Dissertations and Theses @ UNI
Availability
Open Access Thesis
Keywords
Modernism (Literature); Waste land (Eliot, TS); Eliot, T S--(Thomas Stearns), --1888-1965--Waste land; Jones, David, --1895-1974--Anathemata; Bunting, Basil--Briggflatts; Academic theses;
Abstract
In the decades following its publication in 1922, T.S. Eliot's Waste Land has become an epitome of the modernist sensibility and situation. This thesis challenges the poem's dominance and dictate over the canon of modernist poetry persisting in the academic discourse and general cultural awareness. Focusing on two post-WWII sequences by Eliot's younger contemporaries, David Jones' s Anathemata (1952) and Basil Bunting's Briggflatts (1966), this study explores alternative models and inspirative sources of the modernist poetic sequence. Through the constant comparison and contrast with Eliot's earlier articulation of the modern historico-cultural circumstance, Jones' and Bunting's specific foci and methods emerge - while reflecting the elder poet's heritage - as viable and vital transformations of the "high modernist" long poem. The surviving image of the modernist poetics, consecrated by The Waste Land, as most emphatically cosmopolitan, urban and exiled is confronted by the regional affiliation of Jones' and Bunting's sequences. The political/ poetic prestige of Eliot's geo-cultural identification dramatically contrasts with the socio-historical marginality of the north-western territory captured and celebrated in The Anathemata and Briggflatts. This vibrant aesthetic dialectic is presented in a series of four dialogues. Following the initial reflection upon the precarious academic standing of the late modernist regional idiom, chapter 2 discusses Eliot's controversial axiom of poetic impersonality in the light of Jones' and Bunting's geo-aesthetic stand. The following debate focuses on the formal experiment of the modernist sequence and the differing cultural motivation behind the fragmented structure of The Waste Land and Jones' and Bunting's poems. Chapter 4 explores how Eliot's synchronic and cyclic vision of time and cultural history is revitalized in the region-bound poetic adventure of The Anathemata and Briggflatts. The final chapter, reflecting upon the troublesome heritage of Eliot's self-exegesis, analyzes specific cultural impulses and textual strategies of Jones' and Bunting's annotation. This interactive exploration of Jones' and Bunting's aesthetics testifies that their sequences - contrary to many a critical opinion - live up to and beyond the daring of Eliot's radical poetic statement.
Year of Submission
2007
Degree Name
Master of Arts
Department
Department of English Language and Literature
First Advisor
Jane A. Lewty
Second Advisor
Samuel L. Gladden
Third Advisor
Richard J. Utz
Date Original
2007
Object Description
1 PDF file (189 leaves)
Copyright
©2007 Lucie Boukalova
Language
en
File Format
application/pdf
Recommended Citation
Boukalova, Lucie, "“Out from Gens Romulum into the Weal-Kin”: Re-Locating Modernist Poetics in David Jones’ Anathémata and Basil Bunting’s Briggflatts" (2007). Dissertations and Theses @ UNI. 2130.
https://scholarworks.uni.edu/etd/2130
Comments
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