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REPRODUCING THE LINE:
1970s INNOVATIVE POETRY AND SOCIALIST-FEMINISM IN THE U.K.
by
Samuel Bernard Solomon
__________
A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
(COMPARATIVE LITERATURE)
December 2012
Copyright 2012 Samuel Bernard Solomon
Object Description
| Title | Reproducing the line: 1970s innovative poetry and socialist-feminism in the U.K. |
| Author | Solomon, Samuel Bernard |
| Author email | ssolomon@oxy.edu;ssolomon@oxy.edu |
| Degree | Doctor of Philosophy |
| Document type | Dissertation |
| Degree program | Comparative Literature |
| School | College of Letters, Arts And Sciences |
| Date defended/completed | 2012-09-26 |
| Date submitted | 2012-11-20 |
| Date approved | 2012-11-21 |
| Restricted until | 2012-11-21 |
| Date published | 2012-11-21 |
| Advisor (committee chair) | Kamuf, Peggy |
| Advisor (committee member) |
Lloyd, David Tongson, Karen |
| Abstract | This dissertation considers the experimental group of ""Cambridge poets"" in the 1970s and explains how and why their somewhat obscure body of work was a battleground for cultural politics. I focus on the writing of women who bridged Cambridge poetry and socialist-feminist politics even as they worked at the margins of both communities. I argue that this poetry took shape at a unique conjuncture – the history of literary study at Cambridge, the varied British reception of Marxist thought and political action, the rise of Conservatism, and the increasing influence of feminism – that made radical poetics a hotly contested site for the production and reproduction of social relations, both in the 1970s and beyond. I follow the poetry's circulations between the colleges of Cambridge University, poetic communities of practice, and revolutionary socialist-feminist organizations. The poems and critical writings of Veronica Forrest-Thomson, John James, Wendy Mulford, J.H. Prynne, and, in particular, Denise Riley, form the backbone of this study; I read their work through the above-mentioned nexus of formal, historical, political, and economic contexts and trajectories. ❧ The dissertation considers the transformative possibilities of fields that produce and reproduce ruling-class ideology, namely, literary education and poetry. It is my task to explain how the writers in question navigated their contradictory commitments and to outline the formal effects of such contradictions on their poetic output. I also consider how the exigencies of socialist-feminist organizing were directly related to their work: such social practices are not merely a ""content"" that fills autonomous literary forms; they are part of the formal fabric of the work and of its circulation. I argue that a narrowly construed literary history cannot explain these texts; it is my aim, instead, to produce a materialist account of feminist social movements and dialectically to bring such an account to bear on the formal analysis of poetry. ❧ My introduction provides a historical and theoretical sketch of the connections between Marxist and feminist analyses of ""reproduction"" and cultural education. ❧ Chapter 1 explores the history of poetry at Cambridge, tracing the movements from I.A. Richards and William Empson to Veronica Forrest-Thomson and J.H. Prynne to underscore how studying and writing poetry were seen as moral preparation for the creation or restoration of a better society. From here, I turn in Chapters 2 and 3 to the writings of Riley and Mulford, who were trained in this tradition and who also actively engaged in socialist-feminist theory and practice. I track the continuities and differences between the Cambridge-based, pedagogical-moral understanding of lyric's social worth and socialist and feminist political ambitions for poetry. Chapter 4 returns to the poetry and prose of Riley from late 1980s through the early 2000s. Finally, my epilogue outlines the situation of contemporary British poets who have been influenced by the subjects of the preceding chapters and who are currently involved in anti-austerity movements to defend social services and state-funded education. |
| Keyword | poetry; contemporary literature; feminism; Marxism; aesthetics; literary theory |
| Language | English |
| Part of collection | University of Southern California dissertations and theses |
| Publisher (of the original version) | University of Southern California |
| Place of publication (of the original version) | Los Angeles, California |
| Publisher (of the digital version) | University of Southern California. Libraries |
| Provenance | Electronically uploaded by the author |
| Type | texts |
| Legacy record ID | usctheses-m |
| Rights | Solomon, Samuel Bernard |
| Access conditions | The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the author, as the original true and official version of the work, but does not grant the reader permission to use the work if the desired use is covered by copyright. It is the author, as rights holder, who must provide use permission if such use is covered by copyright. The original signature page accompanying the original submission of the work to the USC Libraries is retained by the USC Libraries and a copy of it may be obtained by authorized requesters contacting the repository e-mail address given. |
| Repository name | University of Southern California Digital Library |
| Repository address | USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus MC 7002, 106 University Village, Los Angeles, California 90089-7002, USA |
| Repository email | cisadmin@usc.edu |
| Archival file | uscthesesreloadpub_Volume4/etd-SolomonSam-1321.pdf |
Description
| Title | Page 1 |
| Full text | REPRODUCING THE LINE: 1970s INNOVATIVE POETRY AND SOCIALIST-FEMINISM IN THE U.K. by Samuel Bernard Solomon __________ A Dissertation Presented to the FACULTY OF THE USC GRADUATE SCHOOL UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY (COMPARATIVE LITERATURE) December 2012 Copyright 2012 Samuel Bernard Solomon |
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