Lowe, Katie Jemma (2011). 'That horror and doom very nearly related to Elizabethan tragedy': Djuna Barnes, T.S. Eliot, and the tragedies of relation. University of Birmingham. M.Phil.
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Abstract
This thesis explores the relation between the works of Djuna Barnes and T.S. Eliot, largely through the lens of his preface to Nightwood, in which he claims that Barnes’ novel possessed ‘the great achievement of a style, the beauty of phrasing, the brilliance of wit and characterisation, and a quality of horror and doom very nearly related to that of Elizabethan tragedy’ [Barnes, 1985: 7]. For both authors, the tragic was a means of expressing two polarities of human experience – the primal, and the divine. Both, however, rely upon a pre-linguistic sensation that underpins both constructed and instinctual mechanisms of society. The relations of the family, and of gendered identities, therefore, are revealed as central paradigms for thinking about Barnes’ and Eliot’s works. These schemes of relation may also be observed on a wider scale for both authors in their approaches to their literary and historical genealogy. The presence of the past in both authors’ works is undeniable, creating an intertextual web of connections which can be viewed as constraining, or liberating; as an oppressive past that may never be overcome, or as a springboard from which to progress.
| Type of Work: | Thesis (Masters by Research > M.Phil.) |
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| Award Type: | Masters by Research > M.Phil. |
| Licence: | |
| College/Faculty: | Colleges (2008 onwards) > College of Arts & Law |
| School or Department: | School of English, Drama and American & Canadian Studies, Department of English Literature |
| Funders: | None/not applicable |
| Subjects: | P Language and Literature > PR English literature P Language and Literature > PS American literature |
| URI: | http://etheses.bham.ac.uk/id/eprint/1662 |
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