RECONFIGURING SELF, WORLD, AND WORD: MODERNIST POETIC EPIPHANIES IN ELIOT, WILLIAMS, LEVERTOV, AND REVELL Jessica G. Drexel A dissertation submitted to the faculty at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of English and Comparative Literature in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. Chapel Hill 2019 Approved by: John McGowan Eric Downing Gabriel Trop Tyler Curtain Thomas Pfau © 2019 Jessica G. Drexel ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ii ABSTRACT: Jessica G. Drexel: Reconfiguring Self, World, and Word: Modernist Poetic Epiphanies in Eliot, Williams, Levertov, and Revell (Under the direction of John McGowan) This dissertation examines the occurrence of epiphanies in modernist and contemporary poetry. The time period addressed in this dissertation traces the development of poetic epiphanies through a series of related poets: T. S. Eliot and William Carlos Williams represent opposing approaches to poetry in the modernist era, while Denise Levertov and Donald Revell represent the extended influence of the earlier poets through the late-twentieth century and the present day. By surveying these four poets, I aim to establish a conception of post-Romantic transcendent experience in the form of an epiphany. The dissertation includes both secular and religious poetry, and I show how even traditionally religious approaches to epiphany are radically reconfigured through poetic form and innovative representations of dualistic distinctions. My research uses the prose works by these poets to establish a framework for interpreting their poetry; I also use this prose framework to challenge and add to leading interpretations of the epiphany in modernist poetry. Furthermore, I include extensive close-readings of the poetry. I conclude that the epiphanies present in the work by these poets is fundamentally distinct from a traditionally Romantic or religious epiphany. Despite their many differences, these four poets employ an immanentist view of the cosmos, which means that dualistic distinctions exist, but that the space of transcendence and totality is at hand, and not cosmically distant. The implication is that modernist poetic epiphanies paradoxically reveal totality in the immediate, iii material world. These epiphanies are also distinctive because they gesture toward an ongoing mode of perception rather than a bounded, temporal event of sudden illumination. Through the close-readings of the poems, I show how each poet uses innovative aesthetic techniques— musicality, vernacular speech, imagism, spatialization, perception, and attention—to explore dimensions of transcendence, to articulate their experience of this space, and to connect their readers to this space. iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This dissertation is the culmination of a long journey shaped by the kindness of many people. First, I thank my undergraduate mentors: David Jones, Eberhard Geyer, and Robert Blackstock. From my Master’s in Linguistics at UNC, I am indebted to the influence of my advisor Randy Hendrick and to Paul Roberge. From my doctoral work in Comparative Literature and English, I am grateful to Philip Gura for his class on American Transcendentalism and for first introducing me to William Carlos Williams’ poetry. I thank Joel Nickels, a conference co- presenter, and poet John Greening, for affirming my nascent interest in Levertov and encouraging me to pursue her in my research. I am grateful to poet and scholar Donald Revell, for your support of my work and your generous correspondence about Levertov and Williams. I am beyond grateful for my fellow UNC CoLEAGS graduate students—I cannot imagine better colleagues. Your camaraderie made graduate school rich, your intellect challenged me, and your friendship is dear. I am also grateful for the graduate student communities I befriended at Duke University and Baylor University—thank you extending your warm collegiality to me. Most importantly, I am deeply grateful to my doctoral committee: Eric Downing, for your mentorship even before I even joined the program, and for making me a better teacher and scholar. I thank Gabriel Trop, for your patience, enthusiasm, and for your profound insight into poetry and poetics. I thank Tyler Curtain, for your challenging questions, generous time and thoughtful input on my research. I thank Thomas Pfau, for your time and direction over years and across university boundaries. To John McGowan, my gratitude is beyond words. Your v wisdom, advocacy, passion for literature, and care for students have truly shaped me as a reader, scholar, and teacher. Outside the academy, I thank my mother, who first taught me to love language, literature, and hard work. You never doubted me, and you have cheered me in person and from afar my whole life. I also thank many others—family, friends, especially Erin and Suzanne—for supporting me throughout this project. Thank you to Christ Community Church, who were a family to me in Chapel Hill for six years. Most of all, I am grateful for my husband, Andrew, for walking with me through the entirety of my doctoral work with good humor and selfless joy in this adventure. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION ...................................................................................................................... 1 CHAPTER ONE: MUSIC, INCARNATION, AND THE CONTINUOUSLY PRESENT EPIPHANY IN T. S. ELIOT’S FOUR QUARTETS .................................................................. 11 A. INTRODUCTION AND EPIPHANY REVIEW ........................................................................... 11 B. REVIEW OF SCHOLARLY APPROACHES TO THE EPIPHANY ................................................ 13 C. MUSICAL PATTERN AND THE BEYOND ............................................................................ 26 i. Introduction ............................................................................................................... 27 ii. ‘Musical Pattern’—Double Existence in Drama ........................................................ 30 iii. “Necessary and dangerous” Duality ......................................................................... 38 D. ‘MUSICAL PATTERN’: FROM POETIC DRAMA TO POETRY ................................................. 43 i. ‘Musical pattern’ in Four Quartets ............................................................................ 43 E. CLOSE-READING FOUR QUARTETS ................................................................................... 49 i. Burnt Norton ............................................................................................................. 51 ii. East Coker ................................................................................................................. 55 iii. Dry Salvages ............................................................................................................. 59 iv. Little Gidding ............................................................................................................ 62 F. THE HINT HALF GUESSED .............................................................................................. 65 CHAPTER TWO: WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS AS MODERNIST MYSTIC .................. 70 A. INTRODUCTION............................................................................................................... 70 vii B. TWO TRADITIONS OF TRANSCENDENCE ........................................................................... 75 C. WILLIAMS AND RELIGION ............................................................................................... 75 D. TRANSCENDENTALISM .................................................................................................... 79 E. WILLIAMS REJECTS TRANSCENDENTALISM ..................................................................... 81 F. WILLIAMS’ MODERNISM: CREATION AND DESTRUCTION ................................................. 85 G. POST-ROMANTIC UNITY ................................................................................................. 90 H. MODERNIST MYSTICISM .................................................................................................. 92 I. WILLIAMS’ POETIC EPIPHANIES ...................................................................................... 99 CHAPTER THREE: FROM HELL AND BACK AGAIN: WILLIAMS’ EPIPHANY, FORGIVENESS, AND IMAGINATION ................................................................................ 108 A. BEGINNING IN HELL ..................................................................................................... 108 B. PERCEPTION ................................................................................................................. 110 C. INNER PERFECTIONS ..................................................................................................... 113 D. DANCE ......................................................................................................................... 127 E. RESISTANCE AND LIMITS .............................................................................................. 137 i. Dependence on others and the world ....................................................................... 139 ii. Corruption Within ................................................................................................... 141 iii. Human Evil ............................................................................................................. 156 iv. Despair and Descent ..............................................................................................