Modem Women’s Poetry 1910—1929 Jane Dowson Submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the University of Leicester. 1998 UMI Number: U117004 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 complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. Dissertation Publishing UMI U117004 Published by ProQuest LLC 2013. Copyright in the Dissertation held by the Author. Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. ProQuest LLC 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 Modern Women9s Poetry 1910-1929 Jane Dowson Abstract In tracing the publications and publishing initiatives of early twentieth-century women poets in Britain, this thesis reviews their work in the context of a male-dominated literary environment and the cultural shifts relating to the First World War, women’s suffrage and the growth of popular culture. The first two chapters outline a climate of new rights and opportunities in which women became public poets for the first time. They ran printing presses and bookshops, edited magazines and wrote criticism. They aimed to align themselves with a male tradition which excluded them and insisted upon their difference. Defining themselves antithetically to the mythologised poetess of the nineteenth century and popular verse, they developed strategies for disguising their gender through indeterminate speakers, fictional dramatisations or anti-realist subversions. Chapter Three explores the ways in which women’s poems of the First World War register the changing ideologies of gender and nationalism. Chapter Four identifies a ‘conservative modernity’ in women who avoided femininity, through universal speakers and the conventional forms of male-associated traditions, but there is also a covert woman’s agenda, particularly in the love lyrics of VitaSackville-West The remaining chapters recognise women’s participation in modernist innovation through radical aesthetics or radical subject matter. In ‘The British Avant-Garde’, the most significant experimentalist is Edith Sitwell, but the less well-known work of Nancy Cunard, Iris Tree and Helen Rootham, is also considered. Chapter Six, ‘The Anglo-American Avant- Garde’, includes American women who lived in Britain or who were indirectly influential through the network of writers in London, Paris and New York: H.D., Amy Lowell, Gertrude Stein, Laura Riding, Marianne Moore and Mina Loy. The final group of ‘Female Modernists’, Charlotte Mew, May Sinclair, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Anna Wickham and Sylvia Townsend Warner, project a feminist consciousness in negotiation with poetic formalism. They indicate women’s progress towards a new self-asserting aesthetic. Contents Acknowledgements Chronology of Poetry Publications and Enterprises by Women ii 1910-1929 1. Introduction 1 2. The Literary Context: escaping the feminine 20 3. Women’s Poetry and the First World War 37 4. Between the Georgians and Bloomsbury: 64 Frances Cornford (1886-1960) and Vita Sackville-West (1892-1962). 5. The British Avant-Garde: 94 Edith Sitwell (1887-1964) and the Women ofWheels : Nancy Cunard (1896-1965), Iris Tree (1897-1968) and Helen Rootham. 6. The Anglo-American Avant-Garde: 128 H.D. (1886-1961), Amy Lowell (1874-1925), Marianne Moore (1887-1972), Laura (Riding) Jackson (1901-1991), Gertrude Stein (1874-1946) and Mina Loy (1882-1966). 7. Female Modernists: 178 Charlotte Mew (1869-1928), May Sinclair (1863-1946), Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950), Anna Wickham (1884-1947) and Sylvia Townsend Warner (1893-1978). 8. Conclusion 221 Bibliography: Primary Works 228 Bibliography: Secondary Works 239 Acknowledgements I particularly wish to thank Nick Everett for his generosity with his time and constructive supervision. I am grateful to De Montfort University for granting me a sabbatical and to my colleagues who covered for me, particularly Caroline Daly, Clare Walsh, Sue Panter, Maureen Little and Alistair Walker. I have, as ever, appreciated the tolerance and partnership of MarkDowson. Modern Women’s Poetry 1910-1929 ii Chronology of Poetry Publications and Enterprises by Women 1910-1929 1910 Frances Comford,Poems. London. 1911 The Freewoman: a weekly feminist review, ed. DoraMarsden. London. 23 Nov. 1911-10 Oct 1912. Winifred Holtby,My Garden and other Poems. Scarborough. Katherine Tynan, New Poems. London. Anna Wickham (pseudonym ‘John Oland’),Songs. London. 1912 Frances Comford,Death and the Princess: a morality. Cambridge. Amy Lowell,A Dome of Many Coloured Glass. Boston. Poetry: A Magazine o f Verse, ed. Harriet Monroe. Chicago. 1912-1935. Lady Margaret Sackville becomes the first President of the Poetry Society in London. 1913 Alice Meynell, Collected Poems. Boston. The New Freewoman (formerlyThe Freewoman), ed. DoraMarsden. London. 1914 The Egoist (formerlyThe New Freewoman), ed. Harriet Shaw Weaver, assisted by Richard Aldington and Dora Marsden. London. 1914-1918. The little Review, ed. Margaret Anderson. Chicago. New York. Paris. 1914-1929. Amy Lowell,Sword Blades and Poppy Seed. Boston. Gertrude Stein, Tender Buttons. New York. Jane Dowson iii 1915 Djuna Barnes, The Book of Repulsive Women: 8 Rhythms and 5 Drawings. New York. Frances Comford,Spring Morning. London. Amy Lowell, ed.Some Imagist Poets. Boston. Amy Lowell,Six French Poets: studies in contemporary literature. London. New York. Alice Meynell, Ten Poems 1913-1915. London. Jessie Pope,Jessie Pope’s War Poems. London. May Sinclair,A Journal of Impressions in Belgium. London. New York. Katherine Tynan, Flower of Youth: Poems in War Time.London. Anna Wickham, The Contemplative Quarry. London. 1916 Vera Brittain, Verses o f a VAD. London. H.D. Sea Garden. London. Amy Lowell,Men, Women and Ghosts. Boston. Amy Lowell, ed.Some Imagist Poets. Vol. II. Boston. Sylvia Lynd,The Thrush and the Jay: Poems and Prose Sketches. London. Charlotte Mew, The Farmer’s Bride. London. Charlotte Mew, The Rambling Sailor. London. Jessie Pope,Simple Rhymes for Stirring Times. London. Lady Margaret Sackville,The Pageantof War. London. Katherine Tynan, The Holy War. London. Wheels: First Cycle. Ed. Edith Sitwell or Nancy Cunard. Oxford. Anna Wickham, The Man with a Hammer. London. 1917 May Wedderbum Cannan,In War Time. London. Elizabeth Bridges (Daryush), Verses. Oxford. Amy Lowell,Tendencies in Modem American Poetry. Boston. Amy Lowell, ed.Some Imagist Poets. Vol. III. Boston. Amy Lowell, ed. with Louis Untermeyer,A Miscellany o f American Poetry. New York. Alice Meynell,A Father of Women and Other Poems. London. Edna St. Vincent Millay, Renascence and Other Poems. New York. Vita Sackville-West,Poems of West and East. London. Edith Sitwell, ed. Wheels: Second Cycle. Oxford. Katherine Tynan, Late Songs. London. Modem Women’s Poetry 1910-1929 iv 1918 EvaGore-Booth,Broken Glory. London. Margaret Cole,Poems. London. Amy Lowell,Can Grande’s Castle. London & New York. Amy Lowell, ed.A Miscellany o f American Poetry, Vol. II. New York. Edith Sitwell, Clowns’ Houses. Oxford. Edith Sitwell, Mother and Other Poems. Oxford. Edith Sitwell, ed. Wheels: Third Cycle. Oxford. 1919 The Egoist becomes Egoist Press. London. Amy Lowell,Pictures o f the Floating World. Boston. Rose Macaulay,Three Days. London. Edith Sitwell, ed. Wheels: Fourth Cycle. Oxford. 1920 Sylvia Lynd,The Goldfinches: Poem. London. Edna St. Vincent Millay, A Few Figs from Thistles: poems and sonnets. New York. London. Edna St. Vincent Millay, Second April. New York. (3 reprints in 1921). Ruth Pitter, First Poems. London. Jessie Pope.Hits and Misses. London. Edith Sitwell, The Wooden Pegasus. Oxford. Edith Sitwell, ed. Wheels: Fifth Cycle. Oxford. Time and Tide started by Lady Margaret Rhondda. London. 1920-76. Iris Tree, Poems. London. New York. Dorothy Wellesley,Poems. London. 1921 Nancy Cunard,Outlaws. London. Elizabeth Bridges (Daryush) Sonnets from Hafaz and Other Verses. London. H.D. Hymen. London. New York. Charlotte Mew, The Farmer’s Bride. (New edition with 11 new poems.) London. Marianne Moore,Poems. London. Vita Sackville-West,Orchard and Vineyard. London. Edith Sitwell, ed. Wheels: Sixth Cycle. Oxford. Anna Wickham, The Little Old House. London. JaneDowson v 1922 Amy Lowell,Fir-Flower Tablets. Poems translated from the Chinese. New York and London. Edna St. Vincent Millay, The Ballad of the Harp Weaver. New York and London. Edith Sitwell. ‘Readers & Writers’. The New Age new series. Weekly column. July-Aug. Vol. 31. Nos. 14-21. London. 1923 Louise Bogan,Body of this Death:poems. New York. May Weddeibum Cannan,The House of Hope. London. Nancy Cunard,Sublunary. London. Mina Loy,Lunar Baedecker [sic]. Paris. Alice Meynell, Last Poems. London. Edna St. Vincent Millay, The Harp Weaver and Other Poems. New York. London. Edna St. Vincent Millay, Poems. London. Edith Sitwell, Bucolic Comedies. London. 1924 H.D. Heliodora and Other Poems. London. Boston. Marianne Moore,Observations. New York. May Sinclair, The Dark Night. London. New York. Edith Sitwell, The Sleeping Beauty. London. 1925 Eva Gore-Booth,The Shepherd o f Eternity and Other Poems. London. Nancy Cunard,Parallax. London. H.D. Collected Poems of H.D. New York. Amy Lowell,What’s O’Clock? Boston. Amy Lowell,John Keats. Boston. Mina Loy,Lunar Baedecker [sic]. Paris. Marianne Moore becomes editorThe of Dial. New York. 1920-1929. Edna St Vincent Millay, Renascence and other poems. New York Edith Sitwell, Troy Park. London. Edith Sitwell, Poetry and Criticism. London. Gertrude Stein, The Making of Americans. Paris. Sylvia Townsend Warner,The Espalier. London. Modem Women's Poetry 1910-1929 vi 1926 Amy Lowell,East Wind. London. Harriet Monroe,Poets and their Art. New York. Laura (Riding) Jackson,The Close Chaplet. London. New York. Vita Sackville-West,The Land. London. Dorothy Wellesley,Genesis: An Impression. London. 1927 Ruth Pitter, First and Second Poems. London. Amy Lowell,Ballads for Sale. Boston. Laura Riding and Robert Graves start the Seizin Press.