King, Henry Marcus (2013) 'Out from under the body politic': poetry and government in the work of C.H. Sisson, 1937-1980. PhD thesis. http://theses.gla.ac.uk/4985/ Copyright and moral rights for this thesis are retained by the author A copy can be downloaded for personal non-commercial research or study, without prior permission or charge This thesis cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the Author The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the Author When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given Glasgow Theses Service http://theses.gla.ac.uk/ [email protected] ‘Out from under the Body Politic’: Poetry and Government in the Work of C.H. Sisson, 1937-1980 Henry Marcus King M.A. M.Litt. Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy School of Critical Studies College of Arts University of Glasgow September 2013 © Henry King 2013 Abstract This thesis explores the relationship between government and poetry in the verse, essays, and translations of Charles Hubert Sisson (1914-2003). Theories of sovereignty and government drawn from the work of Giorgio Agamben are used to interrogate these issues in Sisson’s critical and creative writing. Sisson’s work is contextualised within the politics of post-WWII Britain, taking in such issues as the altered relationship between the arts and the state, the decline of the British Empire and the subsequent influx of Commonwealth immigration, the changing status of the monarchy, and the importance of the environment. The thesis is divided into five chapters. The first comprises a preliminary theoretical excursus, focussing on poems by Sisson and C. Day Lewis. The second analyses Sisson’s portrayal of the country and the city, and his own position in relation to them. The third places Sisson’s work in the context of the changing nature of laureateship in the era 1945-1976, comparing his work with that of Philip Larkin and C. Day Lewis. The fourth investigates the politics of translating Virgil after the Second World War, and especially after Enoch Powell’s ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech of April 1968. The final chapter returns to Sisson’s wartime and immediately post-war writings, especially on the subject of India, before moving on to the poems collected in Exactions (1980). II Out from under the body politic Walking in twilight, one after another Yet a conversation Hurts, it is a string tied round the body – C.H. Sisson, ‘The Corridor’, ll.192-5 III Contents Acknowledgments IV List of Abbreviations VI Introduction: A Dual Career 1 I. Poetry, Sovereignty, Government 8 II. ‘On the Fringes of the Town’: C.H. Sisson between the Country and the City 44 III. ‘The State of the Arts’: Modern Laureateship 87 IV. ‘I Came from Troy’: Virgil, Prophecy and National Identity 127 V. ‘The Return Journey’: India and the Church of England 178 Bibliography 232 IV Acknowledgments My first thanks must go to the English Literature department of the University of Glasgow, who have inspired and nurtured me for eight years. I have always received unstinting kindness and generosity from all members of the department, and gratefully wish it all prosperity in the future. In particular, my thanks are due to the staff who have guided this project: Michael Schmidt, for introducing me to Sisson’s work and so instigating my research, and for encouraging me as a writer; to John Coyle for joining my supervisory team, and for his inspirational teaching at undergraduate and Masters levels; and above all to Rhian Williams, without whose unwavering patience and tact, and apparently intuitive understanding of what I myself was fumblingly trying to achieve, this project would not have come to fruition. I would also like to thank the members of the department who have been involved in reviewing my work: Alex Benchimol, Christine Ferguson and Vassiliki Kolokotroni. For the last four years my work has been nourished and my sanity maintained by the fantastic postgraduate community at Glasgow. I would especially like to thank (in alphabetical order): Cara Berger, Tom Betteridge, Tom Coles, Fabienne Collignon, Rebecca Dewald, Andrew Eadie, Nina Enemark, Robby Guillory, Villy Karagouni, Graham Riach, Calum Roger, Lil Rose, Andrew Rubens, Derek Ryan, Stewart Sanderson, Mark West, and Sam Wiseman. I would especially like to thank all those involved with the Theory@Random study group (particularly its founders, Derek Ryan and Mark West), who challenged and enriched my ideas. In the third year of my research, my time in York was brightened by Ben Bartlett, John Bryant, Terry Davies, Amy Johnson, Peggity Pollard-Davey, Nick Rowland, and Shushan Tewolde-Berhan. I am grateful to the Arts and Humanities Research Council for funding my Ph.D., as before it my M.Litt. Thanks also to Valerie Stringfellow for her help in securing and administering my funding. I would also like to thank the Special Collections departments at the Universities of Bristol and Leeds, and Stella Halkyard at the Rylands Library Manchester, for their assistance with my archival research. Innumerable people have contributed in small ways to my research, but I would like to thank those who have taken the time to correspond with me and answer my questions or give me advice: Bob Archambeau, Geoffrey Hill, John Peck, J.H. Prynne, W.G. Shepherd (R.I.P.), John Talbot and Charles Tomlinson. Many people have assisted my research by putting a roof over my head, none more often than Mike Emery. Thanks also to Tessa Cook and her family for looking after me in Bristol; to Alex King, Annabel Gregory and Ellie for being my hosts in London; to Nichola Hornsby in Fife; and to my ever-reliable friends in Glasgow, V Mark & Lil, Henry & Livi, Villy and Martin. Most especially, I would like to thank Janet Louth for her hospitality at Moorfield Cottage, and to her and Charlie Louth for their interest in my research. I owe a debt of love to those friends who have always supported and cheered me: Leo Clark, Stewart McCain, Alice Beckett and Sophie Lippiatt. Extra thanks to Aidan O’Brien for his inspiration, faith, and practical help with moving house. To my family and their unconditional love, I owe more than I can begin to tally. Finally, I dedicate this work to the person who has become an inadvertent expert on C.H. Sisson by dint of sharing every part of my life, Maisie Geelen. VI List of Abbreviations Aen Virgil, Aeneid Anc C.H. Sisson, Anchises (Manchester: Carcanet 1976) Age ‘C.H. Sisson Special Issue’, Agenda (Spring 2010) vol. 45 no. 2 AL C.H. Sisson, The Avoidance of Literature: Collected Essays, ed. Michael Schmidt (Manchester: Carcanet 1978) AR C.H. Sisson, An Asiatic Romance (London: Gaberbocchus Press 1953) CH C.H. Sisson, Christopher Homm (Manchester: Carcanet 1975) CP C.H. Sisson, Collected Poems (Manchester: Carcanet 1998) CT C.H. Sisson, Collected Translations (Manchester: Carcanet 1996) HS Giorgio Agamben, Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life (Stanford: Stanford University Press 1998) ICE C.H. Sisson, Is there a Church of England? (Manchester: Carcanet 1993) ITD C.H. Sisson, In the Trojan Ditch: Collected Poems and Selected Translations (Cheadle Hulme: Carcanet 1974) ITM C.H. Sisson, In Two Minds: Guesses at Other Writers (Manchester: Carcanet 1990) KG Giorgio Agamben, The Kingdom and the Glory: For a Theological Genealogy of Economy and Government, trans. Lorenzo Chiesa (with Matteo Mandarini) (Stanford: University of Stanford Press 2011) OLO C.H. Sisson, On the Look-Out: A Partial Autobiography (Manchester: Carcanet, 1989) PNR ‘C.H. Sisson at Seventy: A Special Issue’, PN Review 39 (1984) vol. 11 no. 4 RP C.H. Sisson, Roman Poems (Sevenoaks: Westerham Press, 1968) SP C.H. Sisson, Selected Poems audio cassette (Bournemouth: Canto Publications 1987) VII Introduction: A Dual Career For thirty years, C.H. Sisson pursued a dual career: a civil servant by day, and by night, as it were, a writer. Though not unique in this – he records that when he started work in the Ministry of Labour, Humbert Wolfe and F.S. Flint were also to be found there (OLO: 170) – the details of these two aspects make his case an unusual one. As a civil servant, Sisson’s career began before the Second World War and culminated in the position of Under Secretary, which he occupied from 1962 till 1973. Simultaneously with his administrative career, Sisson published two novels, three collections of poetry, translations from three languages, and a volume of literary criticism, as well as a study of public administration and a critical biography of the Victorian economist and constitutional theorist Walter Bagehot. After retiring from the civil service, he went on to publish six more poetry collections, numerous translations (of Dante, Virgil, Lucretius and Racine, among others), and a voluminous output of criticism. The weight of his official experience – “[n]o English poet”, as Robert Wells (2009) states, “has had greater experience of public affairs and the practical business of government” – is matched by the distinction of his literary oeuvre, leading Donald Davie (PNR: 2-9) to compare him with Czeslaw Milosz. Unsurprisingly therefore, Sisson displays, as Geoffrey Hill (PNR: 11) has noted, a ‘keen engagement’ with politics, whether in his poetry, his prose, or his translations. Indeed, Davie (1976: 86) argues that Sisson is among the few English poets of the late twentieth century who have ‘[a] politics […] on a par with, and indeed related to, a poetics’.