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POETRYETC  December 2007

POETRYETC December 2007

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Subject:

Re: hardy and donald davie

From:

Barry Alpert <[log in to unmask]>

Reply-To:

Poetryetc: poetry and poetics

Date:

Fri, 21 Dec 2007 14:10:10 +0000

Content-Type:

text/plain

Parts/Attachments:

Parts/Attachments

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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.

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