Between the Temple and the Cave: The Religious Dimensions of the Poetry of E.J. Pratt

265 Pages·2000·13.23 MB·English

by  Angela T. McAuliffe

Between the Temple and the Cave:
The Religious Dimensions of the Poetry ofE.J. Pratt
E.J. Pratt's religious beliefs have baffled literary scholars for years:
critics have assigned him positions ranging from orthodoxy through
agnosticism to atheism. Between the Temple and the Caw provides a defin-
itive exploration of Pratt's complex relationship with Christianity, pro-
viding insight into both the man and his works.
Drawing on a wide variety of newly available source material, Angela
McAuliffe examines the roots of Pratt's religious attitudes, including
his strict Methodist upbringing in Newfoundland and his plans to
enter the ministry. She explores Pratt's early prose and unpublished
poetry, including his theses on demonology and Pauline eschatology
and the unpublished poem "Clay," to trace the origins of religious
ideas and motifs that occur in his later work.
McAuliffe focuses on key motifs in Pratt's poetry, such as his image
of a distant and formidable God, his apocalyptic vision of the world,
and his belief in determinism and fate. She concludes that the diver-
sity of religious positions attributed to Pratt and the image of God that
emerges from his poetry are facets of the ironic vision of a man of
twentieth-century sensibility who wrestled with God and sought a
medium of expression equal to his themes.
ANGELA T. MCAULIFFE is an independent scholar and retreat director
at Loretto College in the University of Toronto.
This page intentionally left blank
Between the Temple
and the Cave
The Religious Dimensions of
the Poetry ofEJ. Pratt
ANGELA T. McAULIFFE IBVM
McGill-Queen's University Press
Montreal & Kingston • London • Ithaca
© McGill-Queen's University Press 2000
ISBN 0-7735-2057-0
Legal deposit second quarter 2000
Bibliotheque nationale du Quebec
Printed in Canada on acid-free paper
This book has been published with the help of a grant
from the Humanities and Social Sciences Federation of
Canada, using funds provided by the Social Sciences
and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
McGill-Queen's University Press acknowledges the
financial support of the Government of Canada through
the Book Publishing Industry Development Program
(BPIDP) for its activities. We also acknowledge the
support of the Canada Council for the Arts for our
publishing program.
Excerpts from EJ. Pratt's poetry are taken from
E.J. Pratt: Complete Poems, 2 vols, edited by Sandra Djwa
and R.G. Moyles (Toronto: University of Toronto Press,
1989). Reprinted by permission of University of
Toronto Press.
Excerpts from "Little Gidding" in Four Quartets, copy-
right 1943 by T.S. Eliot and renewed 1971 by Esme
Valerie Eliot, reprinted by permission of Harcourt Brace
& Company.
Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data
McAuliffe, Angela T. C.
Between the temple and the cave : the religious
dimensions of the poetry of E.J. Pratt
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-7735-2057-0
i. Pratt EJ. (Edwin John), 1882-1964 — Criticism and
interpretation. 2. Pratt E.J. (Edwin John),
1882—1964 — Religion. 3. Christianity in literature.
I. Title.
psSsSi-RSS2?2 2000 c8ii'-52 099-901606-7
FRgi9g.3.P7z72 2000
Typeset in 10/12 Baskerville by True to Type
Contents
Preface vii
Acknowledgments xi
Abbreviations xiii
1 "Up from Newfoundland":
The Preacher in Search of the Poet 3
2 "The Good Lord" with "a Glittering Monocle":
The Problem of God 39
3 "Ghosts of the Apocalypse" 65
4 "A Tendency to ... Fatalism Tempered with
Humanity" 123
5 The Wheel Comes Full Circle: The Atoning Christ 157
Conclusion 199
Notes 205
Bibliography 227
Index 245
This page intentionally left blank
Preface
Any careful study of the writings of E.J. Pratt, one of Canada's most
distinguished and consistently productive poets of the twentieth
century, cannot but help lay bare a question of major importance that
emerges from the heart of his work - his attitude towards religion in
general, and towards Christianity in particular. The few books and
many articles which constitute Pratt criticism serve to confirm the sig-
nificance of this question, embracing within their range a wide spec-
trum of interpretation. For example, Northrop Frye and A.J.M. Smith
indicate Pratt's debt to Christian ideas and attitudes, but leave the
reader wishing that with their degree of perception they had pursued
the matter further. John Sutherland is so determined to find Christian
themes and images that he wrests them out of the most unlikely con-
texts. Sandra Djwa struggles with what she perceives to be the
"dualisms" in Pratt's religious thought as she finds them reflected in
the poetry. Frank Davey assumes Pratt's denial of all but the natural
order, while other critics such as Vincent Sharman and Glenn Clever
seem bent on proving Pratt's rejection of traditional Christianity.
Complicating the issue are certain attitudes on the part of Pratt
himself - his ironic vision of humanity and of the world around him;
his relentless effort, particularly as a narrative poet, to achieve "dra-
matic objectivity"; and his self-deprecatory comments about his work.
Significantly, no one, to this date, with the exception of David Pitt in
his authoritative biography, appears to have looked very far beyond
the general or vague information provided by Pratt in private conver-
sations or in public interviews to what must surely be the foundation
viii Preface
of his attitude towards religion or of his reaction against it - his
upbringing in a family and a community of strict Methodist affiliation,
his schooling under religious auspices, and the years he spent in
preparation for the Methodist ministry to which he was ordained.
It should prove rewarding, then, to explore Pratt's poetry in the
light of the religious and cultural atmosphere of Newfoundland in
which he was raised, the early education and the pastoral initiation
which he received there, and the studies in formal theology and psy-
chology which he undertook in Toronto in the early years of the twen-
tieth century. His two theses, written in partial requirement for gradu-
ate degrees in philosophy at Victoria University, and copies of his
lectures as a professor in the Department of English, introductions to
readings of his poetry, and occasional talks and papers which he deliv-
ered throughout Canada and the United States, together with the
texts of posthumously published and little-known poems and collec-
tions of correspondence, provide insights into Pratt the man and into
those of his works that have appeared, even in part, to be problematic.
Within the context of this study, several questions of significance
must be posed or reformulated. For example, what was the nature and
the extent of the religious crisis that Pratt is said to have undergone?
When did it occur? Was it the reason for his decision to forego the
ministry for an academic career? Did it lead him to a total renuncia-
tion of religious belief and to the severance of all connections with
organized religion? How much was he influenced by the scientific,
philosophic and theological works of the nineteenth and early twenti-
eth centuries? To what degree are his biblical and theological studies
reflected, consciously or not, in his poetry? What is the image of God
that emerges most consistently from his work? Can it be clearly for-
mulated? Similar questions must be asked about Pratt's image of Jesus
Christ: is Jesus anything more than the epitome of human nature?
What is his relationship to God, to humankind, to time, and to history?
Any doubts that I might have entertained about the value of this
task in view of the many and extreme interpretations that have been
read into Pratt's poetry in the past have been relieved by three
sources. The first is information that I gathered between 1972 and
1999 in interviews and conversations with those who knew Pratt
closely or intimately. The second is the abundance of barely tapped
source material mentioned above. The third is a letter Pratt wrote in
1957 in reply to Dorothy Doyle, who had asked his opinion of her
proposal to write a study of the relationship between nature and grace
as it is reflected in his poetry. Pratt's response was surprisingly
enthusiastic. After pointing out both the positive insights and the lim-
itations contained in John Sutherland's book, he remarked, "leafing
ix Preface
through Collected Poems recently, I was astonished at the numerous ref-
erences to Christ, the Cross, and to the symbol of grace." In addition
to the narrative poems that raise questions of a religious nature, Pratt
then suggested nine lyrics which he felt should be considered in such
a study as "they contain undercurrents of my convictions." This per-
sonal letter, appended to one copy of a doctoral thesis, came to light
only after much of this study was completed, and served to confirm
the validity of such an approach and to indicate Pratt's general atti-
tude during his later years towards a religious or Christian interpre-
tation of his work.