Becoming T. S. Eliot: The Rhetoric of Voice and Audience in Inventions of the March Hare

360 Pages·2021·4.546 MB·English

by  Jayme Stayer

Becoming T. S. Eliot
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Becoming T. S. Eliot
The Rhetoric of Voice and Audience in
Inventions of the March Hare
Jayme Stayer
Johns Hopkins University Press
Baltimore
© 2021 Johns Hopkins University Press
All rights reserved. Published 2021
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper
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Johns Hopkins University Press
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Stayer, Jayme, author.
Title: Becoming T. S. Eliot : the rhetoric of voice and audience in
Inventions of the March Hare / Jayme Stayer.
Description: Baltimore : Johns Hopkins University Press, 2021. |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020045436 | ISBN 9781421441030 (hardcover ; acid-free
paper) | ISBN 9781421441047 (paperback ; acid-free paper) |
ISBN 9781421441054 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Eliot, T. S. (Thomas Stearns), 1888–1965—Criticism and
interpretation. | Eliot, T. S. (Thomas Stearns), 1888–1965—Technique. |
Eliot, T. S. (Thomas Stearns), 1888–1965. Inventions of the March Hare.
Classification: LCC PS3509.L43 Z8699 2021 | DDC 821/.912—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020045436
A catalog record for this book is available from the British Library.
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including recycled text paper that is composed of at least 30 percent
post-consumer waste, whenever possible.
For Barry and Lauren, Nick and DeAnne
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Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Abbreviations xiii
Introduction
The Apprentice Alone in His Workshop: The Inventions Notebook 1
1
Indebted and Well Bred: Literary Models and Authority
in the Juvenilia 9
2
The Notebook, Begun: The Clash of Laforgue and Baudelaire
in the Poems of November 1909 47
3
Clearing the Throat: The Poems of Early 1910 72
4
Raising the Voice: The Sequence Poems of Fall 1910 109
5
Trembling with Pathos: The Paris Poems of Late 1910 and Early 1911 141
6
The Short and Surprisingly Private Life of King Bolo: The Bawdy Poems
and Their Audiences 180
7
“Prufrock,” Abandoned: How the Poem Was Written, How It Was
Received, and How It Works 209
8
Mumbling the Denouement: The Last and Undated Poems of the
Notebook, Late 1911–1915 239
Appendix: Chronology of Eliot’s Work, 1899–1915 291
Notes 295
Works Cited 329
Index 337
Acknowledgments
In his fine biography of W. H. Auden, Richard Davenport-Hines begins his
otherwise generous acknowledgments with the claim “I have always had a
distaste for long, diffuse, emotional acknowledgements presenting their au-
thor as the centre of a uniquely loving, supportive network of scholars and
admirers.” I find this prejudice odd because this is exactly what I read an
acknowledgments section hoping to discover: that behind the edifice of schol-
arship and evidence of hard labor there is love to be found. And so, without
fear of sentimentality, I gladly name here many of the people and institutions
who have helped, supported, and loved me during this project.
This book was originally begun more than a decade ago as my first book,
but three other books, various articles, and years of Jesuit formation kept
postponing its completion. Although it is my fourth published book, it is still
my first monograph, and it seems appropriate to begin by acknowledging
those formative influences from as far back as college and graduate school.
At the University of Notre Dame, I benefited greatly from John Matthias’s
famous seminar on modernist poetry, which formed many future modernist
scholars. Likewise, Susan Youens—though she taught musicology rather than
literature—was the first to give me an inkling of how a life devoted to schol-
arship and archival research might be a thrilling adventure. At the University
of Toledo, I was lucky enough to take Noel Stock’s final course in modernism
before he retired, and I am indebted to the late Wallace Martin for his help.
In endless independent studies and on my dissertation committee, Jamie Bar-
low and Don Bialostosky were kind and crucial influences on my intellectual
development.
Thanks to family and friends with whom I stayed while writing or visiting
archives: Anthony and Melanie Fathman, and Matt and Julie Somers. Many
hospitable Jesuit communities also served as inns or residences, and they did