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0521024854 - Material Modernism: The Politics of the Page
George Bornstein
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Material Modernism
Material Modernism draws on editorial theory, cultural studies,
and the history of the book to argue for a freshly historicized
reading of modernism. Instead of taking texts as consisting of
disembodied words, Bornstein considers their physical bodies as
themselves semantically important. He argues that current constructions of literary modernism – like those that regard its
achievements and attitudes as favouring the anti-historical over
the historical, or product over process – are derived from the
fixed, current, material forms of its texts. By studying modernism in its original sites of production and in the continually shifting physicality of its transmissions, an alternative construction
emerges that emphasizes historical contingency, multiple versions, and the material features of the text itself. Bornstein
recontextualizes works by a range of British, Irish, and
American authors, including W. B. Yeats, Emma Lazarus,
Gwendolyn Brooks, Ezra Pound, Marianne Moore, James Joyce,
and writers of the Harlem Renaissance, among others.
george borns tein is C. A. Patrides Professor of Literature
at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. His critical books
include Yeats and Shelley (1970), Transformations Of Romanticism In
Yeats, Eliot, and Stevens (1976), and Poetic Remaking: The Art Of
Browning, Yeats, and Pound (1988). The books he has edited include
collections of essays like Representing Modernist Texts: Editing as
Interpretation (1991) and four volumes of Yeats materials, including
most recently Under the Moon: The Unpublished Early Poetry (1995).
He has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation,
the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the American
Council of Learned Societies among others.
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0521024854 - Material Modernism: The Politics of the Page
George Bornstein
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MATERIAL MODERNISM
The Politics of the Page
G E O RG E B O R N S T E I N
© Cambridge University Press
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Cambridge University Press
0521024854 - Material Modernism: The Politics of the Page
George Bornstein
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CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, São Paulo
Cambridge University Press
The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 2RU, UK
Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York
www.cambridge.org
Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521661546
© George Bornstein 2001
This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception
and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements,
no reproduction of any part may take place without
the written permission of Cambridge University Press.
First published 2001
This digitally printed first paperback version 2006
A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library
ISBN-13 978-0-521-66154-6 hardback
ISBN-10 0-521-66154-4 hardback
ISBN-13 978-0-521-02485-3 paperback
ISBN-10 0-521-02485-4 paperback
© Cambridge University Press
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0521024854 - Material Modernism: The Politics of the Page
George Bornstein
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for my wife jane, and my children ben, becca, and josh
“ and for what, except for you, do i feel love?”
© Cambridge University Press
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0521024854 - Material Modernism: The Politics of the Page
George Bornstein
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Contents
page viii
List of illustrations
xi
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1
1
How to read a page: modernism and material textuality
5
2
The once and future texts of modernist poetry
32
3
Yeats and textual reincarnation: “When You Are Old” and
“September 1913”
46
4
Building Yeats’s Tower / building modernism
65
5
Pressing women: Marianne Moore and the networks of
modernism
82
6 Joyce and the colonial archive: constructing alterity in Ulysses
118
7
140
Afro-Celtic connections: hybridity and the material text
Notes
167
Index
182
vii
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0521024854 - Material Modernism: The Politics of the Page
George Bornstein
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Illustrations
1 John Keats, “On Looking into Chapman’s Homer” in
page 10
Manuscript. MS Keats 2.4. By permission of the
Houghton Library, Harvard University
2 “Chapman’s Homer” in The Examiner (1816), Keats
11
ec8.k2261.lexi5,v.9. By permission of the Houghton Library,
Harvard University
3 Title page of Keats’s Poems (1817). Courtesy of Special
12
Collections Library, University of Michigan
4 “Chapman’s Homer” in The Norton Anthology of Poetry. From
The Norton Anthology of Poetry, 4th edn., edited by Margaret
14
Ferguson, Mary Jo Salter et al. © 1996, 1983, 1975, 1970
by W. W. Norton and Company, Inc. Used by permission of
W. W. Norton and Company, Inc.
5 Emma Lazarus, “The New Colossus,” in The Norton Anthology 15
of Poetry. From The Norton Anthology of Poetry, 4th edn., edited
by Margaret Ferguson, Mary Jo Salter et al. ©1996, 1983,
1975, 1970 by W. W. Norton and Company, Inc. Used by
permission of W. W. Norton and Company, Inc.
6 “The New Colossus” in Manuscript. Poem for the pedestal
18
of the Statue of Liberty, 2 November 1883. Museum of the
City of New York 36.319, gift of George S. Hellman,
reproduced by permission of the Museum
7 “The New Colossus” on Statue of Liberty Plaque. Courtesy
19
of National Park Service: Statue of Liberty National
Monument
8 “The New Colossus” in Schappes’s Emma Lazarus: Selections.
20
Courtesy of Special Collections Library, University of
Michigan
9 W. B. Yeats, “Leda and the Swan,” in The Cat and the Moon
22
(1924). Courtesy of Special Collections Library, University of
Michigan
10 Facing Page to “Leda and the Swan” in A Vision (1925).
26
Courtesy of Special Collections Library, University of Michigan
viii
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List of illustrations
ix
11 Gwendolyn Brooks, “my dreams, my works . . .” in The Norton 28
Anthology of Poetry, 4th edn., edited by Margaret Ferguson,
Mary Jo Salter et al. © 1996, 1983, 1975, 1970 by W. W. Norton
and Company, Inc. Used by permission of W. W. Norton and
Company, Inc.
12 Epigraph to Brooks’s “Gay Chaps at the Bar” sequence in
30
A Street in Bronzeville (1945). Courtesy of Special Collections
Library, University of Michigan
13 Title Page and Frontispiece from Yeats’s The Countess Kathleen 49
and Various Legends and Lyrics (1892). Courtesy of Special
Collections Library, University of Michigan
14 “September, 1913” in The Irish Times, 8 Sept. 1913. Courtesy
57
of the National Library of Ireland
15 “September, 1913” in Responsibilities (1914). Courtesy of
60
Special Collections Library, University of Michigan
16 W. B. Yeats, “All Souls’ Night” from Seven Poems and a Fragment 68
(1922). Courtesy of Special Collections Library, University of
Michigan
17 T. Sturge Moore’s Cover Design for The Tower (1928).
75
Courtesy of Special Collections Library, University of Michigan
18 The Egoist, Table of Contents, August 1918. Courtesy of
94
Special Collections Library, University of Michigan
19 Marianne Moore’s “The Fish” in The Egoist, 1918. Courtesy
96
of Special Collections Library, University of Michigan
20 “The Fish” in Moore, Poems (1921). Courtesy of Special
97
Collections Library, University of Michigan
21 Cover from Poems (1921). Courtesy of Special Collections
98
Library, University of Michigan
22 “The Fish” in Observations (1924). Courtesy of Special
100
Collections Library, University of Michigan
23 Table of Contents, Selected Poems (1935). Courtesy of Special 101
Collections Library, University of Michigan
24 “The Fish” in Eight Poems (1962). Courtesy of Special
102
Collections Library, University of Michigan
25 Poster: “The Birth of the Irish Republic – 1916.” Courtesy
106
of The Board of Trinity College Dublin
26 Table of Contents: What Are Years (1941). Courtesy of
108
Special Collections Library, University of Michigan
27 End of “Virginia Britannia” in The Pangolin and Other Verse
114
(1936). Courtesy of Special Collections Library, University
of Michigan
28 “Virginia Britannia” in The Pangolin and Other Verse (1936).
116
Courtesy of Special Collections Library, University of
Michigan
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George Bornstein
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x
List of illustrations
29 Liberator masthead, 27 March 1846. Boston Public Library / 143
Rare Books Department. Courtesy of The Trustees
30 Irish, Anglo-Teutonic, and Negro heads, from H. Strickland 146
Constable, Ireland from One or Two Neglected Points of View, 1899.
Courtesy of General Research Division, The New York Public
Library, Astor, Lenox, and Tilden Foundations
31 “The Ignorant Vote,” Harper’s Weekly, 9 December 1876.
147
Courtesy of Clements Library, University of Michigan
32 The New Negro, frontispiece and title page, original 1925 edn. 150
Reprinted courtesy of Scribner, a division of Simon and
Schuster from The New Negro, edited by Alain Locke. © 1925
Albert and Charles Boni, Inc.
33 The New Negro, title page (no facing frontispiece), reprint edn. 151
Reprinted courtesy of Scribner, a division of Simon and
Schuster from The New Negro, edited by Alain Locke. © 1925
Albert and Charles Boni, Inc. Introduction by Arnold
Rampersad. Introduction © Simon and Schuster Inc.
34 John Synge, Playboy of the Western World (1907), frontispiece
163
and title page. Courtesy of Special Collections Library,
University of Michigan
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Acknowledgments
A book like Material Modernism entails many debts. I should like to
acknowledge first the research support provided by the University of
Michigan, which included at an early stage a semester fellowship sponsored by the Humanities Collaboratory that sensitized me to differences
between print and electronic media and then at a later one a yearlong
fellowship at the Institute for the Humanities to complete the project. I
cannot imagine a more supportive environment for resident scholars
than that created by the Institute director Tom Trautmann and his
capable staff, especially Eliza Woodford, Mary Price, Betsy Nisbet, and
Linnea Perlman. The College of Literature, Science, and Arts and the
Office of the Vice President for Research at the University of Michigan
also provided research support for travel to archival collections. I am
grateful, too, to a succession of supportive departmental chairs that
includes Martha Vicinus, Tobin Siebers, and Lincoln Faller.
This kind of research requires help from a variety of librarians and
scholars. Here at Michigan, I would like to thank especially Peggy Daub,
Kathy Beam, and James Fox in the Special Collections department of
the Hatcher Library and Arlene Shy in the Clements Library. Librarians
farther from home who provided gracious assistance include especially
Susan Halpert at the Houghton Library, Harvard University; Eileen
Kennedy, Museum of the City of New York; Brian McKenna and
Katherine Fahy, National Library of Ireland; Judy Watkins, British
Library; Pat Willis and Alfred Mueller, Beinecke Library, Yale
University; Roberta Zonghi and Eugene Zepp, Boston Public Library;
and Joellen El Bashir and Robin Van Fleet, Moorland Spingarn
Research Center, Howard University.
The endnotes identify my most important debts to published scholarly work. For insights and information from individual scholars outside
of their published works, I thank particularly Angela Bourke, Richard J.
Finneran, Hans Walter Gabler, Michael Groden, David Holdeman,
George Hutchinson, Jim Mays, Robin Gail Schulze, Peter Shillingsburg,
Robert Spoo, Marta Werner, and the participants at the conference on
The Iconic Page held at the University of Michigan in October of 1996.
xi
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xii
Acknowledgments
Among my colleagues at the University of Michigan, I owe special
thanks to Rebecca Egger, Linda Gregerson, Theresa Tinkle, and John
Whittier-Ferguson, all of whom commented on earlier drafts of chapters of this book. No one could have better research assistants than Jim
Crowley, who performed a range of assignments splendidly over a long
period of time, and Bill Hogan, who did the same for the final year of
the project. Finally, I thank my wife and children, to whom this book is
dedicated, for grounding me in both the pleasures of imagination and
the pressures of reality.
Quotations from “Municipal Gallery Revisited” and “Parnell” reprinted
with the permission of A. P. Watt Ltd. on behalf of Michael B. Yeats,
and of Scribner, A division of Simon and Schuster, from The Collected
Poems of W. B. Yeats, revised second edn., edited by Richard J. Finneran.
Copyright 1940 by Georgie Yeats; copyright renewed © 1968 by Bertha
Georgie Yeats, Michael Butler Yeats and Anne Yeats. Quotations from
“Leda and the Swan” reprinted with the permission of A. P. Watt Ltd.
on behalf of Michael B. Yeats, and of Scribner, a division of Simon and
Schuster, from The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats, revised second edn.,
edited by Richard J. Finneran. Copyright 1928 by Macmillan Publishing
Company; copyright renewed © 1956 by Georgie Yeats. Quotations
from “When You Are Old,” “Adam’s Curse,” “September 1913,” and
“All Souls’ Night” reprinted with the permission of A. P. Watt Ltd. on
behalf of Michael B. Yeats.
Quotations from “Spenser’s Ireland” and “Virginia Britannia”
reprinted with the permission of Scribner, a division of Simon and
Schuster, from The Collected Poems of Marianne Moore. Copyright 1941 by
Marianne Moore; copyright renewed © 1969 by Marianne Moore.
Quotations from “The Fish” and “Poetry” reprinted with the permission of Scribner, a division of Simon and Schuster, from The Collected
Poems of Marianne Moore. Copyright 1935 by Marianne Moore; copyright
renewed © 1963 by Marianne Moore and T. S. Eliot.
Quotations reproducing the synoptic apparatus of James Joyce’s
Ulysses: A Critical and Synoptic Edition, ed. Hans Walter Gabler (New York
and London: Garland, 1986) are by permission of the copyright holder,
Professor Hans Walter Gabler.
Earlier versions of several chapters have appeared previously: of chapter
1 in Studies in the Literary Imagination, vol. 32 (Georgia State University), of
chapter 2 in The Future of Modernism, ed. Hugh Witemeyer (University of
Michigan Press), of chapter 3 in The Iconic Page in Manuscript, Print, and
Digital Culture, ed. George Bornstein and Theresa Tinkle (University of
Michigan Press), and of part of chapter 7 in Literary Influence and AfricanAmerican Writers, ed. Tracy Mishkin (Garland).
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