High modernism and the history of automatism

384 Pages·2002·12.7 MB·English

by  Clinton, Alan Ramon

fflGHMODERNISMANDTHEHISTORYOFAUTOMATISM
By
ALANRAMONCLINTON
I
ADISSERTATIONPRESENTEDTOTHEGRADUATESCHOOL
OFTHEUNIVERSITYOFFLORIDAINPARTIALFULFILLMENT
OFTHEREQUIREMENTSFORTHEDEGREEOF
DOCTOROFPHILOSOPHY
UNIVERSITYOFFLORIDA
2002
Copyright2002
by
AlanRamonClinton
TABLEOFCONTENTS
page
ABSTRACT vi
CHAPTERS
1 CONSERVATIVEMODERNISMANDTHEAUTOMATICRESPONSE 1
Introduction 1
FlournoyandSmith 16
AutomatismasAutomation 20
UsesofAutomatism 28
Conductivity 28
Power 29
ArtificialTalent 37
TheBeyondofAutomatism 57
Work 61
Speed 65
DisruptivePotential 68
TheNetworkofFragments 69
2THEMECHANICALOCCULT 72
OrientalSpecters 72
TheRhetoricofOccultism 82
TheCaseAgainst 94
OccultFollowing 99
RoguesGallery:MarilynMansonandAleisterCrowley 106
WhatNow? 121
3HIGHMODERNISMANDHOLLYWOODINDEEPFOCUS 128
Introduction 128
EzraPound:CinematicMatchingandEconomicCoverage 145
ZeroPointofCinematicStyle:Yeats’Spectatorship 172
iii
HowEliotFrozetheDialecticsofChanceandControl 184
Conclusion 196
4TWOCAGES:SECONDTHOUGHTSATPISA 199
Introduction 199
CantoLXXIV,I-Chingtoss;TheWell 205
TheWindingRoadofPrecision 205
FromPrecisiontoMathematics 210
TwoTermsEqualaThirdMeaning 212
ChasingWoodandWater 215
CantoLXXVI,I-ChingToss:Army 217
CantoLXXVII,I-ChingToss:View 220
CantoLXXVIII,I-ChingToss:GentleWind 223
CantoLXXIX,I-ChingToss:Modesty 226
CantoLXXX,I-ChingToss:Obstruction 231
CantoLXXXI,I-ChingToss;RepairingDecay 234
CantoLXXXII,I-ChingToss:Revolution 236
CantoLXXXIII,I-ChingToss:Provision 239
5SHUFFLINGELIOT’SCARDS 246
Introduction 246
Eliot’sReading 249
BasisoftheQuestion 249
TheCenterCards 266
TheActionCards 274
6REVISIONINGTHEROUGHBEAST 285
Introduction 285
TheDevil 293
QueenofCups 297
AceofDisks 302
AceofWands 303
TwoofWands 305
MichaelRobartesandtheDancer 311
TheUniverse 317
TheMagus 318
FourofSwords 322
SixofWands 325
PrincessofWands 329
TheHangedMan 333
IV
7REAWAKENINGTHEUNBORN:ASEANCE 334
APPENDIX:THEFUNCTIONSANDRULESOFDIVINATIONGAMES 353
REFERENCES 357
BIOGRAPHICALSKETCH 374
V
AbstractofDissertationPresentedtotheCiraduateSchool
oftheUniversityofFloridainPartialFulfillmentofthe
RequirementsfortheDegreeofDoctorofPhilosophy
HIGHMODERNISMANDTHEHISTORYOFAUTOMATISM
By
AlanRamonClinton
May2002
Chair;R.B.Kershner
Cochair:RobertB.Ray
MajorDepartment:English
ThisdissertationdescribestheaestheticsandpoliticsofEzraPound,T.S.Eliot,
andWilliamButlerYeatsbyplacingtheirworkinthecontextofautomatism. Thechoice
ofthesewritersisnotarbitrary:thesethreearethemostfamouspoetswhoexpressed
conservativeorevenfascisticpoliticalviews. Asopposedtostudieswhichtendtouse
thisfactasajustificationforfindingconservativetendenciesintheirpoeticoutput,Ishow
howtheirpoetryisconservativeinaestheticandpsychologicalterms,butalso
progressivelyUtopian. Whilethislattertendencymayberepressedorlargelyunrealized
inthesewriters,itstracessuggesthowpoliticalviewscorrelatewithaestheticchoices.
Oneofthemajoraestheticchoicestobemadeconcernstheamountofcontrolanartist
exertsoverhisorherwork. Thus,thedialecticalrelationshipbetweenchanceandcontrol
actsasaguidelinebywhichIreadthethreepoets. Intheend,Isuggestthattheirwork
VI
oftenpossessesahighlevelofcomplexitythatistamedthroughrepressivecontrolling
mechanisms. Afterpresentingthemajorissuesinmodernistaesthetics,Iexplainhowthe
politicalandaestheticparadoxesofHighModernistpoetrymakemoresensewhenreadin
relationtothehistoryofautomatism. Iarguethatautomatism,oncethoughttobea
marginalelementofcertainavant-gardemovements,actuallyengagesmanyofthe
historicaloperatorsthatdominatedthetwentiethcentury. Morespecifically,Ishowhow
thevariousmanifestationsofautomatisminfactcombinethespiritualistandtechnological
discoursesthatcontemporarystudiesofModernismtendtobifurcate. Finally,Iexplore
howthesediscoursessuggestwaysofincorporatingautomaticproceduresintocritical
practiceitself
Vll
CHAPTER 1
CONSERVATIVE MODERNISMS AND THE AUTOMATIC RESPONSE
Introduction
If one were pressed to name the most persistent
structuring opposition in Modernist studies, the opposition
between science/technology and spirituality would definitely
contend for top honors. Ezra Pound, who played an important
role in setting the stakes for Modernist artists, publicly
tipped the artistic scales in favor of technology. His
soberly titled essay "The Serious Artist," published in
1913, declares that the "arts, literature, poesy, are a
science, just as chemistry is a science"(42). The overt
goal of art, in this formulation, is to investigate those
elements of humanity that fall outside the scope of other
sciences. Pound's unstated aim, as we now understand it,
was to grant the arts a status equal to the newly valorized
discourses of science and technology. T.S. Eliot, with his
description of art, in "Tradition and the Individual
Talent," as a process of depersonalization analogous to "the
action which takes place when a bit of finely filiated
platinum is introduced into a chamber containing oxygen and
sulphur dioxide"(30), seems to concur. As much as the poems
1
.
2
of these two figures resist formal analysis, their critical
writings helped legitimize the scientific ideology that
informed the minute dissections of the New Criticism.
In this version of Modernist history, W.B. Yeats is viewed
as a great (many would say the "greatest") poet whose
lifelong interest in Occultism renders him marginal to the
general thrust of the Modernist "international style," which
has come to be defined rather unequivocably as "the marriage
of art and technology"(Guillory 165). Futurism, by
contrast, may not have produced as memorable a body of art,
but was more central to modernism in its investigations of
societal mechanization that "had captivated most of the
European artistic community"(Theall 4). And there has been
little, on the critical front, to change this state of
things. If New Critical methodologies were challenged by
structuralist methods in the 1950s and then the deluge of
so-called "literary theory" that entered the English
speaking world in the 1970s, the scientific ideologies of
the New Criticism were actually reinforced by these imports.
The ready incorporation of linguistics, psychoanalysis, and
philosophy by English departments, while it inarguably
resulted in a number of illuminating collaborations, also
signals a desire for the humanities to adopt the systems of
highly specialized language one associates with "hard
science
s
3
Somewhat ironically, it was the return of the very
historical approaches originally displaced by the New
Criticism that enabled the dominance of the "international
style" to be questioned. Although inspired by an interest
in such unabashedly Occult figures as Yeats and Strindberg,
contributors to the New York Literary Forum of 1980 began to
argue for Occultism's centrality based upon its ubiquity in
turn-of-the-century culture. If "around 1900 Satanism
became a European craze"(Gerould and Kosicka 33), then it is
the duty of historically-minded critics to investigate such
Black Mass appeal. Of course, interest in spiritualities of
all kinds had swept through Europe, and so it was only a
matter of time before such avatars of the international
style as Pound and Eliot were also implicated with the
Occult. This turn in Modernist Studies allowed James
Logenbach to look with renewed vigor at the time Yeats and
Pound spent together at Stone Cottage, while in The Birth of
Modernism Leon Surette made the controversial claim that
Eliot sought Pound's help in editing The Waste Land due to
Pound's expertise in Occult literature! Of course, the New
Historicism gave even more ammunition to the technological
side of the debate, as evidenced in such encyclopedic works
as Cecelia Tichi's Shifting Gears and Lisa M. Steinman'
Made in America: Science. Technology, and American Modernist