these works respond to and revise the creative and destructive representations of Wine that have imbued the narratives of myth, religion, and philosophy for thousands of years; as Pericles 1 LeWis argues, most of the modernists sought not to abandon tradition, but looKed instead to “enter into a sort of conversation” With it, “sometimes reverently, sometimes mocKingly” (Cambridge 27). By engaging with an object valued by powerful religious, political, intellectual, and social institutions, these writers are able to critique cultural values, reveal poWer structures and social dynamics, and challenge dualistic models of the mind and body that have persisted in philosophical thought since Plato. Furthermore, Wine’s intoxicating properties conveniently align With the modernists’ interest in loosened inhibitions and permeated boundaries; thus, these writers recurrently use the trope of inebriation via wine to reflect on the nature of the self, the object world, and language. The writers considered in this project use Wine to contemplate issues that tend to be central themes in modernist literature: for example, Wine is used to evoKe notions of indulgence and waste, pleasure and addiction, experimentation and nostalgia, regionalism and nationalism, ancient myth and modern religion, ambiguous states of intoxication and vital moments of artistic clarity. “Modernist Vintages” aims to demonstrate that the use of wine in modernist literature is purposeful and meaningful, and thus inspires neW and fruitful discussions about the works, the writers, and the nature of the European Anglophone modernist period.iv Throughout this project, I also consider numerous Wine-related contexts that informed these fictions and continue to shape our reading of them: as Martin Jay argues, any reading of a text should see that text as being situated Within “a dynamic force field of contending contexts, both synchronous and diachronous, that never 2 fully resolves itself into a single meaningful Whole With a clear order of influence” (561).v The nineteenth- and twentieth-century contexts considered in “Modernist Vintages” include the propagation of restaurant culture and the development of the gastronomic literary tradition, the demonization of alcohol by temperance strategists, the increased perception of Wine as a “luxury good” in many European marKets (thus associating the drinK With neW and highly ritualized practices complete With socially-imposed hierarchies on Wines, Wine services, and Wine drinkers), the professionalization and eventual democratization of Wine drinKing and buying, the rise in popular and professional interest in the physiological effects of intoxication, the devastation caused by a phylloxera infestation on European vines and Wine production, and the influence of War on Wine marKets and popular attitudes toward wine. The portrayal of wine in the fictions considered for this project demonstrates that the modernists both recognized and dreW from these contexts in significant Ways; moreover, these contexts may have influenced these Writers in Ways beyond their immediate perception. While the multiple and simultaneous influences on these WorKs may resist single or even consistent readings, I believe the study of Wine in these fictions gives us a fuller understanding of, and appreciation for, the WorKs and Writers of the European Anglophone modernist period. But before We can turn to a more focused analysis of the literature at the center of this project, it is important to have a WorKing understanding of some of the Key literary, mythical, and historical presentations of wine that the modernists alternately WorKed in, from, or against. 3 Humans have experienced, shared, questioned, and celebrated wine for thousands of years—archeological evidence dates the presence of wine found in What is noW modern China and northern Iran as far bacK as the Neolithic period— and have chronicled those experiences in a long tradition of literature.vi One of the oldest pieces of deciphered writing of significant length in the world, the Code of Hammurabi—a set of Babylonian laws preserved on stone steles dating back to 1772