I believe that Davie was the first to call to my attention Pound’s
statement to the effect that Hardy’s poems show the benefit of having
written many novels. In that course on Modern British Poetry, Davie
offered a reading of “Poems of 1912-13” which startled and impressed me,
and which eventually became the centerpiece of his book “Thomas Hardy and
British Poetry”. Pound had also written the following about Hardy
in “Guide To Kulchur”:
“No man can read Hardy’s poems collected but that his own life, and
forgotten moments of it, will come back to him, a flash here and an hour
there. Have you a better test of true poetry?”
Though I had been taught Hardy’s poetry in both classes on Victorian and
Modern British and American Poetry at Washington University in St. Louis,
Donald Davie and Ezra Pound convinced me he was a modern (though perhaps
not modernist) poet.
Barry Alpert
On Fri, 21 Dec 2007 12:18:50 +0000, Roger Day <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>Considering my epic memory, I'd take nothing I recall for granted ...
>I've come to the conclusion that my brain takes in facts, swirls them
>around a bit with scattershot prejudices then regurgitates them in a
>random order.
>
>I recommend the Davie book to anyone interested in Hardy.
>
>Roger
>
>On Dec 21, 2007 1:08 AM, Barry Alpert <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>> Right at the beginning of my graduate studies, I witnessed Donald Davie's
>> transition from second-in-command at the University of Essex to Yvor
>> Winters' successor at Stanford University. He liked to put it thus, "I
>> replaced Yvor Winters and Robert Lowell replaced me." I never heard that
>> he had lost his position at Essex, but he did mention that he had had to
>> ask his graduate student Tom Clark (who had been highly recommended to
him
>> by Donald Hall) to leave because of reasons I'll let you imagine. I was
>> lucky enough to attend the first course Davie gave at Stanford, Modern
>> British Poetry, which covered, as I remember, Thomas Hardy, Gerard Manley
>> Hopkins, W.B. Yeats, T.S. Eliot, and Ezra Pound. Two of the so-called
>> Stanford Five (the last generation of poets to study directly with Yvor
>> Winters) sat in on that class, John Peck and Robert Hass, though Peck
made
>> such a strong impression that I remain a bit uncertain whether Hass was
>> indeed present. Perhaps Robert Archambeau's forthcoming study from the
>> University of Notre Dame Press, "Laureates and Heretics", will set the
>> record straight about John Peck, John Matthias, James McMichael, Robert
>> Hass, and Robert Pinsky.
>>
>> The failing AOL software on my computer already "disappeared" my first
>> version of this post, so before treating the complex issue of Donald
>> Davie's relationship to modernism, I need a break.
>>
>>
>> Barry Alpert
>>
>>
>>
>> On Thu, 20 Dec 2007 22:27:57 +0000, Roger Day <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:
>>
>> >Looking at Amazon, with the grain is a 1998 carcanet edition which
>> >includes a reprint of the 1973 edition of TH & British Poetry. I sold
>> >my copy a while a go.
>> >
>> >I'll have to go back and re-read it. I'm pretty sure Davie wasn't
>> >particularly a modernist in any way. Maybe he wasn't in to re-writing
>> >the historical record in that manner.
>> >
>> >Davie was I think a VC at that time.
>> >
>> >Roger
>>
>>
>> >
>> >On Dec 20, 2007 9:52 PM, Max Richards <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>
>> >> 'With the Grain', how does that relate to Davie's book, 'TH and
British
>> >> Poetry'?
>> >> A few weeks ago I acquired an ex-library copy of
>> >>
>> >> The Poet in the Imaginary Museum
>> >>
>> >> Essays of Two Decades
>> >>
>> >> edited [with a very substantial introduction, I must say] by Barry
Alpert
>> >>
>> >> (Carcanet, Manchester, 1977).
>> >>
>> >> Davie's essay 'Hardy's Virgilian Purples' (1972) has a postscript:
>> >>
>> >> 'One thing that excited me in this investigation was the proof it
seemed
>> to
>> >> give, that Hardy at his best proceeded in a way not wholly different
from
>> >> Pound's way, or Joyce's, or (I could have added) Eliot's. But in the
>> years
>> >> since, the sudden spate of books and essays about Hardy's poetry seems
>> for
>> >> the most part still impelled by a wish to prove that Hardy provides a
>> viable
>> >> insular alternative to the international 'modern movement'. I am quite
>> out
>> >> of sympathy with that sort of endeavour.'
>> >>
>> >> [Was Davie a VC or just an injudicious supporter of a VC who suffered
in
>> >> those worrisome campus times?]
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> On 21/12/07 8:17 AM, "Roger Day" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>> >>
>> >> > Donald Davie, writing in With The Grain, was quite taken with Hardy.
>> >> > Saw him as a precursor to modern _English_ poetry - that's England
in
>> >> > the country, not the language - making a "direct line" between Hardy
>> >> > and, wait for it, Phil "The Glum"[1] Larkin, skipping out all that
>> >> > messy, and foreign, modernism stuff. Mind you, what happens to those
>> >> > WW1 shirkers? He's not the first or the last to try and do so. If
you
>> >> > skip Pound or Eliot or even Thomas and Owen, then you can get back
to
>> >> > being pastoral and religious and provincial, buttered scones for
tea,
>> >> > the Home Service and all that. Mind you, Davie had an axe to grind -
>> >> > he lost his Vice Chancellorship of some steel-and-glass uni after
>> >> > failing to control a lock-out in the 60s.
>> >> >
>> >> > Anyway, With the Grain is an interesting read nonetheless. Even if I
>> >> > can't remember much about it bar the insularity.
>> >> >
>> >> > Roger
>> >> >
>> >> > [1] That's a Home Service joke BTW.
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