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Stevie Smith and Authorship (Oxford English Monographs) PDF

257 Pages·2010·2.23 MB·English
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STEVIE SMITH AND AUTHORSHIP OXFORD ENGLISH MONOGRAPHS GeneralEditors helen barr david bradshaw paulina kewes hermionelee sallymapstone davidnorbrook fionastafford STEVIE SMITH AND AUTHORSHIP WILLIAM MAY 1 3 GreatClarendonStreet,OxfordOX26DP OxfordUniversityPressisadepartmentoftheUniversityofOxford. ItfurtherstheUniversity’sobjectiveofexcellenceinresearch,scholarship, andeducationbypublishingworldwidein Oxford NewYork Auckland CapeTown DaresSalaam HongKong Karachi KualaLumpur Madrid Melbourne MexicoCity Nairobi NewDelhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto Withofficesin Argentina Austria Brazil Chile CzechRepublic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore SouthKorea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam OxfordisaregisteredtrademarkofOxfordUniversityPress intheUKandincertainothercountries PublishedintheUnitedStates byOxfordUniversityPressInc.,NewYork #WilliamMay2010 Themoralrightsoftheauthorhavebeenasserted DatabaserightOxfordUniversityPress(maker) Firstpublished2010 Allrightsreserved.Nopartofthispublicationmaybereproduced, storedinaretrievalsystem,ortransmitted,inanyformorbyanymeans, withoutthepriorpermissioninwritingofOxfordUniversityPress, orasexpresslypermittedbylaw,orundertermsagreedwiththeappropriate reprographicsrightsorganization.Enquiriesconcerningreproduction outsidethescopeoftheaboveshouldbesenttotheRightsDepartment, OxfordUniversityPress,attheaddressabove Youmustnotcirculatethisbookinanyotherbindingorcover andyoumustimposethesameconditiononanyacquirer BritishLibraryCataloguinginPublicationData Dataavailable LibraryofCongressCataloginginPublicationData LibraryofCongressControlNumber:2010930308 TypesetbySPIPublisherServices,Pondicherry,India PrintedinGreatBritain onacid-freepaperby MPGBiddles,BodminandKing’sLynn ISBN 978–0–19–958337–9 1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2 for Martha Preface Fewtwentieth-centuryBritishwritersarebothasinvitingandashostile to their audience as Stevie Smith. If she has maintained a qualified popularity in poetry anthologies, for some, her sui generis idiosyncrasy makesheruniquelyimmunetoacademictreatment.Otherspointtoher authorialshoulder-shrugstoaskwhethersheneedbetakenseriouslyat all. Her caricatures of professional literary readers in her poems and novels find them, without exception, to be pompous, self-regarding, andbelittlingtotheirsubjects.Ifsustainedstudyofherworkisreward- ing,itsgiftsareoftengivenwithslylooksandmistrust. Thisbookarguesnotonlythatareassessmentofherworkistimely, butthatSmith’sdefensiveattitudetowardsitcanofferapointofentry, rather than a barrier, to its rich and humane insights. Recent attempts to posthumously categorize her works as feminist treatises, proto- postmodernist experiments, or imperial critiques offer revealing com- mentaries on individual works but suffer from silencing large portions of her oeuvre, whether her nine collections of poetry or her three whimsically intransigent novels. This monograph does not aim for definitive statements or final answers to her riddling complexity, but focuses on Smith’s reception to return to her work itself with a new receptivity. Combining close readings of her poems along with a newfocusonherillustrations,thebookopensupnewpointsofcontact between Smith and figures as seemingly unlikely as Aubrey Beardsley, Alexander Pope, or Henry Wallis. More importantly, it reclaims Smith’s own agency in her career, recasting her as impresario, rather thanvictim,ofherownliteraryreputation. Acknowledgements The book has benefited immensely from the encouragement and sup- portofmydoctoralsupervisor,SallyBayley,aswellasJonStallworthy and Hermione Lee, who both oversaw earlier research projects on Smith. I also thank Frances Spalding who was the external examiner of my thesis on Smith. Jacqueline Baker and Ariane Petit at Oxford University Press have been extremely helpful throughout the commis- sioningandpublicationprocess,aswerethetwoanonymousreadersfor OUP,whoseconstructivecommentshavebeenparticularlyuseful. IthankMonikaClass,GeorgeMay,andMelodyEnjoubaultfortheir translationwork,andAlexandraHarrisandAndrewBladesforreading early drafts. Charles Lauder’s copyediting and Katie Ryde’s proofread- inghavealsobeenmuchappreciated. The monograph has involved extensive archival research at the McFarlinLibrary, University of Tulsa, Oklahoma. I thank allthe staff attheSpecialCollectionsdepartment,andforTulsaStudiesinWomen’s Literature for their generous financial support for the project. I also particularlythankJanandBobButlerfortheirwarmhospitalityduring mystayinTulsa. ManythankstostaffatKing’sCollegeLibrary,Cambridge,theBBC Written Archives Centre in Reading, the Brymor Jones Library at the UniversityofHull,andtheBodleianLibrary,Oxford.IalsothankHam- ishMacGibbonforpermissiontoincludeSmith’sunpublisheddrawings. I thank the following for copyright permission. All poems by Stevie Smith,fromCollectedPoemsofStevieSmith,copyright#1972byStevie Smith. Reprinted by permission of New Directions Publishing Corp. and courtesy of the Estate of James MacGibbon. All unpublished material published courtesy of the Estate of James MacGibbon and the McFarlin Library, University of Tulsa. Portions of Chapter 3 published courtesy of The Library journal. Originally published as ‘“The Choosers”: Posthumous Collections of Stevie Smith’s Poetry’, TheLibrary,20056(3):321–38.ImagesbyAubreyBeardsleyandGoya supplied by the Bridgeman Art Library. Images by George Grosz # DACS2009.Allreasonableefforthasbeenmadetocontacttheholders ofcopyrightinmaterialsreproducedinthisbook.Anyomissionswillbe rectifiedinfutureprintingsifnoticeisgiventothepublisher. This page intentionally left blank Contents ListofIllustrations x Introduction 1 1.ReformingaLiteraryOrphan: StevieSmith’sPoetryinContext 21 2.‘APoetReading’ 55 3.BroughttoBook:ThePublishingHistoryofStevieSmith 83 4.TowardsaConstructiveCriticismofStevieSmith 113 5.‘Observation,Discipline,andCompany’: TheOverlookedReader 142 6.‘BeyondWords’:StevieSmithasaVisualArtist 170 Conclusion 206 Bibliography 217 Index 239

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A full-length study of the British novelist, poet, and illustrator Stevie Smith (1902-1971), this book draws on extensive archival material to offer new insights into her work, challenging conventional readings of her as an eccentric. It reveals the careful control with which she managed her public
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