English and American poetry of disillusionment from 1890 to 1940

179 Pages·09.732 MB·English

by  Metzger, Alberta Wilhelmina

ENGLISH AND AMERICAN
POETRY OF DISILLUSIONMENT FROM 1890 TO 1940
A Thesis
Presented to
the Department of English
University of Southern California
In Partial Fulfillment
of the Requirements for the Degree
Master of Arts
Ly
Alberta Wilhelmina Metzger
May 1950
UMI Number: EP44278
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This thesis, written by
ALBERTA WILHELMINA METZGER
under the guidance of f&E.... Faculty Committee,
and approved by all its members, has been
presented to and accepted by the Council on
Graduate Study and Research in partial fulfill­
ment of the requirements for the degree of
MASTER OP ARTS
Date fe e ,....125.0
Faculty Committee
Chairman
---
~X ‘0&7
TABLE OP CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
INTRODUCTION . , ............................ i
I. , THE ESCAPISTS ■ , . .......................... 1
1. Austin-Dobson (1840-1921)......... - . 1
2, Oscar Wilde (1856-1900) 5
3* Ernest Dowson (1867-1900) . '...... 9
4. Ezra Pound (1885- ) • • * ........... 13
5. T(homas) S(tearns) Eliot (1888- ) . . 25
II, THE SATIRISTS.............. 43
1. Thomas Hardy (1840-1928) ....... 4-3
2. A(lfred) E(dward) Housman (1859-1936) . 54
3. Ambrose (Gwinett) Bierce (1842-1914?) . 62
4. Stephen - Crane (1871-1900)........ 70
5. George Sterling (1869-1926) 82
III. THE REFORMERS ........................ 88
1. Edwin- Markham (1852-1940)........ 88
2. William Vaughn Moody (1869-1910) . . . . 91
3. Wilfred Owen (1893-1918).......... 98
4. Siegfried Sassoon (1886- ) . . . . . 103
5« John Davidson (1857-1909) * ........ 112
6. Cecil Day Lewis (1904- ) . . . . . . 121
TABLE OF CONTENTS
(continued)
CHAPTER PACE
IV. THE COSMIC PHILOSOPHERS............. 128
1. Thomas Hardy (1840-1928) . . . . . . . . 128
2. Edwin Arlington Robinson (1869-1935) * * 138
3. (John) Robinson Jeffers (I887- ) . • 145
CONCLUSIONS'............................., 159
BIBLIOGRAPHY........... 164
INTRODUCTION
In the -recent evaluations of English and American
literature- of the past hundred years, it has become almost
commonplace to insist upon. .the growing strain of uncertainty,
of disappointment, of disillusionment with life that cul­
minated with the Second World War. A typical expression of
this insistence is that of Professor Charles 0. Osgood, who
writes:
A cry of despair reverberates all through the
Victorian times even to this day, despair of men who
feel their anchorage slipping, or find themselves
adrift and alone. Carlyle, Ruskin, Tennyson, Arnold,
Swinburne, Hardy, give voice to it at times, and its
echoes are heard on every,hand down to Housman and
T. S. Eliot’s Waste Land.
That modern science; as-symbolized by Darwin's The Origin of
Species (1859)» was chiefly responsible for this Increasing
philosophical dissatisfaction is now taken for granted,
though other- causes, such as the Industrial Revolution,
changing political alignments, new social attitudes, and so
forth, were to be seen at work even before the impact of the
new science was felt in decided form.
It is significent to note that, from about the middle
of the nineteenth century, in some cases years before The
Origin of Species, various terms connoting disillusionment
- Osgood, Charles Grosvenor, The Voice of England, p. 575*
il
were In use* The--following examples from the New English
Dictionary suggest the Infiltration of the idea in the minds
of Victorians-:
Under disillusion (sub.):
"The discrepancy between . . . faith and dis­
illusion, between hope and fact." 1851.
Mrs. Browning*
Under disillusioning, disillusioned, etc.:
"A disillusioned world Is inclined to look with
languid approbation on benevolence." 1881.
Symonds - (Shelley).
"The ballot in-woman's hand will prove a disll-
lusionlst; she will then be Judged as a man."
1889* Voice.
"Marriage is the great disillusioner." 1892.
Grachia*
Under disillusionment:
"The first few days in Rome . . • must prove a
disappointment— a sort of disillusionment, if
we-may-coin that term. " 1856. Leisure Hour.
This disillusionment, this state or condition of be­
ing freed from illusions, manifested Itself in various forms
of literature- in* both England and America from about 1850 to
the end of the century. But the development of this attitude
toward life can- nowhere be more plainly seen and under more
varieties of approach than in English and American poetry
from the 1890*s te the beginning of the Second World War.
It will therefore be the purpose of this thesis to examine
the subject of disillusionment in the poetry of the two
nations from 1890 to 1940. So widespread is the influence
of this attitude that it would be impossible, within the
ill
scope of this study, to Include all poets that reflect some
form of disillusionment. It must therefore suffice to pre­
sent the chief reoresentatIves of the main approaches to
disillusionment and to derive the significant conclusions
from a comparison of these approaches.
A reading of the poetry of disillusionment in English
reveals the following-aspects of disillusionment, each of
which will he made- the- basis of study for a separate chapter
of this thesis: (l) Escape from the poet's world to another
world or time; (2) Satire of the people or conditions caus­
ing disillusionment; (3) Attempts to reform the world which
causes dissatisfaction; and (ty) Acceptance of a cosmic phil­
osophy which, without relying on escape or satire or reform,
seeks to explain this faulty world. A concluding chapter
will attempt a synthesis-of these reactions and an evalua­
tion of their respective significance.
CHAPTER I
THE ESCAPISTS
In times of conflict, doubt, ana confusion, men have
four choices: they can run away and escape the painful
necessity of facing unpleasant facts; they can satirize
their world; they can try to remedy the situation by hunt­
ing for a panacea; or they can construct a philosophy of
acceptance. Of the escapists we may let the English poets
Austin Dobson, Oscar Wilde, and Ernest Dowson stand as rep­
resentatives, while the American contribution is made by
Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot.
1. AUSTIN DOBSON
Austin Dobson was an escapist who took refuge in the
past. He retreated into the eighteenth century for comfort.
Like the poet Herrick, who preceded him, he ignored, for the
most part, the problems of his own age, and found delight in
imitating French forms and French subjects. His delicate
vers de socle^tef rarely dipped below the froth of life.
Proper sentiment was never allowed to deepen into soul-
stirring emotion. As a result, his poems are pleasant read­
ing for the idle hour, for they pose no disturbing ques­
tions. They sail smoothly along on even keel, avoiding the
deep waters of controversy. In “The Carver and the Caliph,"
he was careful to tell his readers:
2
(We lay our story in the East.
Because *tls Eastern? Not the least.
We place it there because we fear
To bring its parable too near,
And seem to touch with impious hand
Our dear, confiding native land.)
Yet even Dobson, with all of his care, did not wholly escape
disillusionment. In the poem "On the Hurry of This Time,"
he bewailed the fact that the modern world had too little
time for art.
With slower pen men used to write,
Of old, when "letters" were "polite";
In ANNA'S, or in GEORGE'S days,
They could afford to turn a phrase,
Or trim a straggling theme aright.
They knew not steam; electric light
Not yet had dazed their calmer sight;—
They meted out both blame and praise
With slower pen.
Too swiftly now the Hours take flight!
What's read at morn is dead at night:
Scant space have we for Art's delays,
Whose breathless thought so briefly stays,
We may not work— ah! would we might!—
With slower pen.
In the poem "With Pipe and Flute," Dobson uttered a nostalgic
cry for the good old days.
Ah! would,~-ah! would, a little span,
Some air of Aready could fan
This age of ours, too seldom stirred .
With pipe and flute!
But now for gold we plot and plan;
And from Beersheba unto Dan,
Apollo's self might pass unheard,
Or find the nlght-jar's note preferred;—
Not so it fared, when time began.
With pipe and flute!