 |
 |
Now that I think about it, the same formulation by which I characterized Thomas Hardy (“modern but perhaps not modernist”) may suit Donald Davie and explain in part why he was so drawn to Hardy. Davie certainly dealt with modernist and post-modernist figures on a regular basis, but The Movement was his movement. Though he recommended Charles Tomlinson more often than Philip Larkin, at least as I observed him. Barry Alpert On Fri, 21 Dec 2007 13:52:45 +0000, Barry Alpert <[log in to unmask]> wrote: >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.