Art Deco poets

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Art Deco poets: reframing the works of W.H. Auden and Louis MacNeice in the context of Interwar Visual Art This item was submitted to Loughborough University's Institutional Repository by the/an author.

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A Doctoral Thesis.

Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements

for the award of Doctor of Philosophy of Loughborough University.

Metadata Record: https://dspace.lboro.ac.uk/2134/17419 Publisher:

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Zoe Ellen Woodcock-Squires

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Art Deco Poets : Reframing the Works of W.H. Auden and Louis MacNeice in the Context of Interwar Visual Art

by

Zoe Ellen Woodcock-Squires

A Doctoral Thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the award of

Doctor of Philosophy of Loughborough University November 2014

© by Zoe Ellen Woodcock-Squires, November 2014

Abstract

This thesis examines works by the British interwar writers W.H. Auden and Louis MacNeice in the context of their relationship with the contemporary style of visual art known as Art Deco or the Moderne. It is my contention that, having absorbed many of the Art Deco idioms as an accepted part of the world they experience, these are reflected in the writers’ works, firmly relating the work to a unique historical moment, place and social and cultural environment. In my reading of their work I identify sources of inspiration in their themes, idioms and imagery common to the artistic style, and investigate the extent to which their work has been informed in content and composition by visual art. Using diaries, travelogues, letters, essays, prose and poetry, I will argue that if Art Deco characterised the interwar period, it follows that it will also characterise the work of Auden and MacNeice. As such, I seek to reframe their work in an entirely new context, one seemingly unnoticed by earlier critics. My project also considers the ways in which a worldview is formed and environments are learned from childhood, with reference to early twentieth-century psychologists Erich Fromm, Lev Vygotsky and Maria Montessori, in order to posit the notion that growing up in the heyday of Art Deco, Auden and MacNeice may have subceived a great many of its motifs. I also identify the ways in which the writers engage visual art with intent, and establish a relationship between the writers and Art Deco’s politics, imagery and composition through discussion of individual poems and their co-authored book Letters From Iceland (1937). In particular, the thesis examines the presence and impact of Art Deco elements in their work, such as Cubism (using both visual and literary examples), Futurism, the cinema, the Ballets Russes, and interwar attempts at producing what Wagner termed gesamtkunstwerk, the ‘total work of art’.

Keywords: Auden, MacNeice, Art Deco, Moderne, British, poetry, travelogues, interwar, visual art, 1930s, Cubism.

[81,772 words]

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Loughborough University Department of English and Drama for the partial funding of my degree – without which I could never have fulfilled my dream – and departmental admin for their endless patience at questions about paperwork. Particularly I would like to thank my supervisor Dr Nick Freeman for his encouragement, support, suggestions, guidance and occasional tweaking. It has been a pleasure.

Also for their help with random questions along the way, I would like to thank Jenny Lister, Curator of Fashion and Textiles at Victoria & Albert Museum; Colin Coulter of Broxtowe Borough Council; Professor Jon Stallworthy and Peter Stanford.

Enormous thanks to my mum, Christine, and my husband Andrew: without your love, support, patience, understanding, sporadic proofreading, constant cheerleading and willingness to be my sounding boards, this would have been an awful lot harder.

Dedicated to my father, Graham Harry Woodcock, and Claudia.

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CONTENTS

LIST OF IMAGES............................................................................................................................... II INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................................ 1 The Age of Deco ................................................................................................................................. 4 Absorbing the Art Deco World ........................................................................................................... 8 Engaging Visual Art With Intent ...................................................................................................... 11 The Politics of Art Deco ................................................................................................................... 21 Blending the Arts .............................................................................................................................. 24 CHAPTER ONE: ART DECO AND THE MODERNE WORLD................................................ 30 By Any Other Name ......................................................................................................................... 30 The Art Deco ‘Style’ ......................................................................................................................... 32 ‘Have You Ever Seen Anyone Born On His Own?’ ......................................................................... 34 Art Deco Poetry ................................................................................................................................ 99 CHAPTER TWO: ART DECO POEMS ........................................................................................ 101 W.H. Auden, ‘Consider this and in our time’ (1930)...................................................................... 101 Louis MacNeice, ‘Birmingham’ (October 1933) ............................................................................ 108 Louis MacNeice, ‘An Eclogue for Christmas’ (December 1933) ................................................... 117 W.H. Auden, ‘Night Mail’ (1935) .................................................................................................. 127 Louis MacNeice, ‘Morning Sun’ (1935)......................................................................................... 134 W.H. Auden, ‘Funeral Blues’ (1936) .............................................................................................. 139 Louis MacNeice, ‘Passage Steamer’ (1936) and W.H. Auden, ‘Passenger Shanty’ (1938) ........... 145 CHAPTER THREE: LETTERS FROM ICELAND (1937) ........................................................... 157 ‘Eclogue from Iceland’ ................................................................................................................... 181 ‘Letter to Lord Byron’ .................................................................................................................... 194 Letters as Bricolage......................................................................................................................... 209 AFTERWORD: ART DECO POETS ............................................................................................ 215 FULL BIBLIOGRAPHY ................................................................................................................. 220

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LIST OF IMAGES Figure 1: Justin Timberlake and Jay-Z at the Grammy Awards 2013 © Getty Images ......................... 3 Figure 2: Futurism in The Artist © La Petite Reine/Studio 37, 2013...................................................... 7 Figure 3: Advert from New Verse, May 1933 ....................................................................................... 26 Figure 4: Edward McKnight Kauffer’s ‘Shop Between 10 & 4’, 1921 © TfL from the London Transport Museum Collection .............................................................................................................. 38 Figure 5: Photodynamism in Les Noces, starring Dame Monica Mason with choreography by Nijinska and costumes by Goncharova © Donald Southern/ROH, 1967 ............................................................ 40 Figure 6: Experiments with Cubism in Hitchcock’s Champagne (1928) ............................................. 43 Figure 7: Austin Cooper’s 1920s ‘Joliway to Holiday’ poster for LNER © National Archives .......... 47 Figure 8: Visual pluralism in 'Grece' by A.M. Cassandre, 1933 ........................................................... 47 Figure 9: Interior of the Leicester Square Odeon cinema, 1937 © John Maltby/ RIBA Library Photographs Collection ......................................................................................................................... 56 Figure 10: Edgar Brandt’s ‘Les Cigognes d’Alsace’, 1922-1928 ©V&A Museum, 2012 ................... 68 Figure 11: World War I silk postcard © Imperial War Museum .......................................................... 70 Figure 12: Theatre programme from Auden’s The Dance of Death (1933) ......................................... 75 Figure 13: Speedlines in Peugeot poster by Paul Colin, 1935 ©2014 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris ................................................................................................................... 78 Figure 14: Henri Matisse, Le parebrise, sur la route de Villacoublay (1917) ...................................... 82 Figure 15: Pavilion du Tourisme interior at the 1925 Paris Exposition © RIBA Library Books and Periodicals Collection ........................................................................................................................... 84 Figure 16: Nancy Cunard, 1926 © Man Ray Trust / Artists Rights Society, New York ...................... 89 Figure 17: 'Le Verre Triplex' by A.M. Cassandre, 1930 ..................................................................... 116 Figure 18: 'Funeral Blues' sheet music. Text by W.H. Auden, music by Benjamin Britten © Faber Music, 1980......................................................................................................................................... 142 Figure 19: The Ballets Russes’ Le Train Bleu (1924) © Bibliothèque nationale de France ............... 153 Figure 20: Chiaroscuro in Maurice Beck's poster for LNER © National Railway Museum / Science & Society Picture Library ....................................................................................................................... 208

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INTRODUCTION

As a decorative style, what many know as Art Deco is always highly in demand and the four years since the start of the 2010s have seen something of a 1920s revival. This has primarily taken place in the dramatic arts such as music and film, but also there has been increased referral to that era in fashion and other decorative media. As in the original Art Deco period, considered by most to be the 1920s and 30s, the decorative motifs and influential elements of the style are disseminated and available to all levels of society by the same methods; heard by all in popular music, seen by millions in popular films at the cinema, and worn by thousands in popular fashions. While the same immersion in the style cannot happen today, it is clear that modern consumers are once again attracted to the decadence and glamour associated with early Art Deco, encouraged by popular media. In spring 2013, Baz Luhrmann released his big-budget remake of the movie The Great Gatsby (2013), based on the 1925 F. Scott Fitzgerald novel.1 This has most recently reintroduced ‘twenties Art Deco themes to the public consciousness and enhanced the desirability of the style. The movie alone is responsible for a return to ‘twenties fashions: the tailor Brooks Brothers released the ‘Great Gatsby Collection’ for men, designed in collaboration with the movie’s costume designer, Catherine Martin, while Tiffany & Co. released a ‘Jazz Age Glamour’ collection to celebrate its own collaborations with Martin on jewellery for the movie.2 This echoes the dissemination of Art Deco motifs through Hollywood movies in the 1920s and 30s, which was able to reach and influence all levels of society, and also its luxury, although similar imitations are also sold by everyday brands in the UK such as Debenhams, Ted Baker, ASOS and George at Asda.3 The movie has also influenced other areas of popular culture, particularly music. The ‘twenties theme is most evident in Will.I.Am’s hit ‘Bang Bang’, included in the movie’s soundtrack and featuring jazz-style rhythms, jazz band and the vocal jazz element of scat singing. However, the music scene has also portrayed other elements of the Jazz Age and Art Deco era via more subtle means, usually in association with the artists who provided the soundtrack for The Great Gatsby. Justin Timberlake, for example, performed at the 55th 1

Scott Mendelson, ‘Friday Box Office: ‘The Great Gatsby’ Stuns With $19.4 Million Friday, Likely $50 Million+ Weekend’, Forbes, (05/11/2013) [Online. Accessed 02/08/2013]. 2 Sarah Karmali, ‘Brooks Brothers Hosts Great Gatsby Costume Display’, Vogue (18/04/2013) [Online. Accessed 01.08/2013]; CBS News, ‘Tiffany’s Unveils ‘The Great Gatsby’ Windows’ (April 2013) [Online. Accessed 02/08/2013]. 3 Bianca London, ‘Gatsby Effect gives High Street a boost as Debenhams and Asda report soaring sales of Twenties garb’, Daily Mail (21/05/2013) [Online. Accessed 30/07/2013].

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Annual Grammy Awards ceremony in February 2013 with the hip-hop star Jay-Z against a black and gold set decorated with his initials set inside a pattern of chevrons and circles (fig.1), reminiscent of stereotypical Art Deco designs. The collaboration with Jay-Z (real name Shawn Carter) is significant in that Carter is credited with the role of executive producer on The Great Gatsby’s soundtrack. Carter’s wife, the singer Beyoncé, has also shown herself to be inspired by one ‘twenties celebrity in particular, channelling the AfricanAmerican sauvage Josephine Baker’s 1927 ‘Banana Dance’ in her performance and costume at the 2006 Fashion Rocks show. Yet The Great Gatsby is merely the latest movie to be set in this era: Academy Award-winners The King’s Speech (2010) and The Artist (2011) are also based in this period but did not inspire fashion or popular culture to the same extent despite The King’s Speech being a higher grossing venture by nearly 23%.4 In the same time period the high-street fashion world also remained uninfluenced by the Italian clothes label Marni’s use of Bauhaus-inspired fabrics, despite articles in newspapers, Vogue and Forbes from 2011 and the continuation of such themes in Marni’s collections in 2014.5 This indicates that, as in the ‘twenties, today’s public has responded not to the overall, cohesive whole of Art Deco but initially to the display of motifs in the highly stylized, decadent and glamorous setting of The Great Gatsby. The modern fascination for the 1920s and ‘30s in popular culture seems to be reaching a peak, yet it can be argued that such fascination has developed over a greater number of years than those only in this century’s second decade. Work on scripts for The King’s Speech’s screenplay, for example, began in 2005, while The Artist’s director Michel Hazanavicius first approached lead actors for the film in 2006.6 At this same time, the singer Beyoncé performed her homage to Josephine Baker. These dates suggest that the renewed interest in the interwar period began some time before Art Deco elements reappeared in today’s popular culture, indeed almost a hundred years since the original Art Deco period formed despite its association with the ‘twenties and ‘thirties. For the purposes of this thesis, it is necessary to establish the correct timeframe of the original Art Deco period to posit the 4

The Numbers, ‘The Great Gatsby’ (2014) [Online. Accessed 20/07/2014]; The Numbers, ‘The King’s Speech’ (2014) [Online. Accessed 20/07/2014]; The Numbers, ‘The Artist’ (2014) [Online. Accessed 20/07/2014]. 5 Lauren Paxman, ‘Move over Versace: H&M announces collaboration with Italian label Marni’, Daily Mail (30/11/2011) [Online. Accessed 30/11/2011]; Michelle Tay, ‘Canvases on the Catwalk: Milan Fashion Week Fall 2014’, Blouinartinfo.com (24/02/2014) [Online. Accessed 23/06/2014]; Sarah Harris, ‘Marni Spring 2013 RTW – Review’, Vogue (23/09/2012) [Online. Accessed 01/08/2013]; Blue Carreon, ‘Marni For H&M Collaboration For spring 2012’, Forbes (29/11/2011) [Online. Accessed 02/08/2013]. 6 David Seidler, ‘How the ‘naughty word’ cured the King’s stutter (and mine)’, Daily Mail (20/12/2010) [Online. Accessed 23/05/2013]; Festival Cannes, ‘The Artist’ (2011) [Online. Accessed 25/06/2014], p.37.

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notion that Art Deco elements filtered into society gradually, much as they have done today; that the gradual development of the style and increasing presence in the environment enabled direct contemporaries to absorb motifs unconsciously into their worldview as they, too, developed; and that the British writers and poets W.H. Auden and Louis MacNeice are such contemporaries, writers upon whom the influence of Art Deco has gone unrecognised.

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Figure 1: Justin Timberlake and Jay-Z at the Grammy Awards 2013 © Getty Images Note the Art Deco-style patterns decorating the stage, including circles, chevrons, a stepped motif, and the use of black and gold. Discussed on p.2.

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The Age of Deco While all leading experts on Art Deco agree that the name found its origin in the 1925 L’Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes, held in Paris, the first usage was recorded in November 1966 in The Times following an exhibition at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, referring to the style of works displayed both in that year and in 1925.7 However, critics contend that the style which became known as Art Deco, and which was officially born in 1925, was conceived before the Great War, with many of the items identified as being in the ‘Art Deco’ style having been designed before or during the conflict.8 These include, for example, Eileen Grey’s lacquered screen Le Destin (1913), and furniture by Ruhlmann exhibited in Paris’s Salon d’Automne in 1913. Indeed, this is only to be expected when one considers that L’Exposition, which was to herald ‘the end of the contempt directed at the machine’, was originally scheduled for 1915 with planning already in progress by 1907. 9 The outbreak of war, however, postponed the event for ten years after the proposed date and, during that time, influenced the Art Deco style in its turn. Yet as artists who wished to exhibit were first working towards a date in 1915, and would by necessity need pieces completed before that time, it can be concluded that Art Deco ideas most certainly predated the war. That the style was developing before 1914 is further supported by critics’ acknowledgement that Art Deco took inspiration from several phenomena that occurred towards the end of the new century’s first decade. As shall be seen, the style adopted the Futurists’ preoccupation with speed as identified by Marinetti’s Manifesto of 1909, and took colours from Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, which cemented its place in popular imagination with Schéhérazade in 1910.10 1910 was also identified as a significant year by the writer Virginia Woolf, who first became conscious herself that ‘human character changed’ around December, although admittedly the change had not been ‘sudden and definite’ but gradual.11 7

OED, ‘Art Deco, n’ (2008) [Online. Accessed 03/05/2010]; Bevis Hillier and Stephen Escritt, Art Deco Style (London: Phaidon, 2003), p.8; Alastair Duncan, Art Deco (London: Thames & Hudson, 2001), p.8; Ghislaine Wood, Essential Art Deco (London: V&A Publications, 2003), p.15; Ingrid Cranfield, Art Deco House Style: An architectural and interior design source book (Newton Abbot: David & Charles, 2001), p.7. 8 Duncan, Art Deco, p.7; Victor Arwas, Art Deco (London: Academy Editions, 1982), p.22; Susan A. Sternau, Art Deco: Flights of artistic fancy (London: Tiger Books International, 1997), p.4; Julian Robinson, The Brilliance of Art Deco (Sydney: Bay Books, 1990), p.9. 9 Arwas, Art Deco, p.21; Eva Weber, Art Deco (North Dighton, MA: JG Press, 2004), p.8; Mary K. Grimes & Georgiann Gersell, The Impact of Art Deco:1925-1940; Exhibition and Catalogue (Indianapolis: Indianapolis Museum of Art, 1976), p.9. 10 Duncan, Art Deco, p.7; Arwas, Art Deco, p.22; Lynn Garafola, Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes (New York: Da Capo, 1998), p.43; Robinson, The Brilliance of Art Deco, p.59; Martin Battersby, The Decorative Thirties (London: The Herbert Press, 1988), p.23; Hillier & Escritt, Art Deco Style, p.32. 11 Virginia Woolf, Mr. Bennett and Mrs. Brown (London: Hogarth, 1924), p.4.

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The date of Woolf’s awareness is linked to her newly-formed connection with the art critic Roger Fry, who had befriended the Woolfs that year, and, more particularly, to his exhibition of post-Impressionist works including Manet, Gauguin, Van Gogh, Cézanne and Matisse at London’s Grafton Galleries from November 1910 to mid-January 1911.12 Such works, discarding realism and mimesis, indicate a transition into a new perspective held by the interwar generation and foreshadow the experimentation of the ‘twenties and ‘thirties. As with the items intended for a 1915 Exposition, it can be assumed that works ready for display in 1910 had been created in the years before that date, as is also indicated by Woolf’s feeling of a gradual change that had only become apparent to her in 1910. This seems to place the first roots of Art Deco firmly in the first decade of the Twentieth Century. Victor Arwas dates an early reference to the planning of the Exposition as 1907, but Julian Robinson is alone in suggesting that the visual arts began to reflect a historical period of ‘civil strife, revolution, war’ and significant social change from 1905. 13 There is evidence to support either date, as elements incorporated into the Art Deco style are believed to have emerged around this time. The first collection of Fauvist work exhibited in Paris in 1905, at a time when African tribal art garnered some interest among the early Cubist school that surfaced between 1905 and 1907. 14 The Tate Gallery considers Picasso’s Desmoiselles D’Avignon to be the first true Cubist painting, however, and this was completed in 1907.15 This latter year is also noteworthy in that, during the period 1907-1909, Charles Rennie Mackintosh added a library wing to the Glasgow School of Art, featuring in his design a stepped motif that was to become an identifying feature of Art Deco. Indeed Martin Battersby, Bevis Hillier, Alistair Duncan and other critics all identify Mackintosh as a defining forebear of later Art Deco themes and idioms.16 It is most significant to this thesis, however, that the start of the Art Deco style can be credibly dated to 1907 as this is the year in which both Louis MacNeice and Wystan Auden were born, placing the writers as direct contemporaries to the timeline of Art Deco. The two

12

Christine Froula, Virginia Woolf and the Bloomsbury Avant-Garde: War, Civilization, Modernity (Columbia: Columbia University Press, 2005), p.22; Charles Harrison, English Art and Modernism 1900-1939 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994), p.45. 13 Arwas, Art Deco, p.21; Robinson, The Brilliance of Art Deco, p.9. 14 Battersby, The Decorative Thirties, p.25; Martin Battersby, The Decorative Twenties (London: The Herbert Press, 1988), p.29; Harrison, English Art and Modernism, p.77; Alistair Duncan, Art Deco Complete: The Definitive Guide to the Decorative Arts of the 1920s and 1930s (London: Thames & Hudson, 2009), p.300. 15 Tate Collection, ‘Cubism’ (n.d.) [Online. Accessed 20/09/2010]. 16 Battersby, The Decorative Twenties, p.27; Hillier & Escritt, Art Deco Style, p.149; Duncan, Art Deco Complete, p.249; Dan Klein, Nancy A. McClelland & Malcolm Haslam, In the Deco Style (New York: Rizzoli International, 1987), p.10.

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men grew up alongside the new style and, as will be seen, it exerted a significant influence on their poetry and, indeed, the way they viewed the world. The style is commonly regarded as a phenomenon of the ‘twenties and ‘thirties, yet it has already been established here that it took root up to twenty years before. Art Deco works reflected the new ideas and values of interwar life, yet it is generally accepted that the style did not survive World War Two, after which Art Deco was no longer adequate to reflect the new world. Many critics confine its popularity to the ‘twenties and ‘thirties, but this is not to say that the influences of Art Deco did not extend further than 1939: Portugal’s Casa de Serralves is held as one of the country’s finest examples of Art Deco architecture and was completed in 1944.17 However, it is widely accepted that the style was in decline by 1940 and this date therefore marks the cut-off point in my consideration of Auden and MacNeice’s poetry.

Returning to the three modern movies set during the interwar period and popular music identified at the start of this introduction, it is evident that ideas of the ‘twenties and ‘thirties – the years of Art Deco – have impacted upon today’s popular culture. However, the extent of such impact has thus far been measured in elements which have been consciously adopted by today’s consumers, for example the style of clothing or jazz rhythms. Yet aspects of the Art Deco lifestyle have been disseminated through movies in more subtle ways which, while not having been consciously adopted or identified by consumers, have certainly been viewed and absorbed. Take, for example, the two scenes set in the accommodation of the character Lionel Logue in The King’s Speech. In the first, Logue entertains Bertie in a room with little natural light; the wallpaper is patterned with arcs and chevrons; a sunburst motif decorates Logue’s chair, and a Meso-American bird motif decorates an object in the corner. These correspond to motifs in early Art Deco. In contrast, the room in which the Logue family listen to Bertie’s announcement of war in 1939 is bright and spacious, with geometric patterned rugs, chevron wall lights, chrome lamps and streamlined furniture, more akin to later Deco. A viewer may consciously notice that the Logue family has moved house by 1939 and unconsciously absorb the smaller decorative details in the scenes that signify this change, which accurately reflect the progression and motifs of Art Deco but are presented in momentary images in which they are not the primary focus.

17

Fundação Serralves, ‘History’ (2012) [Online. Accessed 10/01/2012].

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A particular scene in The Artist also strongly expresses significant Art Deco elements. Described as a ‘defining moment’ by viewers, the scene titled ‘Following Her Lead’ shows the character Peppy dancing behind a screen, lifted high enough to display only her lower legs (fig.2).18 The scene is highly reminiscent of the Futurist leader Filippo Marinetti’s play Feet (1915) which in turn inspired an intermezzo in the Ballets Russes production Romeo and Juliet (1926), during which ‘the curtain rose a yard above the ground to reveal throughout the scene only the feet and lower legs of the dancers’.19 Many viewers enjoy the scene yet few may know that they have been exposed to a modern interpretation of the elements of Futurism and the Ballets Russes, which were highly influential to the development of the Art Deco style. As with these movie scenes, this thesis posits that it is possible to absorb aspects of an environment both consciously and unconsciously, and for an individual to be exposed to messages that can be internalized without being fully understood or identified.

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Figure 2: Futurism in The Artist © La Petite Reine/Studio 37, 2013

18

B+ Movie Blog, ‘My Favourite Moments in the 2011 Best Picture Nominees: The Artist’ (25/02/2012) [Online. Accessed 13/07/2014]. 19 Garafola, Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, p.77.

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Absorbing the Art Deco World Establishing the beginning date of the Art Deco style places both Auden and MacNeice as the style’s direct contemporaries. The writers were both born in 1907, which is the year critics contend the Art Deco style took form and suggests the children grew up alongside the style. Significantly, as the Art Deco style adopted some motifs from its predecessor Art Nouveau, several Deco motifs already had visual presence in society at the time of the authors’ birth, indicating the possibility of the authors being exposed to such motifs from babyhood. It is the contention of this thesis that, being contemporaries of the style, Auden and MacNeice would have naturally accepted and unconsciously absorbed the developing Deco motifs during childhood as part of their social and cultural environment, and then used these motifs in their own work, which reflects the world as they perceive it. Many theories abound regarding the ways in which one becomes aware of one’s surroundings, and how it is possible to absorb an impression of our environment without fully focusing attention upon it. Ronald Kellogg, for example, states that attention is the act of ‘selecting certain stimuli from among many and focusing cognitive resources on those selected’, but that those that are not selected are still ‘processed to a degree’ as unattended or subliminal stimuli.20 Likewise, Charles Acland suggests that an ‘external phenomenon might still register unconsciously and you may be able to respond to it’.21 This is borne out in several well-regarded studies, which indicate that subliminal messages can affect future emotional responses to the same stimuli, and that subliminal exposure can increase conscious preference for that previously unattended stimuli over time.22 The German psychologist and psychoanalyst Erich Fromm contended that ‘there are only experiences of which we are aware, and others of which we are not aware, that is, of which we are unconscious’.23 This phraseology indicates that the external stimuli on which we do not focus our attention can still be experienced, and is demonstrated by Jiddu Krishnamurti’s example of absorbing environmental surroundings during a conversation (attended stimuli):

20

Ronald Thomas Kellogg, Cognitive Psychology (California: Sage, 2003), p.89, p.113. Charles R. Acland, Swift Viewing: The Popular Life of Subliminal Influence (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2011), p.18. 22 Kellogg, Cognitive Psychology, p.114; Simon Moore & Mike Oaksford (eds.), Emotional Cognition (Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2002), p.123. 23 Erich Fromm, Beyond the Chains of Illusion: My Encounter with Marx and Freud (1962. New York: Continuum International Publishing Group, 1990), pp.96-98. 21

9 Your conscious mind is occupied with your conversation, but there is another part of you which is unconsciously absorbing innumerable impressions – the trees, the leaves, the birds, the sunlight on the water. This impact on the unconscious from outside is going on all the time, though your conscious mind is occupied[.]24

Other examples of subliminal stimuli include a flash-frame of an image during a movie; product placement in visual sources such as television programmes, movies or music videos; and in literature, Harold Bloom cites the phenomenon of William Shakespeare’s place in general cultural awareness, stating that nearly everyone has some knowledge of his plays ‘frequently without having attended them or read them’.25 There is no fixed scientific theory on the mental mechanics which process experiences, which in turn allows psychoanalysts freedom to choose the terms which they feel best portray their understanding of how impressions are absorbed. The terms subliminal, unconscious, unaware and unattended are used above interchangeably, while other terms include tacit and explicit knowledge, perception and automaticity. Perception is defined as ‘engag[ing] the environment with intention’, while explicit knowledge is allied with consciousness, that which we have perceived and are aware. Tacit knowledge is rapidly received, ‘unconsciously registered’ or ‘subceived’ impressions of the external environment which are gained automatically without intention.26 While the terminology varies, it is nonetheless possible to ‘pick up’ aspects of the environment without paying full attention to them. In children, Brian Cox and Cynthia Lightfoot assert that consciousness is developed by the ‘internalization of social experience’, similar to Marx’s contention that ‘social existence determines consciousness’.27 ‘Existence’ and ‘experience’ are also interchangeable terms in this context, and experiencing and interacting in a social environment is key to individual development according to the early twentieth-century psychologist Lev Vygotsky. Vygotsky associated development with ‘social situation[s]’ and stressed the significant

24

Jiddu Krishnamurti, Life Ahead: On Learning and the Search for Meaning (Novato, CA: New World Library, 1963), p.39. 25 Harold Bloom, The Anxiety of Influence: A Theory of Poetry (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), p.xviii. 26 Catherine Kano Kikoski & John F. Kikoski, The Inquiring Organization: Tacit Knowledge, Conversation and Knowledge Creation: Skills for 21st-Century Organizations (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2004), pp.79-82. 27 Brian David Cox & Cynthia Lightfoot, Sociogenetic Perspectives on Internalization (New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates,1997), p.5; Erich Fromm, Beyond the Chains of Illusion, p.103.

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impact of the social environment on a child’s understanding of the world: Experience is a unit of personality and environment as they exist in [a child’s] development. … Experience must be understood as the internal relationship of the child as an individual to a given aspect of reality. 28

Society and the social environment therefore play a significant role in the development of a child’s individual concept of ‘reality’, which could also be called a worldview. As Nietzsche believed, a worldview, considered as a set of assumptions made by an individual when understanding the basic elements creating his environment, was a social and cultural construct dependent upon the individual’s place in time and geographical location.29 For example, a child born in 2014 will develop a worldview in which it will be the norm to watch multimedia on their parents’ mobile phone, wireless internet is standard in nearly every location, televisions are flat-screen LED, toys come in the form of laptops and one can create a painting on an electronic tablet screen. This child has never known anything else and cannot conceive that these are only recent developments in technology, that their parents’ worldview was quite different, and their grandparents’ even more so. Dr. Maria Montessori’s studies on the adoption of a worldview as a child is explained thusly by Susan Feez: Young children, [Montessori] argues, ‘absorb’ impressions from the environment, and these impressions form the actual fabric of the mind and intellect under construction. […] The absorbent mind enables children to adapt to the unique time and place into which they are born.30

Montessori believes that learning one’s environment and adapting to it is instinctual, unconscious, and a ‘result of living, without any need for more effort than is required to eat or breathe’.31 This indicates an organic learning process where the environment is accepted automatically, and that only over time and experience will an individual begin to investigate and question their external environment as a natural progression of their personal development and formation of an identity. This is demonstrated by Louis MacNeice and his 28

L.S. Vygotsky, The Collected Works of L.S. Vygotsky : Volume 1: Problems of General Psychology (ed. by Robert W. Rieber & Aaron S. Carton. London: Springer London, 1987), p.32. 29 James W. Sire, Naming the Elephant: Worldview as a Concept (Illinois, USA: InterVarsity, 2004), p.19, p.28; David K. Naugle, Worldview: The History of a Concept (Cambridge: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2002), p.101. 30 Susan Feez, Montessori and Early Childhood: A Guide for Students (London: Sage, 2010), p.30. 31 Maria Montessori, The Absorbent Mind (New York: Dell, 1967), p.27.

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reaction to the discovery of Tutankhamen’s tomb in 1922 when, at age fifteen, he becomes increasingly interested in Egyptology and is reminded by this external stimulus of his stepmother’s paintings of the Pyramids.32 MacNeice has clearly been aware to some degree of his stepmother’s drawings, possibly since age ten after her marriage to his father in 1917, but it requires the perception of the external event of Tutankhamen for him consciously to attend this aspect of his childhood environment, to engage it with intent and question his stepmother about her own experiences.33 It is clear then that society and culture are significant, even essential, in the development of a child’s understanding of its world and environment, and that an individual may automatically and unconsciously absorb aspects of their immediate environment other than those engaged with intent, receiving impressions of their surroundings without directly focusing their attention upon them. It is in this way that I believe Auden, MacNeice and other writers of their generation internalised so many Art Deco motifs from their various general environments in childhood and adolescence, which then later appear so frequently in their work as a natural, initially unquestioned part of the world they experience. As D.B. Moore stated, in adulthood the writers and their group seemed to encourage each other to ‘find both inspiration and illustration from the world as they know it’.34

Engaging Visual Art With Intent

Louis MacNeice MacNeice’s relationship with visual art is varied and involved, beginning after befriending Anthony Blunt through whom MacNeice initially gained much of his knowledge. An advocate of modern art, Blunt lectured on Cubism to the Anonymous Society, created by Blunt as an alternative to an ‘Arts Society’ and of which MacNeice was a member; obtained pictures and prints of Picasso and Cézanne to decorate their shared study; and possessed a notable number of art books including items on Van Gogh, Negro sculpture and Byzantine art, most of which MacNeice also read himself (LLM, p.102, p.108, p.112).35 MacNeice’s

32

Louis MacNeice, Letters of Louis MacNeice (ed. by Jonathan Allison. London: Faber, 2010), p.73. All further references to this text shall appear in the main body of this work in parentheses as (LLM, p-), where LLM signifies Letters of Louis MacNeice. 33 Kikoski & Kikoski, The Inquiring Organization, p.79; Kellogg, Cognitive Psychology, p.89. 34 D.B. Moore, The Poetry of Louis MacNeice (Bristol: Leicester University Press, 1972), p.20. 35 Louis MacNeice, The Strings are False (1965. London: Faber, 2007), p.95, pp.97-98. All further references to this text shall appear in the main body of this work in parentheses as (MSAF, p-), where MSAF signifies MacNeice The Strings Are False.

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own choice of prints included Renaissance painters El Greco and Patinir and the medieval Italian painter Duccio (MSAF, p.95), indicating a preference for older styles of visual art. Despite this, however, he possesses sufficient knowledge of modern styles to ‘[argue] modern art for hours’ (LLM, p.117) and is drawn to artists such as Matisse (LLM, p.119) and Cézanne (‘In London I got the Cezanne Still Life’, LLM, p.141). Matisse was particularly inspiring to MacNeice who, significantly, began to experiment with painting himself. He attempted a ‘deliberately naïve [...] imitation of Matisse’ (MSAF, p.97), demonstrating knowledge of that painter’s style but also of visual art methods and practices in general, which can be traced in his written work. This art, too, decorated his walls: On the wall I have an inspiring picture – all my own work – of a turreted palace – red and yellow and white – under a yellow moon in a deep blue sky. (LLM, p.96)

His friend John Hilton wrote in May 1925 that MacNeice ‘turns out about one [painting] a day’ (MSAF, p.246), and several of these pseudo-juvenile paintings were identified in 2008 by Katharine Firth. Primarily Fauvist in style with an occasional element of Cubism, works included ‘Boat with Egyptian Beasts’ (c.1925) which combined MacNeice’s new loves of art and Egypian motifs, which was represented by an ibis and a sphinx.36 The colours used by MacNeice heavily favour red (emulating Matisse’s preference) but also include vibrant green, orange, blue, purple and pink which closely match Martin Battersby’s list of colours associated with Art Deco (‘vivid tones of cerise, orange, violet, emerald and lapis’). 37 As a member of the Anonymous Society, which unsuccessfully invited Roger Fry to lecture in 1926 (LLM, p.111), MacNeice was aware of modern theories such as Clive Bell’s ‘significant form’, a defence of abstract art in which Bell argues that ‘lines and colours combined in a particular way […] stir our aesthetic emotions’. 38 It is clear, however, that MacNeice disliked abstract art and gravitated towards older, more traditional work, as he writes in September 1926:

I am in a sad state over art and am all for flux as opposed to hard lines etc[.] [...] I’m tired of theories. It will be some time before I read another 36

Katharine Firth, ‘Five Adolescent Paintings by F. Louis MacNeice’, Notes and Queries, 55.4 (Dec 2008), 514-515, (p.515). 37 Battersby, The Decorative Thirties, p.24. 38 Christopher Reed (ed.), A Roger Fry Reader (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996), p.1; Clive Bell, Art (1914. London: Chatto & Windus, 1928), pp.17-18.

13 ‘aesthetic’. Theories are combinations of abstractions & an abstraction is the rough & ready term that covers a lot of individual concretes. It saves time but it doesn’t lead anywhere. [...] I don’t believe in pure form. I don’t believe in pure anything. Anything pure is an abstraction. All concretes are adulterated. (LLM, pp.120-122)

Over a decade later, MacNeice still maintains this opinion regarding aestheticism as evidenced by the line in ‘Auden and MacNeice: Their Last Will and Testament’ (1937) in which they leave Clive Bell ‘A pure form, very pure’.39 In his autobiography MacNeice testifies to the influence of Blunt and his own immersion in visual art, which seemed even to affect his enjoyment of a holiday in Scotland in 1925: ‘I had just discovered Van Gogh and was in no mood for either the Lowlands or the Highlands’ (MSAF, p.228). Indeed, the highlight of the vacation seems to be ‘the discovery of an original Gauguin’ in an Edinburgh gallery (MSAF, p.228). During the interwar years, MacNeice toured various galleries in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Dublin (LLM, p.120) and London, including the Lefèvre Galleries (LLM, p.132), the Royal Academy (LLM, p.176) and Zwemmer’s abstract exhibition (LLM, p.359).40 In addition MacNeice travelled to Paris, ‘the vortex of art’ (LLM, p.171), with John Hilton in 1927.41 This situates MacNeice in a significant time and place with regard to modern art and specifically Art Deco, and there is evidence that MacNeice consciously attended modern art during this visit, being tasked to purchase a piece of ‘contemporary work’ (MSAF, p.255) for a friend. Hilton claimed that ‘we go to the Louvre twice a day and see a lot of pictures and we go to fifteen exhibitions of modern artists’ (MSAF, p.265); at the Louvre MacNeice preferred a work by the eighteenth century Rococo painter Jean-Antoine Watteau (a painter whose reputation in Britain had risen steadily since his rediscovery by Walter Pater during the 1870s), while a tour of the Paris salons for modern artwork brought him into contact with ‘several hundred Dufys’ (MSAF, p.255). A Fauvist and Impressionist painter, Dufy was known for using bright colours and bold contours which, after experimenting with Cubism, he adapted into a unique,

39

W.H. Auden & Louis MacNeice, Letters from Iceland (1st ed. London: Faber, 1937), p.247. All further references to this text shall appear in the main body of this work in parentheses as (LFI, p-), where LFI signifies Letters From Iceland. 40 Louis MacNeice, I Crossed the Minch (1938. Edinburgh: Polygon, 2007), p.111. All further references to this text shall appear in the main body of this work in parentheses as (MICM, p-), where MICM signifies MacNeice I Crossed the Minch. 41 ‘Vortex’ is perhaps here used in the positive sense intended by Wyndham Lewis and Ezra Pound in BLAST and other ‘Vorticist’ writing of 1914-15.

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quickly-applied ‘stenographic’ style.42 Although Hilton exaggerates, this nonetheless indicates the volume of modern visual art MacNeice consciously attended during his trip despite a clear personal preference for more traditional work. His preference is emphasised by a comment in July 1927 that he thinks the Royal Academy ‘is becoming slightly modernistic’ (LLM, p.176), which seems to convey a sense of disappointment or distaste. Indeed, in I Crossed the Minch (1938) MacNeice comments upon the paintings he considers ‘lovely’ in Edinburgh, which include works by Tiepolo, a Baroque painter; a portrait by Degas, an Impressionist; and a biblical work by the Post-Impressionist Gauguin, which features a Fauve-like element of earth coloured bright red (MICM, p.28). Three different artistic movements are referred to here, indicating MacNeice’s broad knowledge and general appreciation of visual art, but it must also be noted that the latter two are linked to the same movements as Cezanne, Matisse and Picasso, whose paintings he preferred at Marlborough and whose work is related to the Cubist element of the Art Deco style. However, these two are also fin-de-siècle paintings and therefore indicate a preference for early Impressionist and Post-Impressionist works produced before World War One. In Glasgow, MacNeice again remarks upon more classical styles of painting, such as Baroque, and prominent fin-de-siècle painters: …there are Augustus John’s portrait of Yeats and Whistler’s of Carlyle, there are several (alas!) Carlo Dolcis and Guido Renis, there is a Reynolds portrait of a boy in slashed mauve sleeves and with disillusioned eyes[.] (MICM, p.114)

However on this occasion the paintings do not seem so ‘lovely’, indicated by the use of ‘alas’ and the transferred epithet of ‘disillusioned’. This suggests that MacNeice’s tastes are eclectic, with no movement garnering his wholehearted approval. MacNeice is, however, even less impressed with the extremely modern Surrealist movement, referring to a room of sculptures at the Glasgow gallery as ‘the usual Chirico nightmare of marble’ (MICM, p.114), and instead is most engaged and ‘entranc[ed]’ by a room ‘full of models of ships’ (MICM, p.114). This indicates that while MacNeice has little liking for modern art movements, he nonetheless shares the Art Deco fascination with forms of transport as subjects for art.

42

Art Experts, Inc., ‘Raoul Dufy (1877-1953)’ (2010) [Online. Accessed 28/07/2010].

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MacNeice also encountered visual wall art in the form of advertising posters, which will be discussed further in Chapter One, in addition to modern sculpture through his friend Gordon Herickx, a ‘semi-abstract or symphonic’ (MSAF, p.155) sculptor. Significantly, a direct relationship between MacNeice and visual art exists in the presentation of his travelogues with accompanying drawings. Both I Crossed the Minch (1938) and Zoo (1938) were researched in the company of the illustrator and painter Nancy Sharp, MacNeice’s then-lover and wife of the realist painter William Coldstream, and Nancy’s drawings were published alongside MacNeice’s written accounts in both books. This provides an intimate link both personally and professionally between MacNeice, his work, and visual art. The dichotomous nature of MacNeice’s relationship with visual art – dismissing modern expressions and movements on one hand but presenting visual art alongside his own work on the other – can be explained in a comment by Terence Brown, who identifies a peculiar dilemma in MacNeice’s approach: The mature poet was sure of what poetry ought to be – an engaged criticism of life, communicating with the public, in verse which perfectly weds subject and form; the other (the residue of his youthful enthusiasms) was tempted to regard imaginative conceits and elaborate decorativeness as worthwhile in and of themselves.43

It is significant that Brown attaches the decorative aspect of MacNeice’s work to his youth, as this suggests the perception of Art Deco – a highly decorative expression of visual art – at a young age whilst developing a worldview. This is supported by MacNeice himself, who referred to his choice of imagery as ‘random decoration’ and as ‘details in themselves. They [the images] could therefore be judged by their correspondence to particular objects or events.’44 MacNeice’s tendency to ‘decorate’ his work, often with motifs corresponding to those displayed prominently in Art Deco pieces, indicates the influence of this visual art on him, however consciously attended in childhood, and suggests that MacNeice’s approach is similar to that of Art Deco artists in terms of creating images with visual appeal (supplemented by Sharp’s drawings). Further evidence of this is provided by Brown’s discussion of ‘imagery of a garish poster-colour brilliance and artificiality, which decorates, 43 44

Terence Brown, Louis MacNeice: Sceptical Vision (Dublin: Gill and Macmillan, 1975), p.127. Brown, Louis MacNeice, p.127.

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yet mars’ and which is appropriate only in ‘another context’; its proper contexts are in fact Fauvist and Cubist art and the bright, acid colour palette of Deco as adopted from the Ballets Russes. This suggests that MacNeice has himself adopted such colours from modern visual art and decorative motifs located in his environment.45

Wystan H. Auden Similarly to MacNeice, Auden’s conscious engagement with visual art began at college, where he met Charles Robert Owen Medley, a painter in the abstract and Surrealist styles and a fellow member of Gresham School’s Society of Arts. As Blunt with MacNeice, Medley clearly had some influence on Auden in terms of visual art, as Auden’s juvenile poem ‘On Seeing Some Dutch Pictures’ was undoubtedly inspired by a lecture given by Medley on ‘The Dutch School of Painting’.46 Medley continued to provide a link between Auden and visual art into adulthood, for as Stephen Spender remarked, a painting by his friend hung on his wall at Oxford: He looked at a still life on the wall and said: ‘He will be The Painter.’ This was by Robert Medley.47

This suggests that Auden approved of Medley’s modern artistic style, or at least considered Medley’s work the best visual representation of their location in time and space. This also indicates some general knowledge of modern styles if Medley was considered superlative, ‘The’ painter of the times when compared to other modern artists. The link to visual art through Medley is maintained through the Group Theatre, co-founded by Auden, Medley and the former Ballets Russes dancer Rupert Doone, which provided an arena in which to juxtapose Auden’s writing with Medley’s art and Doone’s dance.48 Auden’s domestic environment also included references to Cubism. A drawing by Picasso sat on his writing table, while Cubist-style wallpaper decorated the room in which Auden kept his piano; while Isherwood states that Auden was not responsible for this wallpaper, it nonetheless indicates, in conjunction with the Picasso drawing, that Auden came

45

Brown, Louis MacNeice, p.128. W.H.Auden, Juvenilia: Poems 1922-1928 (ed. Katherine Bucknell. London: Faber,1994), p.6. All further references to this text shall appear in the main body of this work in parentheses as (AJ, p-), where AJ signifies Auden Juvenilia. 47 Stephen Spender, World Within World (London: Faber, 1977), p.51. 48 Humphrey Carpenter, W.H. Auden: A biography (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), p.138. 46

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into contact with and seemingly enjoyed Cubist aesthetics. 49 Auden may also have encountered modern visual art in friends’ domestic spaces. Stephen Spender, for example, who Auden met in 1927, had a ‘taste for modern painting’ from the age of fifteen and decorated his rooms at Oxford with ‘reproductions of paintings by Gauguin, Van Gogh and Paul Klee’, the latter of whom took inspiration from Cubism, Surrealism and Expressionism.50 It is possible that Auden also encountered the streamlined Moderne expression of Art Deco through Spender, who decorated his flat in this style in 1936 after an influential experience at a party in Hamburg. Spender described the furnishings at the party as ‘bare modernist tables and chairs made of tubes of steel and bent plywood’, while the room was ‘lit by lamps of tubular and rectangular ground glass.’51 Joachim, the host of the party, also added an element of exoticism with a ‘Mexican mat’, and displayed a ‘bowl of rough-cut glass, [...] modernist crockery, and [...] massive books printed in heavy clear-cut modern types[.]’52 Spender was so inspired as to decorate his Hammersmith flat in a similar manner:

At one end of the living-room I had a very long desk built of inlaid wood, with an ebony black top. I bought three-plywood chairs and tables like those I had seen in Joachim’s flat in Hamburg. I had copper-bowl lamps which threw indirect light up at the ceiling, and lamps of tubular ground glass which also resembled Joachim’s.53

It is clear that Spender had an affinity with the Moderne style, and that his literary acquaintances may have experienced the Moderne through their association with him. As MacNeice stated in his autobiography, Spender’s furnishings also included modern art, creating an impression of:

a chic apartment with a colour scheme out of Vogue, a huge vulcanite writingdesk and over the fireplace an abstract picture by Wyndham Lewis. (MSAF, p.166)

49

Christopher Isherwood, Lions and Shadows: An Education in the Twenties (1938. London: New English Library, 1974), p.132. 50 Spender, World Within World, p10, p.33. 51 Spender, World Within World, p.109. 52 Spender, World Within World, p.110. 53 Spender, World Within World, p.204.

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In a similar manner, Auden may have been exposed to the art prints possessed by MacNeice, and also the African, Dadaist and Surrealist art collected by Nancy Cunard, whom he knew through his friend Brian Howard and to whose parties he was invited.54 Auden was, however, independently engaging with other visual sources during this period. Richard Davenport-Hines, for example, indicates a connection between the 1932 poem ‘O what is that sound which so thrills the ear’ and the Renaissance painter Giovanni Bellini’s work, The Agony in the Garden (c.1465), which in turn suggests that Auden visited the National Gallery and viewed other visual art.55 Certainly Auden, like MacNeice, was conversant in the topic by 1932, when Auden reprimanded a pupil at The Downs School where he worked then proceeded to talk to the boy about ‘painting, the theatre, and [the boy’s] future’.56 His knowledge is further illustrated in Letters From Iceland, in the use of painting terms such as chiaroscuro (LFI, p.51), references to ‘an artist’s palette’ (LFI, p.224), and his assertion that Iceland possesses ‘little knowledge of painting’ (LFI, p.217), implying that he himself possesses significant knowledge. The Downs School provided numerous opportunities for Auden to engage with visual art. A 1934 trip to Europe with several pupils was reported as a travelogue in Downs’ magazine titled ‘In Search of Dracula’, which states that during their visit to the Bavarian Schloss Eisenberg the group encountered ‘A fine collection of pictures, including a magnificent Breughel’.57 Brueghel remains in Auden’s consciousness for some time: following visits to the Brussels art gallery in early 1938 Auden remarks upon the painter Rubens in a letter, yet it is likely he also viewed the gallery’s collection of Brueghel paintings at this time.58 Auden would have attended these paintings from his first visit, as he had already identified the artist as being of interest to himself during his European trip in 1932. The same paintings were again viewed in December 1938 and were the inspiration behind the poem ‘Musée des Beaux Arts’, written at the end of the year and referencing the Brueghel paintings Landscape with the Fall of Icarus (c.1560), The Massacre of the Innocents (1565)

54

Marie-Jacqueline Lancaster, Brian Howard: Portrait of a Failure (London: Timewell, 2005), p.xv; Richard Davenport-Hines & Peter Treadwell, Auden (Michigan: University of Michigan Press, 1995), p.256; Lois G Gordon, Nancy Cunard: heiress, muse, political idealist (New York: Columbia University Press, 2007), pp.95-96. 55 Richard Davenport-Hines, Auden (London: William Heinemann, 1995), p.118. 56 Carpenter, W.H. Auden, p.144. 57 W.H. Auden, Prose and Travel Books in Prose and Verse: Volume I 1926-1938 (ed. Edward Mendelson. London: Faber, 1996), p.74. All further references to this text shall appear in the main body of this work in parentheses as (APTB, p-), where APTB signifies Auden Prose and Travel Books. 58 Carpenter, W.H. Auden, p.241.

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and The Numbering at Bethlehem (1566), all of which hang in the Brussels Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts.59 While at The Downs School in 1935, Auden also produced an art edition of the school magazine, featuring oil paintings produced by pupils over the year. It is in the prologue of this special edition that Auden indicates his thoughts on abstract art, stating:

Some may feel that pictures composed of abstract forms and colours that do not represent real objects are not suitable for adorning their drawing-room walls. This may be true, but it does not follow that the painting of them is not very worth while. (APTB, p.700)

Here, Auden both defends modern art and indicates that its ‘suitability’ is limited to certain areas of life, thereby questioning the contexts in which the display of a visual style that represents nothing ‘real’ could be considered appropriate. This in turn suggests a preference for older, more mimetic styles as demonstrated by references to individual Renaissance or Baroque paintings in his work. However, he also possesses a Picasso etching and is biased towards the work of Robert Medley, indicating an eclectic taste. A general awareness of modern art movements is indicated in 1936 in a reference to Surrealism, yet again in similarity to MacNeice, Auden does not seem fond of this style, stating that, of visual sources, his ‘only knowledge is derived from […] some paintings of Dali, Ernst, and others’ (APTB, p.135). This indicates an awareness, however limited, which Auden is in no hurry to broaden. Despite this, Auden’s poem ‘In The Square’ was included in the anthology Straw In The Hair (1938), a collection considered by contemporary critics as ‘surrealist’.60 Illustrated by the Cubist and Surrealist artist Victor Reinganum, this also provides an instance of Auden’s own work juxtaposed with and becoming visual art. Surrealism is again referenced in Letters From Iceland (1937), which as a work demonstrates a great deal of Auden’s awareness of and interest in visual art at a specific time and place. In the chapter titled ‘For Tourists’ written predominantly by Auden, visitors to Reykjavik are directed to a museum in which Auden states there is ‘a remarkable painting on wood of the Last Supper which is worth seeing’ (LFI, p.39). This supports the notion that Auden engages with art himself when in the role of tourist, and significantly a print of the 59

Arthur F. Kinney, ‘Bruegel and ‘Musée des Beaux-Arts’’, College English, 24.7 (Apr 1963), p.529 ; Max Bluestone, ‘The Iconographic Sources of Auden’s ‘Musée des Beaux-Arts’’, Modern Language Notes, 76.4 (Apr 1961), pp.332-333. 60 Anthony Bertram, ‘Surrealist Verse’, Times Literary Supplement (TLS), 17 December 1938, p.804.

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painting is included in the book as one of Auden’s chosen visual accompaniments. Other prints of paintings featured in the book include work by Jóhannes Sveinsson Kjarval, an Icelandic painter; an 1814 painting ‘The Geysirs’ by Ebenezer Henderson, and two further unreferenced prints of Reykjavic and Mount Hekla.61 Again similarly to MacNeice, it is significant that Auden chooses to include visual sources in his travelogue, particularly photographs he himself has taken, firmly setting the written word against examples of appropriate visual art. Auden engages visual art sources with intent throughout his whole Iceland trip. He is conscious of art in public spaces as he states that works by Icelandic painters are ‘to be found in all inns, schools, and public buildings’ (LFI, p.114), yet he actively seeks more examples of it by visiting a school specifically to ‘see its collection of Icelandic paintings’ (LFI, p.121) and the more private ‘Parliament house’ (LFI, p.39). This is particularly supportive of his interest in the general topic of art. In addition however, he is also able to access more familiar work and states that his preference is for caricature:

Just borrowed two volumes of caricatures, which are really my favourite kind of pictures, and spent a very happy evening with Goya and Daumier and Max Beerbohm [.] (LFI, p.123)

Daumier is referenced again in ‘Letter to William Coldstream, Esq.’ (LFI, p.223), as is Cézanne, who Auden believes has ‘done […] no good’ (LFI, p.114) at influencing either the Icelandic knowledge of art or his own preference: All Cézanne’s apples I would give away For one small Goya or a Daumier. (LFI, p.103)

Auden’s reference to Goya, a Romantic painter and sculptor, further indicates that, with the exceptions of Picasso and his friend Medley, Auden consciously prefers more classical styles of art.

61

Auden and MacNeice’s interaction with these and other examples of visual art in Iceland will be examined further in Chapter Three, pp.172-175.

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The Politics of Art Deco The interwar years formed a period of great political unrest and confusion and this is reflected in the Art Deco style, presenting at once modernity and motifs from antiquity, angles and streamlinism. The style is eclectic, drawing inspiration from many, sometimes contradictory, sources, and as such portrays the tone of its particular time. Yet the disparate sources of motifs and influences indicates that the style has no explicit political agenda of its own, essentially reflecting elements of everything and therefore no single agenda. This, however, does not suggest that avant-garde artists or individual influential elements inspiring Art Deco had no agenda. The Italian Futurists, for example, were originally allied to libertarianism then Fascism by the 1930s; Sergei Diaghilev asserted that the Ballets Russes had ‘nothing to do with politics’, yet erred towards Communism when pushed in the 1920s; the Vorticist founder Wyndham Lewis settled upon rightist ideology and Fascism; Pablo Picasso unashamedly supported French Communism.62 Having no fixed political leaning itself, however, also made the style ripe for adoption by a political party, which was achieved by the German National Socialist party. Indeed, the Nazi regime fully incorporated the Art Deco style into its propaganda, motifs, insignia and lifestyle, erecting buildings in neo-classic style while ‘embrac[ing] the technology and the scale of modernity’, particularly massproduction and the cinema.63 With regard to the writers discussed in this thesis, W.H. Auden in particular displayed Communist sympathies. The 1933 poem beginning ‘The month was April, the year | Nineteen hundred and thirty-three’ states, for example, that the ship Wystan Auden Esquire should steer towards ‘calmer water […] to the east’, while Michael Roberts classed Auden as a communist poet in 1937.64 In the same year, Auden expressed intent to fight in the Spanish Civil War’s International Brigade against fascism and did indeed journey to that country (although his contribution to the cause remains unclear), and in a double edition of New Verse dedicated to Auden, Stephen Spender stated that Communism ‘appeal[ed] to the poet’.65 62

Christina Poggi, Inventing Futurism: The Art and Politics of Artificial Optimism (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2009), p.232; Sjeng Scheijen, Diaghilev: A life (London: Profile Books, 2010), p.403; Toby Avard Foshay, Wyndham Lewis and the Avant-Garde: The Politics of the Intellect (Canada: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1992), p.18; Claudia Mesch, Art and Politics: A Small History of Art for Social Change Since 1945 (London: I.B. Tauris, 2013), p.25. 63 Hillier & Escritt, Art Deco Style, p.131. 64 W.H. Auden, The English Auden: Poems, Essays and Dramatic Writings 1927-1939 (ed. Edward Mendelson. London: Faber, 1977), p.134. All further references to this text shall appear in the main body of this work in parentheses as (MEA, p-), where MEA signifies Mendelson English Auden; Ronald Carter (ed.), Thirties Poets: ‘The Auden Group’; a casebook (London: Macmillan, 1984), p.73. 65 Robert C. Manteiga, ‘Politics and Poetics: England’s Thirties Poets and the Spanish Civil War ‘, Modern Language Studies, 19 (1989), 3-14 (p.9); Tony Sharpe, W.H. Auden (Oxon: Routledge, 2007), p.26; Peter

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However, despite frequent association of Auden with Communism, sources suggest that his real political opinion was more complicated. Spender, for example, comments upon Edward Upward – a mutual friend of Spender, Christopher Isherwood and Auden – joining the Communist Party and recalls in his autobiography that at first:

We regarded this as an extraordinary action. Communism to us was an extremist, almost unnatural cause, and we found it hard to believe that any of our friends could be Communists.66

In addition, Spender confidently stated that Auden’s poem ‘Brothers, who when the sirens soar’ (1932), alternatively known as ‘A Communist to Others’, does not reflect Auden’s own mindset and in fact expresses ‘a point of view not his own’, being informed by conversations overheard between genuine Communists and betraying his own lack of ‘serious interest’.67 Critics also identify aspects of Auden’s work that suggest influences allied to the other end of the political spectrum, citing general ‘semi-Fascist elements’ and in particular Auden’s popular motif of the airman, an image also utilised by the Futurists and Nazis.68 Indeed, Auden’s celebrated brand of telegraphese is inspired by Futurist literary practices, as will be examined in Chapter One. Thus Auden’s politics match those of Art Deco, displaying and combining elements taken from many, often conflicting, sources. This enables MacNeice to comment that Auden is ‘always taking sides’, yet in doing so Auden’s work becomes polyperspective in that he presents several ‘sides’ of the turbulent political climate in interwar Europe, thereby presenting many and wholeheartedly espousing none.69 This may also be argued for MacNeice, who is generally considered to ‘lack […] political conviction’ yet more accurately merely ‘rejected the idea that […] one must ‘take one’s stand’’ through one’s work as identified by D.B. Moore.70 However, the ‘fashionable poetic accessory’ of Communism is evident in MacNeice’s chapter ‘Hetty to Nancy’ in Letters From Iceland, in which MacNeice Edgerly Firchow, W.H. Auden: Contexts for Poetry (London: Associated University Presses, 2002), p.137; Stephen Spender, ‘Oxford to Communism’, New Verse, 26 (November 1937) p.12. 66 Spender, World Within World, p.132. 67 Firchow, W.H. Auden: Contexts for Poetry, p.130; François Duchêne, The Case of the Helmeted Airman: a study of W.H. Auden’s poetry (London: Chatto & Windus, 1972), p.98, Adrian Caesar, Dividing Lines; Poetry, Class and Ideology in the 1930s (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1991), p.54. 68 Anthony Hecht, The Hidden Law: The poetry of W. H. Auden (London: Harvard University Press, 1993), p.9; Moore, The Poetry of Louis MacNeice, p.52; Bernard Bergonzi, Reading the Thirties: texts and contexts (London: Macmillan, 1978), p.102; Stephen Spender, The Destructive Element: A study of modern writers and beliefs (London: Jonathan Cape, 1935), p.268. 69 John Haffenden, W.H. Auden: The Critical Heritage (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1983), p.255. 70 Richard Danson Brown, Louis MacNeice and the Poetry of the 1930s (Devon: Northcote House, 2009), p.6; Moore, The Poetry of Louis MacNeice, p.52.

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equates finding the Soviet Communist symbol of the hammer and sickle drawn in red paint on a rock to ‘Robinson Crusoe seeing a human footprint’ (LFI, p.180).71 Thus both Auden and MacNeice are sensitive to and explore the changing political climate at any given moment, reflecting the confusing and conflicting politics of the time much as the Cubist artist Picasso stated he himself must do when questioned in 1945:

What do you think an artist is? An imbecile who only has eyes if he is a painter, or ears if he is a musician, or has a lyre at every mood of his heart if he is a poet, or even, if he is a boxer, just his muscles? On the contrary! He is at the same time a political being, constantly alive to world events that can be heart-rending, fiery or happy, and he responds to them with his whole being. How could it be possible to feel no interest in other people and by virtue of an ivory indifference to detach yourself from the life which they so copiously bring you?72

The Art Deco style and associated artists therefore approach politics eclectically, adopting influences from varied sources and reflecting the complexities of real life during the period, thereby appealing to more of society. This approach resonates through the development of Art Deco from angular to streamlined, jazz to swing, luxurious to the popular and massproduced, and can also be seen in the work of Auden, which presents the Eliot-like complex, gnomic obscurity of private jokes and personal mythology, a ‘too specialized kind of concentration’, in juxtaposition with elements of popular culture and entertainment such as jazz and blues ballads.73 Indeed, Stephen Spender identifies this dichotomy in his assertion that Auden ‘plagiarized on a heroic scale’ in order to combine his personal highbrow interests and the more easily accessible popular: He has ransacked Jazz songs (such as Cole Porter’s ‘Let’s fall in love’, or Gershwin’s ‘My one and only’), psychological and medical text-books, and films,

71

Danson Brown, Louis MacNeice and the Poetry of the 1930s, p.6. Herschel B. Chipp (ed.), Theories of Modern Art: A Source Book by Artists and Critics (London: University of California Press,1968), p.487; Ingo F. Walther, Picasso (Koln: Benedikt Taschen Verlag GmbH, 2000), p.70. 73 Hugh I’Anson Fausset, ‘Poetry and Disintegration’, TLS, 19 March 1932, p.221; Louis MacNeice, Selected Literary Criticism of Louis MacNeice (ed. Alan Heuser. Oxford: Clarendon, 1987), pp.15-16. All further references to this text shall appear in the main body of this work in parentheses as (MSLC, p-), where MSLC signifies MacNeice Selected Literary Criticism. 72

24 for his material. His material is not, of course, these things in themselves, but the minds of the people who are affected by them.74

This echoes Picasso’s belief that artists should produce work to which consumers can relate, and indicates that Auden deliberately incorporated elements of popular culture in order to appeal to more levels of society, just as Art Deco attempted. Imitation and pastiche are other forms of this by emulating writers already known to the consumer. While this is more frequent in Auden, MacNeice too indulged in imitation, particularly in I Crossed The Minch, in which Chapter XIII, titled ‘Or One Might Write It So’, is written in the styles of Walter Pater, D.H. Lawrence, Ernest Hemingway and W.B. Yeats as a comic ‘burlesque’, in addition to other pieces of imitation as identified by Julian Gitzen.75 Ironically, Spender also identifies that Auden’s borrowing and imitation from popular culture influenced imitation in his followers, resulting in ‘a kind of Lowest Common Multiple of his own work’ which emulators and readers found less ‘difficult’, allowing his work to become more accessible by proxy.76 Appealing to the masses became a greater motivation in Auden and MacNeice’s work as the interwar period progressed for, as MacNeice argued in Modern Poetry (1938), poets should be ‘organic to the community’ and were at that time ‘working back from luxurywriting and trying once more to be functional’.77 This parallels the Art Deco transition from luxurious Jazz to the functional Moderne, in the same timeframe and for similar reasons. It can be argued, then, that the eclecticism of Art Deco, the style’s true reflection of varied, confused and unsettled political climates, and its gradual increase of appeal to the masses through popular idioms was echoed in the work of both Auden and MacNeice. These writers similarly refused to commit to a single political movement, were inspired by varied sources and imitated several, and emulated the Art Deco swing from highbrow exclusivity to the accessible popular. Just as Art Deco expressed the complexities of its time and place, so too did the work of Auden and MacNeice.

Blending the Arts It is clear that both MacNeice and Auden engaged with visual art and, especially with regards to MacNeice, engaged to the extent of dabbling in visual arts themselves. However the

74

Spender, The Destructive Element, p.259. Julian Gitzen, The Poet as ‘Educated, Ordinary Man’: The Poetic Practice of Louis MacNeice, Volume 2 (Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin, 1965), p.351. 76 Haffenden, W.H. Auden, pp.200-201. 77 Louis MacNeice, Modern Poetry: A Personal Essay (1938. New York: Haskell House, 1969), pp.2-3. 75

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appreciation of other arts outside of one’s own artistic field was by no means restricted to these writers alone. Visual and poetic art were composed by and presented simultaneously in the works of William Blake, for example, of whom Auden was certainly aware.78 The years surrounding and following World War I, however, saw a significant reduction of boundaries between the arts; groups and sets began to form containing artists, writers, and other intellectuals, such as the Sitwell family’s group from 1916 and the Bloomsbury Set from 1912. These groups encouraged interaction between the arts, a natural occurrence for the Bloomsbury Group as the writer Virginia Woolf was sister to the painter Vanessa Bell; however, the period also grew many individuals who composed art in several fields such as Wyndham Lewis, a friend of the Sitwells who both founded the Vorticist movement in visual art and also wrote novels. Pablo Picasso also practised various arts, designing sets and costumes for several Ballets Russes productions during and after World War I and beginning to write poetry in 1935 and plays from 1941.79 The manner in which the poems are composed is often allied to visual artistic schools such as Dadaism or Surrealism due to the disconnection between series of images, yet his abandonment of punctuation is more similar to Futurist hyper-conciseness and akin to Auden’s telegraphese.80 Also similar to Auden and other interwar poets is Picasso’s use of the dash, an Art Deco signifier which shall be discussed in Chapter One, but which suggests that Picasso was aware of current devices and motifs in the literary world at the time he began to write, to the same extent that writers were conversant in visual artistic methods, as exemplified in the periodical New Verse.81 The periodical often contained discussion of Surrealist and other visual art including theatre, in addition to advertisements of galleries and art books, such as Zwemmer’s Charing Cross Road gallery frequented by MacNeice and Anthony Blunt, and Christian Zervos’s books L’Art En Grece and L’Art de la Mesopotamie as promoted by The Listener’s Henry Moore.82 Issue 22 of New Verse also advertised the forthcoming issue of Contemporary Poetry and Prose magazine, featuring poems by Picasso and contributions from Surrealists André Breton and the painter Salvador 78

Aiden Wasley, The Age of Auden: Postwar Poetry and the American Scene (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2011), p.11; R. Victoria Arana, W.H. Auden’s Poetry: Mythos, Theory and Practice (Amherst, NY: Cambria, 2009), p.29. 79 John Golding, Visions of the Modern (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1994), p.84; Ronald Penrose (Sir), Picasso, His Life and Work (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1981), p.278. 80 Golding, Visions of the Modern, p.84; Penrose, Picasso, His Life and Work, p.278. 81 Penrose, Picasso, His Life and Work, p.278. 82 See C. H. Madge, ‘Surrealism for the English’, New Verse, 6 (December 1933), pp.14-18; D.E.G., ‘On Spontaneity’, New Verse, 18 (December 1935), p.19; Cecil Day Lewis, ‘Surrealists Get The Bird’, New Verse, 19 (February-March 1936), pp.20-21; New Verse, 19 (February-March 1936), p.23; Hugh Sykes Davies, ‘Sympathies with Surrealism’, New Verse, 20 (April-May 1936), pp.15-21.

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Dali, further demonstrating the eradication of boundaries between the arts. This indicates that knowledge of the arts beyond one’s own field was important to interwar artists, and that attempting other fields was encouraged. Despite awareness and discussion of visual art, however, the periodical did not juxtapose poems or discussions with visual representations. No artwork is contained within New Verse and advertisements are text-based . This is in contrast to earlier periodicals such as The London Mercury, which in 1925 contained pages of adverts; several text- and drawingbased adverts including diagrams of sunbursts, angular silhouettes and featuring visual art such as woodcut prints in addition to poetry, prose and discursive essays.83 It is, however, in line with Art Deco’s shift from Jazz to Moderne. The contributions are surrounded by white space, presenting a product streamlined and trimmed to essentials in comparison to the Jazz Deco-style art and busier pages in The London Mercury. This clearly situates the New Verse writers in a space which, in its way, reflects the transition from the first to second expression of Art Deco. The use of sans serif font and speed-line effect borders are the only visual references found in the journal which reflect developments in other fields of art (fig.3), yet it has been demonstrated that such developments were recognised and discussed within that literary space. In contrast, The Times Literary Supplement (TLS) often contained prints of artwork and discussion of other Art Deco elements.

Copyrighted image

Figure 3: Advert from New Verse, May 1933

83

J.C. Squire (ed.), The London Mercury, 11th vol., 64 (February 1925), p.viii, p.xii, p.343.

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Reviews of work by Auden and MacNeice in TLS were often located in close proximity to discussion or examples of modern art. A review of MacNeice’s collection, The Earth Compels (1938), for example, appears below a portrait by Sir William Rothenstein, while a review of Zoo (1938) sits below a cartoon by Heath Robinson in an issue also reviewing the novel The Lost Queen of Egypt (advertised with an Egyptian diagram) and an article on ‘Primitive Customs in Africa’.84 His travelogue I Crossed The Minch is printed with an example of Nancy Sharp’s accompanying drawings.85 Elsewhere a review of Geoffrey Grigson’s The Arts To-day (1935) juxtaposes both MacNeice and Auden with Grigson’s ideas on abstract art: The collection begins with Mr. W.H. Auden on psychology and art to-day. […] MacNeice’s essay on poetry is one of the most interesting in the book.[…] But Mr. Grigson on painting and sculpture will not appeal to those who do not like large and lavish theories[,]86

while in many instances issues containing reference to Auden and MacNeice also discuss elements of the modern world which comprise the Art Deco style. These include reviews of Auden’s Dogskin within pages of an article referencing Cézanne, Matisse, Picasso and abstract art, and a review of Letters From Iceland on a page opposite discussion of ‘English Medieval Houses’ (which inspired the period’s half-timbered houses), in an issue also containing a review of Margaret Bulley’s book Art and Understanding.87 From the first TLS review of Auden’s work in March 1931, other Art Deco elements are discussed in the periodical including architecture, a direct reference to ‘L’art decorative’, the War, jazz, Egyptology and the Ballets Russes, which remained a topic even in 1936.88 Charles Marriott also identified ‘architecture [as] an abstract art’ and some unnamed kind of cohesion between this, abstraction, machinery, sculpture, Cubism, film and ‘negro art’ in articles from 1933 to

84

TLS, 7 May 1938, p.314; TLS, 12 November 1938, p.722; Leonora Eyles, ‘The Lost Queen of Egypt’, TLS, 12 November 1938, p.723; Dr Robert Ranulph Marett, ‘Primitive Customs in Africa’, TLS, 12 November 1938, p.728. 85 Mrs Michael Roberts, ‘Trips in the Hebrides’, TLS, 9 April 1938, p.247. 86 Prof. Alan Francis Clutton-Brock, ‘The Arts To-day’, TLS, 26 Sept 1935, p.592. 87 George Henry Perrott Buchanan, ‘A Dramatic Experiment’, TLS, 11 July 1935, p.444; Prof. Alan Francis Clutton-Brock, ‘Leonardo and the High Renaissance’, TLS, 11 July 1935, pp.437-8; Barrington Gates, ‘Cooling Waters’, TLS, 7 Aug 1937, p.572; Charles Marriott, ‘English Medieval Houses’, TLS, 7 Aug 1937, p.573; R.M.Y. Gleadowe, ‘Art and Understanding’, TLS, 7 Aug 1937, p.570. 88 Walter Archibald Propert, ‘Modern French Art’, TLS, 27 Aug 1931, p.643; Dyneley Hussey, ‘BalletsRusses’, TLS, 20 June 1936, p.515.

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1937: the latter discussion appears one page before an overview of A Key to Modern English Poetry referencing Auden, and a review of MacNeice’s play Out of the Picture (1937).89 With regard to advertisements, Auden and MacNeice are again primarily promoted in TLS through text which, corresponding with Art Deco, moves from serif to sans serif font by 1933, although a trio of horizontal speedline-like breaks divide vertical series of sections in early ads.90 By 1935, however, adverts for Faber have reverted to serif font but are bordered by a geometric wave pattern which displays some awareness of modern visual motifs and, by enclosing its content together, presents Auden grouped cohesively with works such as Nikolaus Pevsner’s Pioneers of the Modern Movement (1936) and the poet and painter Adrian Stokes’ book on the Russian Ballet.91 This indicates that MacNeice and Auden were often located in the literary spaces of TLS and New Verse surrounded by discussion or examples of modern art, that their work was reviewed in spaces also concerned with elements of modern life which constituted the Art Deco style, and that artists were increasingly beginning to experiment in other artistic fields during this period.

It is my contention that certain modes of visual art and design were significant but largely unacknowledged influences on Auden and MacNeice. The most significant of these was Art Deco. It is my intention to show the ubiquity of Art Deco during their formative years and then move to a more explicit and deliberate account of their engagement with it. It has been posited here that W.H. Auden and Louis MacNeice are direct contemporaries of the Art Deco style; that these writers may have absorbed Art Deco elements from the environment from an early age, during the formation of their worldview; and that from young adulthood, Auden and MacNeice engaged visual art with intent and were knowledgeable in the subject. In addition, Auden and MacNeice shared similar political approaches as the Art Deco style and associated artists, however consciously, and their work was printed alongside discussions of visual art and subtle visual elements of Art Deco in periodicals such as New Verse. Relationships between Auden and MacNeice and the artistic style of Art Deco have been established; the following chapters will explore this relationship in more detail. Chapter One aims to identify all of the elements of the Art Deco style, from motifs to influences, and identify the presence of such elements in Auden and MacNeice’s bodies of work as a whole. 89

Charles Marriott, ‘Art in the Twentieth Century’, TLS, 30 Nov 1933, pp.845-6; Charles Marriott, ‘Art in the Air’, TLS, 24 July 1937, p.539. 90 Concluded from advertisements in TLS, 26 May 1932, p.378; TLS, 9 Nov 1933, p.759. 91 TLS, 20 June 1935, p.388; TLS, 3 Oct 1936, p.777.

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Having identified the Art Deco signifiers, Chapter Two will more closely examine individual poems to distinguish the presence of Art Deco elements and explore the ways in which knowledge of Art Deco affects previously accepted meanings and readings. Chapter Three will investigate the co-authored work Letters From Iceland, exploring both the content and construction of the book with a view to defining the work as a literary representation of Art Deco.

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CHAPTER ONE: ART DECO AND THE MODERNE WORLD

Art Deco, n.

[Shortened < French art decorative, lit. ‘decorative art’

(from the name of the exhibition L’Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes held in Paris in 1925) The contemporary name for the style in France in the 1920s and 1930s was style moderne.]

A style of design (in textiles, jewellery, ceramics, furniture, architecture, etc.) first popular in the 1920s and 1930s, and characterized by precise and strongly delineated geometric shapes and bold colour contrasts.92

Many art historians would argue that the above definition of the term ‘Art Deco’ is accurate and yet incomplete, over-simplified and barely indicative of the complexities of the style. Such are the peculiarities of ‘Art Deco’ that even the above definition, as supplied by the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), requires some clarification, amendment and expansion. In particular, it must be established what is meant by ‘style’, and Art Deco idioms must be identified to ascertain their impact on and reflection of the British way of life at the beginning of the twentieth century, the entwined nature of such elements with each other, and how they may have been absorbed as part of the environment by Auden and MacNeice.

By Any Other Name One complexity barely indicated by the OED definition is the name ‘Art Deco’ itself. As previously explained, the style was named Art Deco in retrospect, with the term taken from the 1925 Exposition. Yet the OED points out that French contemporaries referred to the style as ‘style moderne’; this in itself is problematic as critics identify two phases, branches, expressions or ‘styles’ covered by the ‘Art Deco’ umbrella, the second of which is often distinguished as ‘Moderne’. 93 It is the first derivation, however, with which the OED

92

OED,’ Art Deco, n’ (2008) [Online. Accessed 03/05/2010]. Duncan, Art Deco Complete, p.7; Hillier & Escritt, Art Deco Style, p.77; Arwas, Art Deco, p.22; Cranfield, Art Deco House Style, p.15. 93

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associates the French term, thus indicating the dilemma of naming the style and its components. At the 1925 Exposition, primarily well-known French craftsmen and artists fashioned works in rare and exotic, luxurious materials, crafted using traditional methods and often displayed in a highly decorative or geometrically-patterned style that seemed a natural progression from Art Nouveau. This has led critics to consider the first style of Art Deco as ‘French-influenced’.94 Also identifiable by the use of zigzags, chevrons and pyramids, elongated ovals and spirals, the French style included bright, acid colours adopted from the Ballets Russes and, with a view to creating an aura of luxury and exclusivity, Robinson adds ‘refined detailing [and] superb draftsmanship’ to the list of defining characteristics.95 Robinson asserts the nature of the style to be a ‘response to changing times,’ and as such it incorporated a second strand of design in a simpler, less exclusive, streamlined style referred to by many critics as ‘Moderne’.96 This second-stage of Art Deco is characterised by the increased use of metal formed into curves and tubes when making furniture, streamlined designs and ‘speed lines’ on mass-produced goods, indicating a shift from exclusivity towards cheaper, more accessible and obtainable items. The two expressions are therefore distinctive and bear little similarity, with the first, French strand seen to be the 1920s European manifestation, while ‘Moderne’ is thought to be influenced by 1930s America and in particular the sets of Hollywood movies, often designed by European-born architects trained in visual arts such as Joseph Urban and Kem Weber.97 In this sense, European influences became Americanised and re-influenced Europe through movies. Robinson, Arwas and Hillier support America’s link to the birth of ‘Moderne’, citing the 1927 ‘Art in Trade’ exhibition held at Macy’s New York department store which featured works from the 1925 Paris Exposition.98 Hillier states that ‘Art Deco’ and what he terms ‘[American] Moderne’ are of the same derivation yet successive, while Sternau takes this even further and states:99

Art Deco was also variously known as Jazz Moderne, Zigzag Moderne, and later

94

Richard Striner, ‘Art Deco: Polemics and Synthesis’, Winterthur Portfolio, 25.1 (Spring 1990), p.34. Robinson, The Brilliance of Art Deco, p.9. 96 Robinson, The Brilliance of Art Deco, p.9. 97 Hillier & Escritt, Art Deco Style, p.77; Arwas, Art Deco, p.22; Christopher Wilk, Modernism: designing a new world 1914-1939 (London: V&A Publications, 2008), p.14; Klein, McClelland & Haslam, In the Deco Style, p.106, p.167; Striner, ‘Art Deco: Polemics and Synthesis’, p.30. 98 Robinson, The Brilliance of Art Deco, p.163; Arwas, Art Deco, p.22. 99 Hillier & Escritt, Art Deco Style, p.118; p.148. 95

32 Streamline Moderne – this last a reference to forms based on the aerodynamic curves of cars, boats, and planes.100

Due to the changes of the style over its four decades, ‘Art Deco’ and the two derivations are known by many names, as Sternau indicates. The angular nature of the first style gave rise to the name ‘zigzag’, while the style’s connection to the rhythms of jazz offered the alternative ‘jazz age’ or ‘Jazz Moderne’.101 The second, streamlined expression likewise was known by several names that aim to distinguish it from its sister style, such as ‘International Style’, ‘Modernism’, ‘Art Moderne’, ‘Industrial Moderne’ and ‘Streamline Moderne’.102 As Hillier indicates, it must be noted that no critic seems to have suggested the ‘Moderne’ as being an entirely separate style from the original ‘essential Art Deco’, and that it is widely accepted as a second, albeit less exclusive, expression of the same idioms. 103 Though the two variations in style are thus distinct, both are considered characteristic of the same style, with critics often settling on ‘Art Deco’ as a blanket term that includes the ‘Moderne’ derivation. David Gebhard and Tom Martinson insist in naming the overall style ‘Moderne’, with the variations of ‘Zigzag’ and ‘Streamline’, which demonstrates the complicated interchangeability of the terms.104 For the purposes of this thesis, the term ‘Art Deco’ shall be used to identify the overall style; the prefix of ‘French’, ‘Jazz’ or ‘Zigzag’ will specify the first, decorative expression; and ‘Moderne’ will denote aspects of the smoother, streamlined variation. The Art Deco ‘Style’ Returning again to the OED definition at the beginning of this chapter, the word ‘style’ as used in relation to Art Deco creates its own problems; the OED has twenty-eight definitions of the noun, perhaps the most appropriate with regard to ‘Art Deco’ and this thesis being: 100

Sternau, Art Deco, p.7. Hillier & Escritt, Art Deco Style, p.77; Duncan, Art Deco Complete, p.96, p.211; Sharon Koskoff, Art Deco of the Palm Beaches (Charleston, SC: Arcadia, 2007), p.7; Klein, McClelland & Haslam, In the Deco Style,,p.7; Robinson, The Brilliance of Art Deco, p.153 ; Cranfield, Art Deco House Style, p.15; Striner, ‘Art Deco: Polemics and Synthesis’, p.21; Battersby, The Decorative Thirties, p.25 ; Mary & Neville Ward, Home in the Twenties and Thirties (London: Ian Allan, 1978), p.63; Sternau, Art Deco , p.7; John F. Pile, A History of Interior Design (London: Laurence King, 2005), p.349. 102 Sternau, Art Deco, p.7; Duncan, Art Deco Complete, p.9; Battersby, The Decorative Thirties, p.25; Arwas, Art Deco, p.22; Koskoff, Art Deco of the Palm Beaches, p.7. ; Striner, ‘Art Deco: Polemics and Synthesis’, p.34; Rebecca Binno Savage & Greg Kowalski, Art Deco in Detroit (Charleston, SC: Arcadia, 2004), p.7. 103 Cranfield, Art Deco House Style, p.15. 104 David Gebhard,& Tom Martinson, Guide to the Architecture of Minnesota (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1977), p.419. 101

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13.a

The manner of expression characteristic of a particular writer (hence of an orator), or of a literary group or period; a writer's mode of expression considered in regard to clearness, effectiveness, beauty, and the like.

14

In generalized sense: Those features of literary composition which belong to form and expression rather than to the substance of the thought or matter expressed.

19.b

A particular manner of life or behaviour.

21.a

A particular mode or form of skilled construction, execution, or production; the manner in which a work of art is executed, regarded as characteristic of the individual artist, or of his time and place; one of the modes recognized in a particular art as suitable for the production of beautiful or skilful work.

21.c

A definite type of architecture, distinguished by special characteristics of structure or ornamentation.105

It can be argued that ‘Art Deco’ in its various forms was indeed characterized by, and an expression of, the ‘time and place’, its idioms being adapted to each country and the changes of each decade. As previously stated, Robinson describes the style as ‘a burst of creative energy in response to changing times’ between 1905 and 1930, and is associated predominantly with the 1920s and 30s.106 The ‘zigzag/streamline dichotomy’, Striner claims, reflects the changing moods of the period as also expressed in contemporary music: 107 It was a spirit that sought to express the vibrant temper of its times; it sought to capture the haunting savor of life in the jazz age, and later it sought to express the upbeat, modish, ‘streamlined’ rhythms of life in the age of swing. It frequently exuded joie de vivre and celebrates progress through technology.108

During the lifetime of the style ‘Art Deco’ borrowed principles from Art Nouveau, Cubism, Futurism, Fauvism, Constructivism, the Bauhaus and de Stijl (‘the style’ in Dutch); designs 105 106 107 108

OED, ‘Style, n.’ (1989) [Online. Accessed 03/05/2010]. Robinson, The Brilliance of Art Deco, p.9. Striner, ‘Art Deco: Polemics and Synthesis’, p.21. Striner, ‘Art Deco: Polemics and Synthesis’, p.21.

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included abstraction, neo-classicism and exoticism (for example Oriental, Greek, Mayan, African, Russian and Egyptian influences); motifs included geometric shapes such as chevrons and zigzags, and classical and natural imagery in addition to the influences of modernity and machinery (machinery lending itself to the theme of straight lines, and overwhelmingly represented by modes of transport).109 Throughout the early style runs undercurrents of luxury, functionalism, exclusivity, and all this gradually combined with the period’s preoccupation with Hollywood glamour, movement and speed to manifest in the ‘speed whiskers’ which coincided with ‘streamlining’ and were added to mass-produced inanimate objects to suggest speed and dynamism, becoming a distinctive characteristic of the Moderne.110 Many of the above elements which combined to create the Art Deco style are reflected in the work of Auden and MacNeice, often simultaneously and in combination just as in visual art pieces. Both writers thus reflect the eccentricity of the style, its experimentation and reluctance to confine its expression to defined rules, a characteristic of all avant-garde artists and writers in the early twentieth century.

‘Have You Ever Seen Anyone Born On His Own?’111 There are several phenomena of the period which shaped Art Deco and confirm that the style was indeed an ‘expression’ of a ‘particular’ time. In each decade of the style’s existence occurred an event that informed and influenced the way in which the style developed. These include its artistic predecessor, Art Nouveau, the advent of Cubism from 1905, Futurism and the Ballets Russes from 1909, the First World War from 1914, and the discovery of Tutankhamen’s tomb in 1922. It is notable that each can be traced in Art Deco motifs, making the style a definite expression of contemporary life, yet it must be acknowledged here that each source exists separately from Art Deco as an individual, significant, meaningful entity or moment with its own values, origins and influence. Thus Art Deco can be seen as an eclectic, bricolage-like style in its borrowing of elements from other separate or preexisting sources and presenting them in combination to create a new visual style. The defining characteristics of the Art Deco ‘style’ will now be identified with reference to the 109

Duncan, Art Deco Complete., p.7; Wood, Essential Art Deco, p.6, p.15. p.41; Sternau, Art Deco, p.4, Arwas, Art Deco, p.17; Robinson, The Brilliance of Art Deco, p.21; Wilk, Modernism, p.383, Hillier & Escritt, Art Deco Style, p.19. 110 Wood, Essential Art Deco, p.81; Robinson, The Brilliance of Art Deco, p.144. 111 Degas, quoted in Victor Arwas, Art Nouveau: The French Aesthetic (London: Andreas Papadakis, 2002), p.14.

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aforementioned phenomena, their contribution to the developing new world of the inter-war generation, and that generation’s interaction with them.

The Influence of Cubism Cubism refers to a style of abstract visual art developed in France, and several aspects of Cubism became defining characteristics of the overall Art Deco style. The first exhibition of Cubist works took place in 1911, displaying pieces by Léger and Delaunay, and while Le Corbusier suggested the movement was at – or, in his mind, should be at - an end by 1918 through the title of his work Aprés le cubism, Cubism was still prominent in designs at the 1925 L’Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs.112 Vogue was later to acknowledge the prominence of Cubism at the event in its assertion that the Exposition had presented a new decorative style which united ‘the influence of the Cubists, the Bauhaus, and Aztec and Mayan architecture’.113 Duncan and Battersby assert that Cubism was frequently used by decorative artists up to World War II, even becoming the ‘lingua franca’ of the profession, although both critics agree that the style was adapted and modified to make it more accessible.114 This allowed Cubist designs to enter the home gradually in a variety of ways:

Geometrical ornament, more or less abstract, appeared on carpets, glass, pottery, metalwork and jewellery. Intersecting squares, circles and triangles, chevrons and zigzags at first accompanied and then to a large extent supplanted the fawns and greyhounds, the tightly bunched flowers and the lissom figures which dominated the Paris Exhibition of 1925.115

This indicates the progression of Art Deco from its very early stages, retaining motifs from Art Nouveau, into the angular and geometric shapes of the ‘Jazz’-style, rooted firmly in Cubism. Effecting design in many areas of life, the style was infinitely translatable to various media and the ways in which it did so are examined below, being crucial to the understanding of Art Deco, its development and implementation.

112

David Tomlinson, ‘T.S. Eliot and the Cubists’, Twentieth Century Literature, 26.1 (Spring 1980), p.70; Martin Battersby, The Decorative Twenties, p.29. 113 Robinson, The Brilliance of Art Deco, p.149. 114 Duncan, Art Deco Complete, p.130; Battersby, The Decorative Twenties, p.75. 115 Klein, McClelland & Haslam, In the Deco Style, p.113.

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Geometrical and Abstract Shapes in ‘Jazz’ Deco Many of Art Deco’s abstract and geometric elements derive from Cubism, the name of which is believed to be taken from a reference to a Georges Braque painting in 1908, in which the critic likened the forms to ‘geometric shapes, to cubes’.116 Indeed, George Lichtheim notes the style of Cubist artists such as Braque and Picasso as being a literal interpretation of a comment by Cézanne, who advised that artists should ‘treat nature by means of the cylinder, the sphere, the cone’. 117 Thus critics assert that the geometry and angularity of Art Deco, the ‘clearest hallmark[s]’ of the style’s first ‘jazz’ stage, are derived from Cubism which, as previously stated, began to appear gradually in visual art from 1905 and was most identifiable for the first time in Picasso’s Desmoiselles D’Avignon (1907).118 The geometrical shapes of ‘Jazz’ Deco took the form of triangles, chevrons or pyramids, arcs and circles, zigzags or lightning bolts, squares and any other angular, abstract shape created by machine-friendly straight lines. Such shapes began to appear in the domestic interior, as in Auden’s Oxford apartment described by Christopher Isherwood:

A cubist predecessor had painted the walls of this closet with a startling scarlet and black design, representing, apparently, a series of railway accidents and copulations between traction engines and pyramids.119

This indicates that for a time, Auden himself encountered Cubist-inspired interior decoration on a regular basis though it was perhaps not quite as peculiar as Isherwood’s novel suggests. Geometric shapes were also present in advertising posters seen across the country, such as a Tom Purvis design for the menswear shop Austin Reed from 1927, which depicts a seated male tennis player (thereby including the new attractive pastimes of the day) and posters for the aperitif Dubonnet, designed by the famous French artist A. M. Cassandre in 1939. These are composed almost entirely from chevrons, geometric shapes and angular lines. Such shapes could also be seen in railway posters, in particular the new, diagrammatical map for the London Underground in 1931 which represented all of the stations linked by either vertical, horizontal or diagonal straight lines and created a network of geometrical shapes including squares and chevrons. Travelling on the Underground itself 116

Tate Collection, ‘Cubism’ (n.d.) [Online. Accessed 20/09/2010]. George Lichtheim, Europe in the Twentieth Century (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1972), p.87; Daniel R. Schwarz, Reconfiguring Modernism: explorations in the relationships between modern art and modern literature (New York: St Martin’s, 1997), p.107. 118 Klein, McClelland & Haslam, In the Deco Style, p.7. 119 Isherwood, Lions and Shadows, p.132. 117

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would immerse an ordinary citizen in the geometrical side of ‘Jazz’ Deco by surrounding passengers with mass-produced, patterned moquette carriage upholstery, designed by modern artists such as Paul Nash, Enid Marx and Marion Dorn, and made from geometric patterns, chevrons, straight lines and slight curves.120 Other railway lines also created images from geometrical shapes, such as in the London Midlands & Scottish railway posters designed by Cassandre. Advertising art was not a new phenomenon by the turn of the century, but as Theodore Menten claims, during the interwar years it ‘came into its own as never before in history’.121 The reason for this may be given by the leading illustrator of the time, A.M. Cassandre who, it is believed, chose to design posters rather than paint because ‘he perceived [posters] as the mass art for the mass age’.122 This indicates that posters were able to employ similar motifs to high art but, being mass produced, had a wider impact with a greater potential audience, disseminating Art Deco idioms to different classes and areas. The impact of advertisement posters is significant to both Auden and MacNeice, alerting them to the possibility of producing art that was both avant-garde and aimed at general consumption, and also increased awareness of Art Deco themes, in particular with reference to those displayed at or advertising the railway. In 1937, for example, Auden writes during his trip to Valencia that:

In the centre of the square [...] is an enormous map of the Civil War, rather prettily illustrated after the manner of railway posters urging one to visit Lovely Lakeland or Sunny Devon. [...] (APTB, p.383)

This indicates that Auden has encountered such posters and finds the patterns contained within them memorable. MacNeice, in contrast, finds interest in posters from a young age when he helped to organise art exhibitions with Anthony Blunt at Marlborough, which included ‘posters (Jean Sylen, McKnight Kauffer)’ (MSAF, p.242). Significantly, Edward McKnight Kauffer is considered one of the true Art Deco poster designers, using both geometric patterns and ‘moderne’ themes in his work from as early as 1921 such as in the ‘Shop Between 10 & 4’ poster, which contains bright colours, zigzags and chevrons, a speedline effect and sans serif font (fig.4). That MacNeice both encountered and took notice of

120 121 122

Design Museum, ‘London Transport/ Designing Modern Britain’ (2006) [Online. Accessed 06/06/2010]. Theodore Menten, Advertising Art in the Art Deco Style (New York: Dover, 1975), p.1. Hillier & Escritt, Art Deco Style, p.122.

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railway posters is evident from 1926, when he remarks that a tutor at Marlborough has a classroom ‘hung with Railway Posters’ (LLM, p.107). Awareness of their effectiveness as a medium is also indicated in 1933, when MacNeice writes of a plan to set a novel in a railway station: ‘Throughout Greek Chorus of posters on the railway hoardings’ (LLM, p.234).

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Figure 4: Edward McKnight Kauffer’s ‘Shop Between 10 & 4’, 1921 © TfL from the London Transport Museum Collection Discussed on p.37.

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Abstract art was not only conveyed through painted visual art, however. The Ballets Russes also incorporated this element of the Art Deco style, such as in Les Noces (1923) choreographed by Bronislava Nijinska, sister of the Ballets’ principal dancer Vaslav Nijinsky. Dancers form a series of geometric lines and shapes, including human pyramids as well as chevrons, ‘phalanxes, mounds and wedges’.123 This choreography is also significant in that the corps creates a blurred motion effect particularly when moving and positioning the arms. Garafola links Nijinska’s choreography to ‘the non-objective forms of the constructivist’, but the blurred effect is more reminiscent of the Futurist conception of photodynamism.124 This is described by the photographer Anton Guilio Bragaglia in 1911, who wrote: To record movement – its shape – it is at least necessary to reproduce a theory of the static states which constitute it. Yet the theory will evoke the dynamic sensation, which is the unique essence of a motion in rapport with our character as spectators, only when it has been coordinated, unified, and deeply merged and synthesized with the trajectory of the action. If we reproduce only the trajectory of a movement, then our sensation of it will be still fuller and easier.125

The trajectory of a movement is clearly what Nijinska intended to portray through the positioning of still, posed dancers in the first act of Les Noces, an effect enhanced by the identical costumes (fig.5). The impact of geometric shapes was so wide that Auden himself could not fail to acknowledge, however tongue-in-cheek, its importance in modern imagination, declaring in 1926: Apart from Nature, geometry’s all there is…Geometry belongs to man. Man’s got to assert himself against nature, all the time […] The only really exciting things are volumes and shapes…126

123 124 125 126

Garafola, Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes. p.126. Garafola, Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, p.126. Anton Guilio Bragaglia, ‘Futurist Photodynamism (1911)’, Modernism/Modernity, 15.2.(2008), p.367. Isherwood, Lions and Shadows, p.117.

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Figure 5: Photodynamism in Les Noces, starring Dame Monica Mason with choreography by Nijinska and costumes by Goncharova © Donald Southern/ROH, 1967 Polyperspectivism and the trajectory of movement are displayed here, emphasised by identical peasant costumes. Discussed on pages 39 and 79.

Edward Upward, novelist and close friend of Auden and Isherwood, reveals a similar train of thought in letters recalled later by Isherwood, in which he describes a natural scene in terms of angular, geometric shapes:

the pilchard-fishing fleet is drawn up on a semicircle of white beach. I noticed some clay-coloured and bluish rocks slashed with scars at all angles. The scars were always straight lines and had the effect of making the shapes of individual rocks seem doubtful, like changing forms seen through a slight mist. This is the true cubism. […] Two hours’ sun to-day. It drops from the sky in cubes and almost tangible 127

rectangles. 127

Isherwood, Lions and Shadows, p.104.

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Significantly, the influence of Cubism is so strong in Upward’s imagination that shapes that are not perfectly geometrical, like the natural outline of the rocks, seem unnatural. Auden’s own awareness of geometrical shapes is borne out, albeit to a lesser extent than Upward, in his writing, particularly with regard to circles. Herbert Greenberg, for example, comments that: His [Auden’s] poems frequently take shape from processes of nature, the rhythm of the year or of daily renewal. Even personal love is represented as sharing a cyclical pattern: in […] ‘From the very first coming down’, the ‘completed round’ of the ‘year’s arc’ signalizes ‘love’s worn circuit rebegun’.128

However, it can be argued that this 1927 poem is an example of Auden asserting himself against nature’s forms with the use of geometrical shapes, taking control of nature by imagining its ‘processes’ as arcs, rounds and circuits, all geometric cylindrical shapes. One could even consider rephrasing Greenberg’s statement regarding Auden’s frequent use of the ‘cylindrical patterns’ of years and days in his imagery as ‘Auden writing in circles’. This is true of a 1931 poem in The Orators (‘We have brought you, they said, a map of the country’), in which the image of a clock, again round in form and cyclical in nature, is inserted obtrusively into every stanza of the sestina, itself a circular narrative in the repetition of specific words throughout (MEA, p.77). The use of the sestina reappears throughout Auden’s poetry, and while displaying Auden’s awareness of poetic tradition and self-conscious virtuosity more than any link to Cubism per se, it nonetheless indicates Auden’s inclination to write of and in cyclical patterns. Circular patterns are also evident in a description of a sports event in MacNeice’s I Crossed The Minch. A series of cyclical patterns begins with the crowds that ‘circulated idly’ (MICM, p.208) and continues with the repeated focus on girls dancing (also including here the Art Deco motif of the dancer):

Two little girls in Highland dress got up on a table and danced the Highland Fling to the music of the bagpipes. […] The two little girls got down from the platform and another two succeeded them. […] While the Highland Flings went

128

Herbert Greenberg, Quest for the Necessary: W.H. Auden and the Dilemma of Divided Consciousness (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1968), p.33.

42 on to the monotonous music of the pipes – two very gay little figures in tartan dancing in the air against the moors […] (MICM, pp.209-210)

Meanwhile men are taking part in a hammer-throwing contest, itself a sport that takes place within a circle and involves contestants swinging in circular movements. MacNeice’s own activity at the event is repetitious, going twice to waterside locations in order to drink alcohol. The series ends as it began, with beer bottles ‘circulated’ amongst the group at the river (MICM, p.210). Elsewhere, an awareness of both art and geometric shapes reveals itself in The Strings Are False as MacNeice describes the view from an aeroplane window:

Enormous plains of beautifully inlaid rectangles, the grain running different ways, walnut, satinwood or oatcake, the whole of it tortoise-shelled with copses and shadows of clouds; here and there were little lakes nailed down on the top of the ground like strips of canvas[.] (MSAF, pp.25-26)

In addition to descriptions of rectangular fields, set out almost as in a Paul Klee painting, other Art Deco identifiers are suggested here, such as luxurious materials (walnut, satinwood, tortoise-shell) and popular natural motifs (clouds). It is clear, then, that angular and geometric shapes were intrinsic to the early expression of Jazz Deco pieces, and that this element was adaptable to a variety of media that were accessible to many people. Both Auden and MacNeice were exposed to and aware of this element, and the influence of it can be identified in their writing.

Polyperspectivism and Simultaneity One main principle of Cubism was that an object was depicted from multiple perspectives and angles in the same picture, achieved by various planes superimposed upon each other to encapsulate a sense of movement around the object in an inanimate drawing or painting.129 In British cinema, Alfred Hitchcock’s Champagne (1928) attempts this in a shot through a coupe glass, which blurs, distorts and fragments the image (fig.6). Depicting different angles exhibited the Cubist awareness of shifting time and space.130 Auden flirts with this concept in 129

Andreas Dorpalen, Europe in the 20th Century: A History (New York: Macmillan, 1968), p.120; Hillier & Escritt, Art Deco Style, p.32; John Russell, The Meanings of Modern Art (London: Thames & Hudson, 1991), p.119. 130 Dorpalen, Europe in the 20th Century, p.102.

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The Orators, in which he ‘Watch[es] in three planes from a room overlooking the courtyard’ (MEA, p.94). Indeed, a review of The Orators in TLS described the piece as ‘break[ing] the ordered world of usage into fragments’, a description that also applies to Cubist polyperspectivism.131

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Figure 6: Experiments with Cubism in Hitchcock’s Champagne (1928) Hitchcock uses a champagne coupe to blur, distort and fragment in the Cubist manner. This device is used twice in the film, at the beginning and end. Discussed on p.42.

A second principle of Cubism was simultaneity. This includes the possibility of presenting various angles of one object at the same time (often through polyperspectivism), separate events or moments, or different media at the same time. Polyperspectivism created a type of ‘spatial disruption’ with the superimposition of planes of movement ‘breaking down both spatial and temporal distances’ into one dynamic

131

Prof. Alan Francis Clutton-Brock, ‘The Orators by Auden’, TLS, (9 June 1932), p.424,

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piece presented on a single canvas or space. 132 The writer T.S. Eliot, himself an admirer of avant-garde artwork and highly regarded by both Auden and MacNeice, explained the temporal awareness as a ‘historical sense, which is a sense of the timeless as well as of the temporal and of the timeless and of the temporal together’. 133 Eliot’s understanding of this concept was not informed by visual art, however, instead developing in 1911 during his studies at the Sorbonne and his attendance at lectures by the philosopher Henri Bergson, a supporter of experimentation in visual and literary art.134 Bergson stated that: there is no state of mind […] which does not change every moment, since there is no consciousness without memory, and no continuation of a state without the addition, to the present feeling, of the memory of past moments. It is this which constitutes duration. Inner duration is the continuous life of a memory which prolongs the past into the present […] Without this survival of the past into the present there would be no duration, but only instantaneity.135

More succinctly, Eliot paraphrased this as ‘a perception, not only of the pastness of the past, but of its presence’.136 Understanding Bergson’s ideas inarguably aided appreciation of new styles of visual art, such as Picasso’s paintings. The Three Dancers (1925), for example, portrays recent events such as his collaboration with the Ballets Russes and the deaths of friends, while the left-hand figure is likened variously to Picasso’s ballerina wife Olga Kokhlova; primitive tribal masks in Picasso’s personal art collection; and a Maenad traced to ancient Greek reliefs and featured in Renaissance Bacchantes.137 Elsewhere, Picasso’s stilllife of a violin is noted for the way in which the object is depicted, with critics identifying simultaneity in ancient techniques:

132

Giovanni Cianci, ‘Reading T.S. Eliot visually: tradition in the context of modernist art’ in T.S. Eliot and the Idea of Tradition ed. by Giovanni Cianci and Jason Harding (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), pp.119-130 (p.125); Wendy Steiner, The Colors of Rhetoric: Problems in the Relation between Modern Literature and Painting (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1982), p.182. 133 T.S. Eliot, ‘Tradition and the Individual Talent’ in Modern Criticism: Theory and Practice ed. by Walter Sutton & Richard Foster (USA: Odyssey, 1963), pp.140-145 (p.141). 134 David Tomlinson, , ‘T.S. Eliot and the Cubists’; M.A.R. Habib, The Early T.S. Eliot and Western Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), p.43. 135 Henri Bergson, An Introduction to Metaphysics (1912. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett,1999), p.40. 136 Henri Bergson, Creative Evolution (1911. New York: Dover Publications, 1998), p.200; T.S. Eliot, ‘Tradition and the Individual Talent’, p.141. 137 Penrose, Picasso, His Life and Work, p.250; Golding, Visions of the Modern. pp.214-216; Richard Hickman, Art Education 11-18:meaning, purpose and direction (London: Continuum, 2004), p.44; Tate Collection, ‘The Three Dancers’ (2004) [Online. Accessed 03/03/2012]; Liz Dawtrey, Investigating Modern Art (Florence: The Open University, 1996), p.64; Russell, The Meanings of Modern Art, p270; Christopher Green, Art in France 1900-1940 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000), p.271.

45 it has been said that it represents a return to the pre-classical, Egyptian, principle of drawing the object from an angle which displays its characteristic form most clearly.138

As elements from numerous historical periods exist in the same space in such paintings, they exemplify Eliot’s concept of ‘simultaneous existence’ in a ‘continuous present’ (‘simultaneity’), and highlight the antithetic, contradictory nature of Cubism, which is that the modern reflects and forges links with antiquity. 139 Eliot himself does this in the opening stanza of The Waste Land, which will be examined in more detail elsewhere (pp.52-53). The simultaneity of the ‘continuous present’ is an important aspect of Art Deco, encouraging Egyptomania, half-timbered houses, and influencing leisure activities. As Richard Striner states, ‘This simultaneous reaching out to the past and future was highly symptomatic of concerns of the interwar period,’ with the neo-classical and historical being accepted as decorative motifs by the Committee of the 1925 Exposition.140 This may in part have been inspired by the opening of Tutankhamen’s tomb in 1922, after which Egyptian motifs in particular became more prominent in Art Deco works and appeared in areas such as architecture, jewellery, choreography and interior design. 141 Egyptian influences are also seen in sculpture, as in Pierre Le Faguays’ 1924 bronze Faun and Nymph which, alongside other Deco identifiers, alludes to classical Egyptian motifs through the position of the arms and hands of the subjects, and in the almost horizontal flow of the nymph’s hair, patterned with zigzags. The Egyptian influence also stretched to promotional material, such as the London and North Eastern Railway’s (LNER) ‘Joliway to Holiday’ poster of the 1920s designed by Austin Cooper (fig.7) which resembles an Egyptian mural of figures posing in a stereotypically Egyptian formation with precisely-positioned legs and arms, with hands perpendicular in imitation of Egyptian stances. The discovery of Tutankhamen’s tomb greatly affected both Art Deco designs and the imagination of Louis MacNeice: he wrote of Tutankhamen in letters (LLM, p.73, p.77) and the word ‘excavate’ begins to appear in letters immediately following (LLM, p.77, p.79, p.82). MacNeice continued to be inspired by Egyptology as it appears in poetic form from 138

Lichtheim, Europe in the Twentieth Century, p.87. T.S. Eliot, ‘Tradition and the Individual Talent’, p.141; Steiner, The Colors of Rhetoric, p.182. 140 Striner, ‘Art Deco: Polemics and Synthesis’, p.22, p.27; Hillier & Escritt, Art Deco Style, p.13. 141 Ward, Home in the Twenties and Thirties, p.17; Robinson, The Brilliance of Art Deco, p.149; Garafola, Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, p.126; Hillier & Escritt, Art Deco Style, p.37, p.182; Gareth Thomas, ‘Modernism, Diaghilev and the Ballets Russes in London, 1911-1929’ in British Music and Modernism, 1985-1960 (ed. by Matthew Riley. Farnham: Ashgate, 2010), p.72; Duncan, Art Deco Complete, p.301. 139

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1924 (‘dry and mouldering fishes/ Lie like mummies in their dishes’, LLM, p.87), through letters in 1928 (‘I have been thinking ever since how extraordinarily Egyptian Moore is. I expect you are all descended from Akhenaten’, LLM, pp.196-197), and in the published poem ‘Birmingham’ (1933) which features ‘a monolith Pharaoh’ and ‘trams like vast sarcophagi’ (MCP, pp.22-23). There is little evidence to suggest a serious interest in the topic before 1922, the only reference being a passing mention of ‘mummy cases’ in a local museum’s inventory in 1921 (LLM, p.52). As previously discussed on p.11, his stepmother’s watercolour paintings of the Pyramids (MSAF, p.235), drawn before her marriage to his father in 1917, inspire little interest in MacNeice until the tomb’s discovery, after which he enquires after her experiences: ‘Have you been in the Valley of the Kings?’ (LLM, p.73). In this way it can be argued that Art Deco designers and Louis MacNeice have a common source of inspiration in the discovery of King Tutankhamen’s tomb. It is clear from these examples that the modern event of discovering an ancient tomb was itself a ‘simultaneous’ moment in the ‘continuous present’. The interwar preoccupation with ancient history was only encouraged by this discovery, however: the fascination with ancient culture began as early as 1909 with the Ballets Russes performance of Cléopâtre, continuing to a description of the singer Lillian Shelley as ‘a perfect model of an Egyptian goddess’ at the Cave of the Golden Calf in 1912.142 Historical simultaneity in decorative motifs did not limit itself to Egyptian influences but was also inspired by tribal Africa, ancient Greece, the Tudor period, and the Aztec and Mayan cultures, resulting in what Hiller terms ‘visual pluralism’ in Art Deco, such as the newly-built houses featuring an Elizabethan beam effect on the upper façade, or Cassandre’s poster to encourage travel to Greece featuring the bust of an ancient Greek god and a modern ocean liner in addition to bright blues and sans serif font (fig.8).143

142

Laura Doyle & Laura Winkiel, (eds.), Geomodernisms: Race, Modernism, Modernity (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2005), p.208; Garafola, Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, p.17. 143 Hillier & Escritt, Art Deco Style, p.24.

47 Copyrighted image

Figure 7: Austin Cooper’s 1920s ‘Joliway to Holiday’ poster for LNER © National Archives This poster combines several Art Deco elements including the Ballets Russes, fashion, Egyptomania and the continuous present, travel, the garçonne, colours and sans serif font. It is discussed on pages 45, 66 and 79.

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Figure 8: Visual pluralism in 'Grece' by A.M. Cassandre, 1933 Discussed on p.46.

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This type of simultaneity also influenced interwar leisure activities, such as visiting older historic sites than had previously been attractive to day-trippers. In 1904 Rudyard Kipling stated that: The chief end of my car is the discovery of England. […] The car is a timemachine on which one can slip from one century to another,144

indicating the aspect of simultaneity in the behaviour of the individual who uses the modern motor-car specifically as a tool to reconnect with the ancient past. Michel Foucault would in time identify ‘simultaneity’ as a defining characteristic of the modern age, noting how ‘linearity’ was the guiding spirit of the past.145 Within two decades Kipling’s claim was true for many motorists. Peter Thorold states that ‘the 1920s became the heroic age of touring’, enabled by the increase in motorcar ownership.146 With the increased geographical mobility, it was noted that the oldest historical sites in Britain became more popular than they had been before the War.147 In literature, visual pluralism and the ‘continuous present’ were portrayed through writers’ preoccupations with ancient texts, characters and World War One. Homer’s The Odyssey, for example, finds itself revisited by interwar writers; re-translated in 1932 by T.E. Shaw, re-imagined in C. Day Lewis’s poem ‘Haven on Ithaca’ (1928) and referenced in his Transitional Poem (1929). Shaw’s ‘translator’s note’ states that The Odyssey is ‘the oldest book worth reading for its story and the first novel of Europe’, indicating that this story is suitable to bring into the ‘continuous present’ but also, in his translation, offers another reason for its popularity in the imaginations of the interwar writers.148 Shaw’s translation opens with the lines:

144

Rudyard Kipling, A Sussex Kipling: An Anthology of Poetry and Prose (ed. by David Arscott. Sussex: Pomegranate, 2007), p.28. 145 Michel Foucault, ‘Des Espace Autres’. Architecture, Mouvement, Continuité 5 (October 1984), pp.46–49; translated into English as ‘Of Other Spaces’. trans. Jay Miskowiec. Diacritics 16 (1) (Spring 1986), pp.22–27. 146 Peter Thorold, The Motoring Age: The Automobile and Britain 1896-1939 (London: Profile Books, 2003), p.88. 147 Martin Pugh, ‘We Danced All Night’: A social history of Britain between the Wars (London: The Bodley Head, 2008), p.251; Thorold, The Motoring Age, p.93; BBC 4, The Joy of Motoring. 148 Homer, The Odyssey (ed.by T.E. Shaw. Ware, Herts: Wordsworth, 1992).

49 By now the other warriors, those that had escaped head-long ruin by sea or in battle, were safely home. […] but not even there among [Odysseus’s] loved things would he escape further conflict.149

This is significant to the concept of the continuous present in two ways. First, his choice of opening image is of returning soldiers, immediately evoking memories of World War One, and highlighting the threat of ‘further conflict’ from the growing sense of unease in Europe. Secondly, the reference to conflict ‘even there among his loved things’ indicates an unsettled atmosphere at home. This resonates with the interwar generation who were too young to go to war but feel the current political unrest; as TLS put it in 1933, the ‘thirties writers “born of a generation risen between a war and a hazardous future” were ‘aware of [their] position, acutely, in a period of dilemma’.150 Always conscious of the recent past, these writers sought any opportunity to prove their worth, as identified by Isherwood: We young writers of the middle ‘twenties were all suffering, more or less subconsciously, from a feeling of shame that we hadn’t been old enough to take part in the European war. […] I was obsessed by a complex of terrors and longings connected with the idea ‘War.’ ‘War’, in this purely neurotic sense, meant The Test. The Test of your courage, of your maturity, of your sexual prowess: ‘Are you really a Man?’ Subconsciously, I believe, I longed to be subjected to this test[.]151

This indicates a parallel between The Odyssey and ‘The Test’, where the interwar generation sought opportunities for their own ‘test’, often taking the form of travel as a metaphor for experiencing a journey of personal progress (odyssey). Isherwood’s explanation also indicates the reasons behind writers such as himself, Auden and Spender involving themselves deliberately in other countries’ wars during the period, thereby proving their courage and somehow contributing to the ‘continuous present’ of World War One. The ‘continuous present’ is also represented by neo-classical figures, which are found frequently in MacNeice’s work: one poem alone refers to Helen of Troy, Zeus, Orestes,

149 150 151

Homer, The Odyssey, p.5. George Henry Perrott Buchanan, ‘Mr. Stephen Spender’s Poems’, TLS, (6 July 1933), p.463. Isherwood, Lions and Shadows, p.46.

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Aeneas, Cybele and Attis.152 This indicates that this form of simultaneity and historical awareness was therefore widely translatable as a decorative motif to different media, and was an important aspect of Cubism that affected interwar life in many ways, becoming a prominent identifier of Art Deco pieces. Another type of simultaneity is different media existing simultaneously in the same space, such as in visual art practices of collage, montage and the inclusion of other media such as newspaper clippings, images and words, as demonstrated in Picasso’s Bottle of Vieux Marc, Glass, Guitar and Newspaper (1913) and in Eliot’s The Waste Land. 153 The collage effect is noted by several critics in Auden’s work, indeed Auden points out this technique himself in ‘Letter to Lord Byron Part I’: ‘It’s a collage that you’re going to read’ (LFI, p.21). Montage and collage techniques primarily lent themselves to the moving pictures of newsreels and movies, with such techniques creating ‘spatial and temporal disruption’ by speeding up the narrative and indicating the passage of time in a series of brief images or impressions. As shall be examined in Chapters Two and Three, montage is used for this purpose in the work of Auden and MacNeice.

Cubism and Literature In literature, Cubism was expressed in a variety of ways such as polyperspectivism, stream of consciousness and nonlinear narrative, ambiguity and dissociation.154 Writers who deployed such techniques include Virginia Woolf, Joseph Conrad, Wyndham Lewis and Ezra Pound, while much has been made of connections between Cubism and the literary works of James Joyce, Gertrude Stein and T.S. Eliot.155 Wendy Steiner argues that the noted writers of early Cubist literature were often heavily influenced by the world of visual art through personal contact with avant-garde artists. 156 This is supported by Gertrude Stein socialising with Gris, Matisse and Picasso; indeed, on the latter Stein commented that:

152

Louis MacNeice, Collected Poems (ed. by Peter McDonald. London: Faber, 2007), pp.625-256. All further references to this text shall appear in the main body of this work in parentheses as (MCP, p-), where MCP signifies MacNeice Collected Poems. 153 Tate Collection, ‘Cubism’ [Online]; Robin Walz, ‘Modernism’ in A Companion to Europe 1900-1945 (ed, by Gordon Martel. Oxford: Blackwell, 2006) pp.50-65 (p.51). 154 Schwarz, Reconfiguring Modernism, p.1, p.9; Tate Collection, ‘Cubism’ [Online]; Steiner, The Colors of Rhetoric, p.182. 155 Tate Collection, ‘Cubism’ [Online]; Steiner, The Colors of Rhetoric, p.178, p.182; Schwarz, Reconfiguring Modernism, p.1. 156 Steiner, The Colors of Rhetoric, p.178.

51 I was alone at this time in understanding him, perhaps because I was expressing the same thing in literature.157

Pound and Wyndham Lewis were associated with the sculptors Jacob Epstein and Henri Gaudier-Brzeska through their Vorticist movement. 158 Lewis is considered to be the first British Cubist painter, having been influenced by years of touring avant-garde hotspots across Europe particularly Paris, the evidence of which Harrison argues is the adoption of Picasso and Braque’s palette tones from 1909-11 in his own works dated 1911-12. 159 Lewis was also friends with Joyce and Eliot, and the sense of a network of experimentalists is reinforced by the close relationship between Eliot and Pound during the composition of The Waste Land. Jo-Anna Isaak also finds clear indications of literary Cubism in Joyce’s Ulysses (1918-1920):

The textures of the Wandering Rocks chapter, superimposed, slip behind and within each other, plane upon narrative plane in bewildering reflexive interchange. The viewpoint changes from one sentence to another so that the reader must be continually on the alert to follow the variations of scale and angle of vision.160

In a critique of Ulysses, Eliot further noted that:

In using the myth [of The Odyssey], in manipulating a continuous parallel between contemporaneity and antiquity, Mr. Joyce is pursuing a method which others must pursue after him. 161

This indicates that in addition to polyperspectivism and temporal and spatial disruption, Joyce also displayed simultaneity through awareness of what Eliot termed ‘the pastness of the past, [and] its presence’, i.e. through creating a modern work, representative of modern life but based also on ancient myth. All of these are characteristics of Cubism.162

157

Gertrude Stein, Picasso (1938. New York: Dover, 1984), p.16. Richard Cork, Vorticism and Abstract Art in the First machine Age: origins and development (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976), p.167. 159 Harrison, English Art and Modernism, pp.76-77. 160 Jo-Anna Isaak, ‘James Joyce and the Cubist Esthetic’, Mosaic, 14 (1981), p.77. 161 T.S. Eliot, ‘Ulysses, Order, and Myth’ in Selected Prose of T.S. Eliot ed. by. Frank Kermode (London: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1975), p.177. 162 T.S. Eliot, ‘Tradition and the Individual Talent’, p.141. 158

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Eliot also associated with the Bloomsbury Group (sympathisers with the Cubist set of painters), and regularly visited art Salons in Paris. Indeed, Tomlinson argues for correlations between the emergence of the style in Paris and the period of Eliot’s studies at the Sorbonne, the developments of the Cubist style and Eliot’s writing, and traces the principles of Cubism in Eliot’s work.163 Modern critics often note how Eliot portrays aspects of Cubism in his writing, with reference in particular to non-linear narrative, stream-of-consciousness, and collage effects. 164 Collage techniques display the Cubist awareness of ‘shifting time and space’, allowing scenes from different time periods and places to exist in the same space, exemplifying Eliot’s concept of the continuous present. The beginning of The Waste Land is an example of this:

April is the cruellest month, breeding Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing Memory and desire, stirring Dull roots with spring rain. Winter kept us warm, covering Earth in forgetful snow, feeding A little life with dried tubers. Summer surprised us, coming over the Starnbergersee With a shower of rain; we stopped in the colonnade, And went on in sunlight, into the Hofgarten, And drank coffee, and talked for an hour. Bin gar keine Russin, stamm’ aus Litauen, echt deutsch. And when we were children, staying at the archduke’s, My cousin’s, he took me out on a sled, And I was frightened. He said, Marie, Marie, hold on tight. And down we went. In the mountains there you feel free. I read, much of the night, and go south in the winter.165

163

David Tomlinson, ‘T.S. Eliot and the Cubists’. Jewel Spears Brooker & Joseph Bentley, Reading ‘The Waste Land’: Modernism and the limits of Interpretation (Amherst, MA: The University of Massachusetts Press, 1990 ), p.31; Eugene Goodheart, Modernism and the Critical Spirit (New Jersey: Transaction, 2000), p.60; Harold Bloom (ed.), Bloom’s Guides; The Waste Land (New York: Infobase, 2007), p.27; Steve Ellis, T.S. Eliot: A Guide for the Perplexed (London: Continuum, 2009), p.40. 165 T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land, Prufrock and Other Poems (ed. by Paul Negri. Mineola, N.Y.: Dover, 1998), p.31. 164

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In this passage, the memories are non-linear in contrast to Auden’s cyclical years, as Eliot’s seasons are listed in non-chronological order (spring, winter, summer) and, further, are associated with moments from different periods of the narrator’s life, which exemplifies the Cubist ideal of ‘breaking down both spatial and temporal distances’.166 These moments are also presented non-chronologically as the images move from adults drinking coffee to childhood sledding, creating a collage and stream-of-consciousness effect. Fragmentation is conveyed through the brief description of each moment, each with no discernible connection or similarity to the one before, and polyperspectivism is also present in the focus of each moment from foreground to background. The sledding memory, for example, presents the focus first on the narrator in the foreground, emphasised by a real-world snippet of conversation, to the background setting of the mountains. The Waste Land has been thoroughly analysed for Cubist elements since the connection was first identified by Jacob Korg in 1960, and other examples of Cubist influences include simultaneity through real-world nursery rhymes and songs, and ambiguity.167 More tenuously, literary Cubism references bar-room and café paraphernalia and other objects frequently depicted in Cubist paintings, such as violins, mandolins, vine fruit and drinking vessels. Eliot’s association with the modern visual art world and the use of similar principles in his written work are significant due to his effect on other writers of the period. Pound and Eliot both exerted a strong influence upon the young Auden, who, as Isherwood records, moved away from Edwardian and Georgian poetry and towards styles more similar to Eliot’s work, inspired by his thorough knowledge and appreciation of Eliot’s The Waste Land: Since our meetings at Christmas, Weston’s literary tastes had undergone a violent revolution. Hardy and Edward Thomas were forgotten. Eliot was now the master. Quotations and misquotations were allowed, together with bits of foreign languages, proper names and private jokes. Weston was particularly well equipped for playing the Waste Land game.168

MacNeice similarly indicates that the work of Eliot and Joyce was essential reading for modern writers, stating in 1935 that The Waste Land and Ulysses were ‘classic English testpieces of modern prose and verse’ (MSLC, pp.15-16) for his generation. Understanding the 166 167 168

Cianci, ‘Reading T.S. Eliot visually’, p.125. Tomlinson, ‘T.S. Eliot and the Cubists’, p.65. Isherwood, Lions and Shadows, p.117.

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impact of writers such as Joyce, Pound and Eliot on the next generation of authors is significant to this thesis for, as Alistair Duncan claims, one of the characteristics of true Art Deco artists is that they ‘were not themselves innovative but rather drew on themes introduced by other Modernist artists in the early years of the century’.169 This is clearly true of MacNeice and Auden to some extent in their emulation of others, although the composition of several written pieces, particularly in relation to visual sources and influences, is indeed experimental and innovative as will be argued in subsequent chapters.

It may be concluded, then, that Cubism was a highly influential movement, which as a concept could be expressed effectively in the written word, visual art and in moving images at the cinema. Cubism was vital to the development of Art Deco through its contribution of geometric angularity to the ‘jazz’-style branch, and it also encouraged an active awareness of the ancient past in modern work, which in part contributed to the overwhelming body of work produced in the twenties and thirties that was inspired by ancient history and myth.

Colours, Fashion and the Ballets Russes The Ballets Russes, under the direction of Sergei Diaghilev, exerted huge influence over Art Deco.170 Indeed, the Ballets was responsible for ‘radical changes in fashion styles, jewelry design, interior decoration, and commercial art all over the Continent’, a description that may be applied to Art Deco also.171 The two are intrinsically linked and may have been subject to a causal path, where each is influenced and promoted by the other. In addition, much of the colour of the Ballets was adopted by the style. Several aspects of the Ballets heavily inspired Art Deco artists, and these are examined below.

Art, Dancers and the Ballets Russes Gesamtkunstwerk The Ballets Russes was described as a ‘fusion of dance, music, colour and drama’, yet this does not reflect its important connection with visual art.172 Eliot, interested in the Cubist themes running through the Ballets’ performances, wrote in 1921 that the company was itself becoming ‘[a] new art form’, undoubtedly assisted by the multitude of avant-garde painters

169

Duncan, Art Deco Complete, p.130. Duncan, Art Deco Complete, p.7; Hillier & Escritt, Art Deco Style, p32; Robinson, The Brilliance of Art Deco, pp.59-60; Battersby, The Decorative Twenties, p.24. 171 Carol Lee, Ballet in Western Culture: A history of its origins and evolution (London: Routledge, 2002), p.239. 172 Wood, Essential Art Deco, p.41. 170

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commissioned to produce sets and costumes.173 These included not only Léon Bakst, Natalia Goncharova, Mikhail Larionov and Alexandre Benois, but also the Fauvist painters Matisse and Derain, and the Cubist painters Picasso, Marie Laurencin, Braque and the Delaunays. This has led other critics to consider the Ballets Russes as an integration of ‘painting, dance, and music’ similar to Matisse’s series of Danse paintings created ten years before his association with the production Le Chant du Rossignol (1920).174 Indeed, a description of van Gogh’s La salle de danse à Arles (1888) as ‘explosive blocks of color [and] seething dynamic lines’ could easily be applied also to the Ballets and indicates that it may have been attempting to become a ‘total’ art form.175 The Ballets in turn influenced visual art, for example at The Cave of the Golden Calf, which featured ‘Russian Ballet-inspired murals’ by Spencer Gore.176 The Ballets also inspired the trend in Art Deco for dancers and leaping figures in sculptures and statuettes. Sculpture was a medium closely aligned with the Ballets through the choreography of Mikhail Fokine, who revolutionarily introduced three-dimensionality into balletic posture, which he called ‘épaulement’: the art of presenting one’s position to the audience not flatly but in perspective, with one and then the other shoulder to the audience […] to find the opposing relation of position between the body and the head.177

Sculpting the dancers in this way through choreography inspired sculptors such as the Ecole des Beaux Arts-trained Demetre Chiparus, who created a series of bronze and ivory statuettes of ballerinas, some in exotic, Schéhérazade-style costume, around 1925 which he named after the Ballets Russes. This demonstrates the causal loop between Diaghilev’s ballet and visual art where both influence each other. The pervasive motif of dancers and dancing during the period is, however, unconstrained to ballet dancers and features dancing of all kinds, nor is it found only in sculpture. Matisse, for example, famously produced two versions of figures dancing between 1909 and 1910 (Danse I and II), while in 1913 Vanessa Bell exhibited panels decorated with 173

Garafola, Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, p.84; Stein, Picasso, p.29; Tomlinson, ‘T.S. Eliot and the Cubists’, p.77. 174 Schwarz, Reconfiguring Modernism, p.6. 175 Schwarz, Reconfiguring Modernism, p.7. In this edition, Schwarz incorrectly titles the painting ‘La salle de danse à Arus (1887)’. However, the painting he intends to reference is clear and the description remains valid. 176 Philip Hoare, Oscar Wilde’s Last Stand: Decadence, Conspiracy, and the Most Outrageous Trial of the Century (New York: Arcade, 1998), p.208. 177 Michel Fokine, Fokine: memoirs of a ballet master (Boston: Little Brown, 1961), p.70.

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themes inspired by the Russian Ballet, Matisse’s Danse paintings and ‘prima donna’s bouquets’.178 The Ballets Russes’ influence on Duncan Grant’s The Queen of Sheba (1912) is undisputed.179 Picasso (married to the Ballets’ ballerina Olga Khokhlova in 1918) painted The Three Dancers in 1925. Dancers also featured as decorative motifs on walls in various public venues, such as the Cave of the Golden Calf (1912), the new Leicester Square Odeon interior (1937, fig.9), and also on posters.

Copyrighted image

Figure 9: Interior of the Leicester Square Odeon cinema, 1937 © John Maltby/ RIBA Library Photographs Collection Cinema-goers were here surrounded by Art Deco motifs: exotic leopard-patterned seating, ribbed speedline-effect ceiling, circles and arcs, leaping figures captured in a moment of movement, and chevrons. Deco elements were also promoted in the movies themselves. Discussed on pages 56 and 203.

178

Garafola, Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, p.323; Clare A.P Willsdon, Mural Painting in Britain 1840-1940: image and meaning (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), p.334. 179 Garafola, Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, p.323; Maggie Humm, Snapshots of Bloomsbury: The Private Lives of Virginia Woolf and Vanessa Bell (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2006), p.18.

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It is clear that both Auden and MacNeice were aware of the Ballets and its impact upon the interwar generation. MacNeice, for example, comments upon ‘walls striped like a Russian ballet’ (MCP, p.117) in Autumn Journal (1938) while in ‘Passenger Shanty’ (1938) Auden writes that ‘The beautiful matelots and mousses | Would be no disgrace to the Ballets Russes’ (MEA, p.234), imagery that will be examined further in Chapter Two. Auden’s ‘September 1, 1939’ references the jealous love felt by the dancer Nijinksy for his former lover, the Ballets’ director, Diaghilev (MEA, p.246). However, the motifs of dancers or dancing are not seen often in MacNeice and Auden. The former begins his first collection Blind Fireworks (1929) with the line ‘Dance we over heaven wonderingly’ (MSCP, p.615) in a poem that later commands ‘dance, dance, dance’. Likewise the opening poem of Poems (1935) references modern dance at theatres ‘where a black man dances like an eel, | Where pink thighs flash like the spokes of a wheel’ (MCP, p.6), linking jazz music to primitivism and the result of shorter hemlines in women’s fashion. Yet such references remain minimal in MacNeice’s interwar poetry, as in Auden’s. However, both maintained a very solid connection to both dance and the Ballets Russes in their work for the Group Theatre, in association with Rupert Doone. Auden met Doone in 1926 through his former lover, the avant-garde Surrealist painter Robert Medley. Born in 1903, Doone was a ballet dancer in the Ballets Russes from 1925, under the direction of Diaghilev (LLM, p.255).180 After Diaghilev’s death Doone formed the Group Theatre with Medley in 1932, almost immediately inviting Auden to write poetic drama for them with the intention of creating a socialist-leaning form of ‘total’ theatre, incorporating many types of theatrical art (acrobatics, drama, poetry, dance, music and mime).181 The first significant use of dance in Auden’s work follows this collaboration in the experimental piece The Dance of Death (1933), which was written as a cabaret-style danse macabre and features the main character of Death The Dancer representing the decline of the middle class, played by Doone. While critics claimed the poetic elements compared unfavourably to Auden’s other work, Auden stated that the written element of the piece ‘depends so much on the music and the dancing to give it body’, indicating Auden’s own understanding of the Wagnerian concept of ‘Gesamtkunstwerk’.182

180

Carpenter, W.H. Auden, p.138; Richard Aldrich & Gary Wotherspoon (eds.), Who’s Who in Gay and Lesbian History: From Antiquity to World War II (London: Routledge, 2001), pp.131-132. 181 Carpenter, W.H. Auden, p.138; William B. Worthen, Modern Drama and the Rhetoric of Theater (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992), p.107; Mary Luckhurst (ed.), A Companion to Modern British and Irish Drama: 1880-2005 (Oxford: Blackwell, 2006), p.140. 182 Carpenter, W.H. Auden, p.166.

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The term translates as ‘total work of art’, the meaning of which Richard Wagner clarified as follows: 183 The artistic person can be wholly satisfied only by the unification of all forms of art in the service of the common artistic endeavour. […] every individual art form is capable of being completely understood by the public only through a single communication with the other art forms, because a full understanding of each individual art form is only reached when they work together.184

Wagner’s ‘common artistic endeavour’ is a work of art that represents an entire people and their culture: The Dance of Death was intended to represent this also, and Auden’s comment is almost a paraphrase of Wagner’s clarification in that the play’s poetic element cannot be understood or appreciated fully without the simultaneous experience of the accompanying music or dance. George Buchanan, reviewing the play, recognised this in his comment that ‘players, author and producer all seek to develop a common united style’, with reference to visual art in Buchanan’s perception of the play as ‘two-dimensional, like canvas scenery’.185 The Ballets Russes had also attempted to achieve a ‘gesamtkunstwerk’ or ‘great masterpiece’.186 Diaghilev’s productions combined drama through the story, music from contemporary composers, visual art through sets and costumes designed by contemporary artists, and dance. After the Great War, Diaghilev had befriended the Sitwell brothers in an attempt to incorporate poetry, with Sacheverell providing the libretto for the ballet The Triumph of Neptune (1926).187 However the Ballets remained focused on dance, while Doone, in collaboration with Medley’s set design, Benjamin Britten’s music and poetry by contemporary writers (including both Auden and MacNeice) was more successful in combining the arts. 183

Michael Coates, Graham Brooker & Sally Stone (eds.), The Visual Dictionary of Interior Architecture and Design (Lausanne: AVA, 2009), p.116; David Roberts, The Total Work of Art in European Modernism (New York: Cornell University Press, 2011), p.1; Walter Frisch & Kevin C. Karnes (eds.), Brahms and His World (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2009), p.167; Shulamith Behr, David Fanning & Douglas Jarman (eds.), Expressionism Reassessed (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1993), p.12. 184 Translated from the German text in Josef Lehmkuhl, Der Kunst-Messias: Richard Wagners Vermächtnis in seinen Schriften (Würzburg: Verlag Königshausen & Neumann GmbH, 2009), pp.123-124. Own translation, with reference to Behr, Fanning & Jarman (eds.), Expressionism Reassessed, p.12. 185 George Henry Perrott Buchanan, ‘New Poetic Drama’, TLS, (24 Jan 1935), p.37; George Henry Perrott Buchanan, ‘Some Recent Poetry’, TLS, (15 March 1934), p.190. 186 Deborah J. Johnson & David Owaga, (eds.) Seeing and Beyond: Essays on Eighteenth- to Twenty-FirstCentury Art in Honor of Kermit S. Champa (New York: Peter Lang, 2006), p.221; Frisch & Karnes (eds.), Brahms and His World, p.167; Roberts, The Total Work of Art in European Modernism, p.1. 187 Alison Latham, The Oxford Dictionary of Musical Works (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), p.168.

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MacNeice’s work for the Group Theatre was, however, not an attempt at a gesamtkunstwerk as The Agamemnon of Aeschylus (1936) does not incorporate dance, yet MacNeice too is linked to the Ballets Russes through Doone. That achieving a ‘total work of art’ was important to the Group Theatre, however, and both Auden and MacNeice’s association with it, is significant in terms of the writers’ relationship with Art Deco. Art Deco was itself a ‘total’ style, ‘encompass[ing] a whole way of life’ and all ‘scales of design’, meaning that the style attempted to influence the design of all things including even pastimes and human behaviour. 188 The style ‘transcended social class’ through less exclusive, cheaper, mass-produced items in the ‘Moderne’ phase and ‘could unite architecture, fine decorative arts and the cheapest consumer goods’ with a common aesthetic in the form of speed lines – making the style representative of the culture.189 ‘It was ‘total’ geographically, socially and in the objects which it characterized.’190 Nearly every aspect of life was in some way affected by Art Deco and the social and cultural changes which accompanied the progression of the style, such as the emergence of jazz music and new dances to the new rhythms. It can be argued in this way that Art Deco was a ‘cohesive whole’ that affects all areas of life and becomes a ‘life style’. However, part of this Deco ‘life style’ was the challenge to artists to perfect the ‘common artistic endeavour’ in a successful integration of all artistic mediums into a single work, a challenge accepted in particular by the Ballets Russes, Diaghilev and, later, by Rupert Doone’s Group Theatre.

Colour Palette The Ballets’ greatest impact was made in the production of Schéhérazade (1910), with sets designed by the painter Léon Bakst, who commented:

in each color of the prism there exists a gradation which sometimes expresses frankness and chastity, sometimes sensuality and even bestiality, sometimes pride, sometimes despair. This can be felt and given over to the public by the effect one makes of the various shadings. […] Against a lugubrious green I put a blue full of despair, paradoxical as it may seem. There are reds which assassinate and there are reds which are triumphal … The painter who knows how to make

188 189 190

Hillier & Escritt, Art Deco Style, p.23. Hillier & Escritt, Art Deco Style, p.24. Hillier & Escritt, Art Deco Style, p.24.

60 use of this […] can draw from the spectator the exact emotion he wants him to feel.191

This green and red colour combination evoked lesser feelings of despair and lugubriousness than Bakst seemed to intend. A spectator described the fabric draped across the upper stage as a ‘luxuriant overhanging emerald green curtain’, while critics describe the set as a ‘harem atmosphere […] achieved with the daring juxtaposition of peacock green and blue contrasted with coral red and rose pink, painted on billowing silken tent hangings’. 192 This indicates that the luxuriousness and exoticism of the piece overshadowed the symbolism intended by Bakst’s choice of colours, but also that the colour scheme remained remarkable, striking and evocative, becoming a trademark of the Ballets Russes. The increase of hot pinks, orange-red and purples juxtaposed with bright yellows and greens in textile design may be attributed to the ‘vivid’ exoticism of the Ballets, whose colours were described as ‘hard [and] acid’, ‘vivid, bold, pure’ or ‘hot, vivid, intense’. 193 Continued advances in dye technology also fed into this sense of a daringly coloured modern age. The bright colours were attractive to the interwar generation in part due to their being the complete opposite of the muted, pastel tones associated with Art Nouveau, creating the Art Deco palette in bolder shades.194 Art historians directly relate the Ballets Russes to the ‘psychedelic’ shades of the Art Deco palette, which comprised of orange, yellow (canary, chrome), purple (violets and lavenders), hot pinks (cerise, cyclamen), bright blue (lapis), bright greens (jade, emerald, lime, acid), silver, black, hennas, red, or combinations of these.195 In contrast to the colourful Ballets, William Logan states that ‘Auden’s world was essentially colourless’, with Auden’s declaration to Isherwood that he had ‘absolutely no use for colour’ cited as supporting evidence.196 However, Auden’s work is not entirely colourless and colour choices are invariably from the Art Deco/Ballets Russes palette. It is true that Auden’s juvenilia contains more varied colour than his adult work, the 1922 poem ‘A Moment’ containing sapphire, scarlet and silver (AJ, p.4), and elsewhere referencing purple

191

Garafola, Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, p.35. Garafola, Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, p.322; Lee, Ballet in Western Culture, p.240. 193 Duncan, Art Deco Complete, p.246; Robinson, The Brilliance of Art Deco, p.60; Garafola, Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, p.84, p.35. 194 Duncan, Art Deco Complete, p.300; Battersby, The Decorative Twenties, p.46. 195 Duncan, Art Deco Complete, p.246; Battersby, The Decorative Twenties, p.139; Klein, McClelland & Haslam, In the Deco Style, p.8; Battersby, The Decorative Thirties, p.23. 196 William Logan, ‘Auden’s Images’, in W.H. Auden: The Far Interior (ed. by Alan Bold. London: Vision, 1985) pp.100-126 (p.106); Isherwood, Lions and Shadows, p.117. 192

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amethyst (AJ, p.9), greens (AJ, p.19, p.20, p.24), ruby reds (AJ, pp.24-25) and ‘brilliant’ blues, often associated with the sky (AJ, p.9, p.42). Indeed, the early poem ‘March’ culminates in the lines:

And every thing of blue and every thing of green I vow that it’s the loveliest I’ve seen. (AJ, p.43)

These lines, though banal, perhaps explain why identified colour in Auden’s adult texts is most likely to be a green or blue. Greens are usually, but not always, associated with nature such as seasons or the earth, as in ‘Spring’s green | Preliminary shiver’ (MEA, p.25), ‘limegreen water’ (MEA, p.136), and a ‘pasture very green’ (MEA, p.149). As in his juvenilia, blue is often associated with the sky such as in ‘the blue March day’ (MEA, p.116), ‘blue heaven’ (MEA, p.42) or the repeated phrase in ‘The Witnesses Part II’ of ‘Above the blue sky arching wide’ (MEA, pp.128-129), which also references a geometric pattern. Blue is also connected to water, such as in the simile ‘His eyes were as blue as a mountain lake’ (MEA, p.127) and the ‘wide blue ocean’ (MEA, p.131), and elsewhere appears as smoke (MEA, p.57) and flowers (‘blue irises’, MEA, p.145). The choice of blue in his poetry when a colour is present is explained in a poem of 1929, in which Auden indicates that:

anecdotes betray His favourite colour is blue Colour of distant bells And boys’ overalls (MEA, pp.35-36)

while the use of green is perhaps related to his tendency to wear a green eye-shade in his rooms at Christ Church, accompanied by a green-shaded desk lamp for lighting.197 Whatever the reason for this, Auden is nonetheless seeing the world through a literal green filter, which perhaps accounts for the use of this colour in his work. In 1930, the literary critic and writer Michael Roberts wrote of Auden that: He makes no use of facile music or coloured visual imagery but shows ‘Life stripped to girders, monochrome’[,] 198 197

Stephen Spender, The Thirties and After: Poetry, Politics, People (1933-75) (London: Macmillan,1978), p.20; Charles Osborne, W.H. Auden: The Life of a Poet (London: Eyre Methuen,1980), p.38. 198 Haffenden, W.H. Auden, p.85.

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quoting the opening entry of Auden’s first collection, Poems (1929). This poem, contemporary review, and lack of specified colour in Auden’s texts contribute to the belief that Auden is a colourless writer. However we see that this is not entirely the case from the examples above. When one considers the images to which Auden does attribute colour (sky, water, earth) and the frequency of those images or backdrops in his poetry, one could argue that Auden has these colours in mind as he writes. While Auden’s canvas is monochrome (black type on white or cream paper), the images he places upon it are not. For example:

It was Easter as I walked in the public gardens Hearing the frogs exhaling from the pond, Watching traffic of magnificent cloud Moving without anxiety on open sky (MEA, p.37)

can not help but conjure the bright ‘Spring’s green’ of a garden in April and the bright blues of sky and water, despite the lack of specified colour. The poem then places death, desolation and disturbance in the foreground of the image, juxtaposing the antithetic backand fore-grounds as in a Salvador Dali painting, yet the background is undeniably colourful when placed in the context of Auden’s palette and the subjects with which that palette is used. It is clear that any colour in Auden’s work is allied to those included in the Art Deco palette, but it is true that the types of colours and references to them are reduced as Auden’s poetic style develops alongside Art Deco. This reflects the swing from Jazz Deco to the Moderne, where the focus on vibrant colour changed and texture, design and materials became more important.199 Auden conveys this in his poetry, increasingly referencing Moderne materials such as glass, chrome and mirror from around 1933:

Here is the cosmopolitan cooking And the light alloys and the glass. (MEA, p.165)

In contrast, MacNeice frequently identifies colour in his work, colouring his scenes with what Edna Longley describes as ‘hallucinatory intensity’.200 This may result from

199 200

Duncan, Art Deco Complete, p.246; Battersby, The Decorative Twenties, p.75. Edna Longley, Louis MacNeice: A Study (London: Faber, 1988), p.47.

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recognising ‘the importance placed on colour’ by artists MacNeice particularly enjoyed or emulated in young adulthood such as Cézanne and Matisse, the latter a Fauvist painter using bright and bold shades.201 His own experiments in visual art also indicate that MacNeice was able to view a scene as a picture, which in turn influences his written work and, in terms of colour, enables relationships and ‘coherence’.202 MacNeice is extremely aware of colour and many of his memories are associated with bright tones reminiscent of the Deco palette, for example in discussing furniture - ‘I also saw some deck chairs lately, in rich oranges & green’ (LLM, p.128) – and his noticing of a passing Pratts petrol van ‘newly painted an emotional green spangled with letters like flaming yellow chrysanthemums, and vermillion wheels’ (LLM, p.129). This latter image is particularly significant to the worldview created by MacNeice: the green is ‘emotional’, indicating MacNeice’s own personal engagement with the colour and from this point on MacNeice is continually attracted to the colour in its various shades. His emotional attachment also keeps the memory of the Pratts van in his consciousness, and this allows other experiences of the colour to form associations with it and thereby also remain in MacNeice’s memory, forming ‘coherence’. As the psychologist W.L. Northridge expounded in 1924: when a new idea appears in consciousness it seeks to make ‘acquaintances’, for only by doing so can it hope to gain a foothold in consciousness. […] Whether or not the new-comer will be banished into the unconscious depends on the position and strength of the system of ideas with which it seeks attachment.203

The Pratts van, and the colour green, form a significant, strong system in MacNeice’s mind and this memory is recalled twelve years later during the writing of Zoo (1938) when, in describing the engine room of the Aquarium, MacNeice says that pipes are ‘painted either a vivid red or a vivid green – the same reds and greens that are used for tins of petrol’.204

201

Tom Walker, ‘‘Even a still life is alive’: Visual Art and Bloomsbury Aesthetics in the Early Poetry of Louis MacNeice’, Cambridge Quarterly, 38.8 (2009), 196-213 (p.208). 202 John Gage, Colour and Culture: Practice and Meaning from Antiquity to Abstraction (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999), p.8. 203 W.L. Northridge, Modern Theories of the Unconscious (1924. London: Routledge, 2001), pp.15-16. 204 Louis MacNeice, Zoo (1938. London: Faber, 2013), p.191. All further references to this text shall appear in the main body of this work in parentheses as (LMZ, p-), where LMZ signifies Louis MacNeice Zoo.

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MacNeice’s attraction to the colour green is evident in many descriptions in his travelogues. His eye and memory seems drawn to green, often when contrasted with red as in the Aquarium pipes in Zoo:

Vivid green oats grew all along the road in long plump patches like bolsters. Here and there was a red letterbox fastened to a telegraph pole [.] (MICM, p.168)

Where we walked the grass was crisp and bouncy and occasionally, at huge intervals, we found a strange red flag. (MICM, p.32)

but the identification of the colour in various situations from choosing a café in Glasgow (‘I picked a dingy hall in green and gilt’, MICM, p.113), interior design (‘Behind him the fireplace was smart with green sap woodwork’, MICM, p.100) or green tiles around a fire (MICM, p.172) indicate that green is the most vivid colour for MacNeice. This is also suggested by contrasting three descriptions of Scottish men’s clothing in Minch. The first is Mr. Mackenzie, who wears a ‘green check suit’ and ‘socks of a darker green’ (MICM, p.98). Later MacNeice meets a laird, described as wearing ‘a plaid, a kilt, a little dirk tucked in his stocking, had a grey moustache and ragged eyebrows’ (MICM, p.127). The last, an owner of a plane, is described simply as ‘wearing a green kilt’ (MICM, p.167). This suggests that the laird’s outfit was better quality, more authentic and more interesting overall to an outsider, but as a colour is not specified one can assume that the laird is not wearing green: the only thing MacNeice finds interesting about the plane owner’s kilt and Mr. Mackenzie’s socks is that they are. One wonders if MacNeice would have commented at all on the plane owner’s kilt, or the sap woodwork, or Mr. Mackenzie’s socks had they been any other colour. Other colours, however, are present in MacNeice’s work including cerulean and blues, violet and purples, pink, yellow, silver, orange and reds, all of which form the Ballets Russes palette that in turn informed Art Deco colouring. MacNeice may also have been inspired directly as in 1927 he attended a performance of the Ballets Russes, whose programme included sets designed by Bakst, Benois, Picasso and Braque.205

205

See The Times, ‘The Russian Ballet’, 21 June 1927, p.9; The Times, ‘Russian Ballet’, 28 June 1927, p.14; The Times, ‘The Russian Ballet’, 5 July 1927, p.14; The Times, ‘The Russian Ballet’, 12 July 1927, p.12.

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Exoticism and Fashion In addition to bright colours, the Ballets Russes was also well known for its exoticism, often in productions designed by Bakst who was himself influenced by exoticism and orientalism through travels to the Middle East and Africa.206 MacNeice clearly understood the Ballets’ combination of dance, art, colour and exoticism as he connects all of these aspects in The Strings Are False in a description of his future wife, at her house ‘full of untouchable objets d’art’:

Mariette and her mother moved through this house as if they were in a Russian ballet, coloured handkerchiefs over their heads or flowers in their hair. […] Mariette, when she was not dancing in a room upstairs […] would be lying on a sofa covered with Moorish draperies [.] (MSAF, p.115)

An identifier of the Art Deco style, exoticism as inspired by the Ballets Russes was linked in several ways to clothing, fashion and art. The couturier Paul Poiret, for example, assisted Henri Matisse in making costumes for Le Chant du Rossignol. This is significant as Poiret is seen as heavily influential in the development of Art Deco; indeed, the commissioner of the 1925 L’Exposition des Arts Decoratifs claimed that the event was indebted to the ‘impetus that Poiret has given to the modern decorative arts’.207 The Ballets inspired Poiret to include exotic and oriental motifs in his fabric, and also alter the cut of his clothing from 1917, when his designs changed from confining and form-fitted to low-waisted and body-skimming, completely remodelling the female shape.208 These changes were surely influenced by Ballets Russes costumes, which by necessity became more free-flowing and streamlined in response to the increased range of movements included in Fokine’s épaulement choreography: the Ballets’ preference for tunics before tutus is emulated by Poiret’s substitution of low-waisted clothing for corsets. For both Poiret and the Ballets Russes, the new style of clothing was designed to acquire and emphasise shape through

206

Wood, Essential Art Deco, p.6; Duncan, Art Deco Complete, p.300; Garafola, Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, p.17. 207 Klein, McClelland & Haslam, In the Deco Style, p.16; Alice Mackrell, Paul Poiret: Fashion Designers (New Jersey: Holmes & Meier, 1990), p.17; Frances Kennett, Secrets of the Couturiers: Dressmaking Techniques and Ideas from the Great Designers (London: Orbis, 1985), p.27. 208 Kennett, Secrets of the Couturiers. p.27; Garafola, Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, p.291; Duncan, Art Deco Complete, p.298.

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movement. This can be seen also in the introduction of oriental-style ‘harem skirts’ to the real-world female range of eveningwear from 1919.209 Another connection to the fashion world was made through Gabrielle ‘Coco’ Chanel. Like Poiret, Chanel was associated with a sleeker style of design but she was more remarkable for her use of masculine lines for women’s apparel, creating the ‘garçonne’ look, and the introduction of jersey fabric as outerwear.210 Known for its flexibility, jersey was ideal for Chanel’s range of sportswear and activity-inspired garments, and thus Chanel was the natural choice for costumier of the Russian Ballet’s Le Train Bleu (1924), set in a modern, exclusive beach resort. Hand-knitted and unisex in design, these beachwear costumes were described as ‘knitwear meeting high art’, and were popular with everyday beach-goers shortly afterwards. 211 The LNER ‘Joliway to Holiday’ poster (fig.7) clearly indicates the impact of this fashion on the real world, and also of the ballet: Cooper’s scene could be straight from Le Train Bleu in its depiction of a sea-side setting, sleek unisex bathing costumes, an exotic Egyptian-style pose and the pointed right feet suggestive of ballet steps.

The Ballets Russes therefore is essential to Art Deco due to its impact on the period through visual art, sculpture and fashion, taking inspiration from Cubism and contemporary lifestyles, and providing to audiences a blend of brightly-coloured orientalism and exoticism. The Ballets reinforced the dancer as a decorative idiom and both Auden and MacNeice can be associated with it directly through their work with Rupert Doone and the Group Theatre, but also in their colour palettes which have been informed by the vivid colour scheme adopted by modern art from the Ballets Russes productions. The Ballets also provides one of the prototypes for the successful integration of all arts into a ‘total’ artwork, which became a preoccupation of the interwar period and in particular informed Auden’s work for the Group Theatre.

Flora, Fauna and Nature Motifs in Early Art Deco One could argue that Art Deco includes a third stylistic strand, in its continuation of Art Nouveau themes.212 The depiction of stylised clouds, sunbursts, flora, fauna and fountains in 209

Battersby, The Decorative Twenties, p.137. Henry Conway & Gail Downey, Weardowney Knit Couture: 20 Hand-knit Designs from Runway to Reality (London: Collins & Brown, 2007), p.32. 211 Conway & Downey, Weardowney Knit Couture, p.34; Garafola, Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, p.108. 212 Duncan, Art Deco Complete, p.268. 210

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Art Deco’s infancy are allied more closely to Art Nouveau than to the angular, abstract ‘Jazz’ expression or the smooth-lined Moderne. This is because Art Deco is often seen as an extension of Art Nouveau rather than as separate from it.213 Certainly there is no definite dividing line between the end of Nouveau and the beginning of Deco, with the two coexisting for some years from the start of the twentieth century and beyond the First World War. The merging and overlapping of differing artistic and decorative styles has obvious similarities with the development of radical poetry. This co-existence is demonstrated in the autobiography of Auden and MacNeice’s contemporary, Stephen Spender, who remarked that an upstairs drawing-room in the family’s Hampstead house was ‘furnished in a style reminiscent of Mrs. Spender’s art nouveau phase’.214 The word ‘reminiscent’ suggests that the style is no longer popular yet does still exist as a decorative theme as late as 1922 (the date of Mrs. Spender’s death), in simultaneity with the ‘modern paintings’ and abstract designs Spender personally prefers.215 John Betjeman described the Nouveau style as ‘roots and stems and sunsets’, while Raymond Gogniat defined it as ‘irises, water lilies and convolvulus – precious flowers languorously decomposing in tender harmonies’. 216 The preoccupation of the style with natural forms is evident. One of the most recognisable images of the Nouveau school is undoubtedly Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s stylized flowers. Battersby, however, considers that the stylized flower motifs ‘characteristic’ of Art Deco pieces trace directly back to Mackintosh, further indicating a co-existence and mutually-influential relationship between the two styles. 217 Although Nature as a theme was more prominent in Art Nouveau works, natural motifs appear frequently in early Art Deco pieces such as Edgar Brandt’s ‘Les Cigognes d’Alsace’ panels (fig.10) and demonstrate the blur between one style and the other. Designed in 1922 and decorating the elevator cage of Selfridges’ store from 1928, the panels feature ‘semi-naturalistic forms’ (storks, a sun and sunburst, spiral-formed clouds), and were made from exotic and luxurious materials, features of both late Art Nouveau and early Art Deco.218 They were made using the technique of lacquering, a technique popular in early Art Deco

213

Duncan, Art Deco Complete, p.6; Sternau, Art Deco, p.4; Battersby, The Decorative Twenties, p.46; Daniel Allen Butler, The Age of Cunard: A Transatlantic History 1839-2003 (Annapolis: Lighthouse, 2003), p.269; Hillier & Escritt, Art Deco Style, p.118. 214 Spender, World Within World, p.26. 215 Spender, World Within World, p.10. 216 Ward, Home in the Twenties and Thirties, p.63; Battersby, The Decorative Thirties, p.23. 217 Battersby, The Decorative Twenties, p.27. 218 Battersby, The Decorative Twenties, p.55.

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work but inspired by the Japonism of Art Nouveau, further illustrating the coexistence of styles. Copyrighted image

Figure 10: Edgar Brandt’s ‘Les Cigognes d’Alsace’, 1922-1928 ©V&A Museum, 2012 Discussed on p.67.

As Art Deco progressed the references to nature became less prominent, almost to non-existence in the Moderne expression, and this decline is reflected in Auden’s poetry. The imagery of clouds in juvenilia written between 1922 and 1924 is presented in language that is lyrical and perhaps could be considered decorative. In ‘A Moment’ (1922) a cloud is accompanied by the simile ‘gossamer-like’ (AJ, p.4), while clouds in ‘Everest’ (1922) are ‘wet [and] weeping’ in a pathetic fallacy as climbers try ‘in vain’ to reach the summit (AJ, p.9). Auden even refers to ‘cloudlets frisk[ing] in the fresh Spring sunlight’ (AJ, p.42) in a playfully sibilant phrase (‘March’, c.1924). Yet there is an absence of ‘decorative’ syntax in relation to the same motif in works published in his first collection, Poems (1929), which

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feature simply a ‘yawning cloud’ (MEA, p.23); a cloud out of which ‘the ancestral face may come’ (MEA, p.32) but is otherwise nondescript and without adjective; and a ‘magnificent cloud’ (MEA, p.37), its ‘magnificence’ not decorative but reflective of size. References to other aspects of nature in Auden’s poetry also follow this pattern. Squirrels, snails, pebbles, toadstools and Lady Moons feature in juvenilia but, apart from the odd daffodil and cuckoo in 1927, nature in adult works is restricted mainly to the sun, grass, ‘woods’ and birds, often in general but when specified Auden chooses birds of prey such as the kestrel, falcon or hawk. Auden’s gradual paring-down of natural imagery is only one of the ways in which it can be argued Auden reflects the progression of Art Deco from a ‘high’ style to simple and streamlined, in addition to his streamlined style of writing by cutting all decorative and surplus words. The choice of birds of prey as a recurring motif also reflects the style’s preoccupation with movement, speed and streamlining: in later Art Deco the inclusion of greyhounds in the style’s reduced usage of nature and animals conveys these similar characteristics. Therefore neither Art Deco nor Auden fully reject natural motifs, but in later years use a much smaller selection of images which often serve a dual purpose of representing streamlinism and speed.

The Sun Cult Despite Auden’s declaration that he ‘hate[d] sunsets and flowers’, one natural motif that Auden carries from childhood into adult works is the sun.219 The sun-cult is an essential element of Art Deco and critical to the understanding of how the style affected so many areas of interwar life, from decorative motifs to leisure activities. Many critics suggest the effects of World War One influenced the overwhelming use of the motif. Paul Fussell, for example, reports that a favourite postcard sent home from the ‘smelly freezing mud’ of the trenches depicted a tropical sunburst, an antithesis of the soldiers’ true living conditions (fig.11). 220 Fussell states that the sun motif held a ‘compensatory appeal of the sun-warmed, free, lively world elsewhere, mockingly out of reach of those entrenched and immobile’, and this ironic choice of postcard is indicative of the desire to reattain the sun, warmth, health, comfort, somewhere ‘other’.221 Thus the absence of the sun during the War, either at the Front or through the banning of travel for

219

Isherwood, Lions and Shadows, p.117. Paul Fussell, Abroad: British Literary Traveling Between The Wars (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980), p.4. 221 Fussell, Abroad, p.4. 220

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civilians, increased the demand for it afterwards. As the Art Deco architect Raymond McGrath commented in 1934:

[T]he effect of that time of destruction seems to have been a burning desire for sunlight and clean air and clear thought.222

In particular this ‘burning desire’ led to the sun becoming a commodity and people were encouraged to possess it in its various guises. These included travel, particularly to warmer and more exotic climes; the introduction of flat roofs and solariums to British domestic architecture; through the newly popular pastimes of outdoor sports and nude sunbathing; the appearance of tanned skin, symbolic of participating in the new, health-conscious lifestyle and easily obtained artificially; and as a popular decorative motif on various physical objects. In addition, consumers were able to ‘buy’ the sun, for example through purchase of a Sunbeam car; Sunlight Soap, mentioned several times by MacNeice (MICM, p.85, p.89); or tickets to the play ‘Sunny’ at the London Hippodrome in 1927. One could even dance to the popular dance hall song ‘The Sun Has Got His Hat On’, recorded twice in 1932, or create a ‘sun-burst’ with flowers (‘Mrs. Johns achieved a great sun-burst at Easter with a combination of pink primulas and daffodils’, LLM, p.161). Copyrighted image

Figure 11: World War I silk postcard © Imperial War Museum Discussed on p.69. 222

Raymond McGrath, Twentieth-century Houses (London: Faber, 1934), p.19.

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The interwar years generally became known as the ‘Golden Years of Travel’, often specifically to locate and obtain the sun and, in a causal loop, this resulted in the period’s overwhelming issues of travelogues, inspiring the reader to travel in turn. Although travel and the quest to achieve the sun’s benefits would naturally inspire travel to far-away, exotic locations, travelogues to all climates were popular and were no less concerned with the sun. This is borne out in the travelogues of both Auden and MacNeice, which often comment upon the sun. While critics may argue that such references are simply a common characteristic of travelogues or everyday conversation, I contend that the motif has wider implications particularly for MacNeice. The motif is admittedly conversational and decorative in many cases, however MacNeice not only indicates the presence of the sun but also its location in relation to himself. In Edinburgh he is facing the sun; taking a drive in Ireland the sun is ‘sinking on our left’ (MSPr, p.63); on a trip to his family home, he is indoors while the sun is out (‘In most of the rooms the blinds were drawn against the sun’, MSPr, p.64).223 An awareness of himself in relation to the sun indicates that this motif has personal significance. Edna Longley suggests that the sun is the tool through which MacNeice ‘energises and connects’ to a scene, being more significant than simply MacNeice’s mood being brightened by good weather and in fact reflecting MacNeice’s emotions.224 Take, for example, his description of Whipsnade Zoo, which is significantly altered by the presence of the sun:

At first sight it depressed me. The afternoon was bleak and sunless and my eye wandered wearily […] None of the creatures seemed nearer than the middle distance and none showed animation. […] As I walked on, my attitude changed. I found myself on a grassy track between two wire fences and pleasantly free of company. On my left close to the fence was a bevy of kangaroos sun-bathing (the sun had suddenly come out). They seemed to have infinite leisure and it was a pleasure […] to see them making themselves so comfortable. (LMZ, pp.245-246)

223

Louis MacNeice, Selected Prose of Louis MacNeice (ed. Alan Heuser. Oxford: Clarendon, 1990) p.54. All further references to this text shall appear in the main body of this work in parentheses as (MSPr, p-), where MSPr signifies MacNeice Selected Prose. 224 Longley, Louis MacNeice, p.13.

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In this passage the sun affects the way in which MacNeice experiences his surroundings. Without it they are ‘bleak’ and he feels himself observing the animals from a physical and emotional distance. However, the presence of the sun changes his perspective entirely: he begins to engage with intent, signified by the animals suddenly appearing ‘close’ in the foreground rather than distant, and his emotional response is more positive (‘pleasant’, ‘pleasure’). The change of feeling from ‘depressed’ to ‘pleasure’ is directly linked to the appearance of the sun: MacNeice himself understands this, stating ‘Now that the sun has come out, Whipsnade was transformed’ (LMZ, p.246). However the transformation is not only in the aesthetic appearance of the environment but also MacNeice’s engagement with and emotional response to it as a direct result of the sun’s ‘coming out’. Indeed, its ‘coming out’ may be a result of his improved mood, as significantly, in a study of sunlight in MacNeice’s poems, Edna Longley notes that: sunlight envelops more of MacNeice’s English than Irish landscapes, which retain their physical and psychological option of ‘desolate, dead, unrelieved monotone’. This difference has autobiographical roots[,]225

with the lack of sunlight or vitality in Ireland reflecting MacNeice’s own association of the country with negativity. This in turn indicates that MacNeice not only recognises the influence of the sun’s presence on his emotional connection to a real-world event, but also suggests that MacNeice actively uses the sun motif as a tool in his writing to express the same emotional feelings or connection, inserting or removing the sun from a scene at will. This is irrespective of the real-world sun’s presence for, as Longley concludes, sunlight exposure in Ireland and England differs little, while MacNeice personally felt more at home in England than in Ireland. Thus the motif in MacNeice’s work represents less of a commentary on real-world weather and instead is employed to reflect MacNeice’s emotional response to an event or scene. With regard to human behaviour, sunbathing and the physical absorption of the sun became a popular ideal during the interwar years in a bid to achieve the ‘clean air [and] clear thought’ associated with sunlight.226 Stephen Spender explained the overwhelming,

225

Longley, Louis MacNeice, p.12. Pugh, ‘We Danced All Night’, p.235; Gavin Stamp (ed.), Britain in the Thirties (London: Architectural Design, 1980), p.6; Wilk, Modernism, p.250. 226

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international appeal of the phenomenon in 1929: The sun – symbol of the great wealth of nature within the poverty of man – was a primary force in this Germany. Thousands of people went to the open-air swimming baths or lay down on the shores of the rivers and lakes, almost nude, and sometimes quite nude […] The sun healed their bodies of the years of war, and made them conscious of the quivering, fluttering life of blood and muscles covering their exhausted spirits like the pelt of an animal: and their minds were filled with an abstraction of the sun, a huge circle of fire, an intense whiteness blotting out the sharp outlines of all other forms of consciousness, burning out even the sense of time. 227

As a direct consequence of the Great War, Spender indicates the increase of interest in health, body image, and the improvement of the human condition through exposure to sunlight. Flat sun-roofs for solariums were introduced in Britain to modern domestic architecture, allowing one to strive for the sun in comfortable, familiar environs, while holiday and leisure resorts began to announce their weather statistics to attract visitors. Large, sweeping lidos were built across the country, in the same streamlined, Moderne style as the sun-decked houses intended to resemble ocean liner sun decks.228 Such architectural designs fulfil several Art Deco elements: the attainment of sunlight and good health through the addition of ‘hygienic’ materials such as chrome; an allusion to the exotic in the white, flat-roofed, pseudoMediterranean aesthetic; and the illusion of travel and transport in its resemblance to ocean liners, thereby suggesting one has achieved the ideals of sunlight and personal and geographical movement to somewhere ‘other’ in its smooth, streamlined design. Architecture of this kind is referenced by both Auden, who encourages us to ‘look shining at | New styles of architecture’ (MEA, p.36) and MacNeice (‘modern flat-roofed dwellings’, MICM, p.171), as is an awareness of tanning, or as Auden called it, ‘Beauty from burning’ (MEA, p.95). As in the style of architecture, travel and sun-attainment are similarly linked in MacNeice’s Autumn Journal, which suggests that a journey must be untaken in order to obtain exposure to the sun:

August is over, the people 227 228

Spender, World Within World, pp.107-108. Pugh ‘We Danced All Night’, p.235.

74 Back from holiday are tanned With blistered thumbs and a wallet of snaps and a little Joie de vivre which is contraband; Whose stamina is enough to face the annual Wait for the annual spree, Whose memories are stamped with specks of sunshine Like faded fleurs de lys. (MCP, p.105)

MacNeice references tanning for tanning’s sake, indicating that he himself has deliberately attempted to ‘catch the sun’ by stating ‘I look at my face in the glass and observe that it is tanned’ (MICM, p.158) during his trip to the Hebrides (again linking exposure to travel despite his northerly location), and remarking on ‘crowds undressing on the beach’ in Autumn Journal (MCP, p.101). In order to attain the sun more easily without disrobing, women’s fashion altered to expose more skin to the elements (short or no sleeves, shorter skirts, hair cut short to expose the neck) and cosmetics were developed to create the illusion of tanned skin obtained through a healthy, sun-soaked lifestyle: no longer did a tan suggest a lower class, open air occupation. Outdoor athletic pursuits such as tennis and swimming were encouraged to increase exposure. Significantly, Auden himself intrinsically associates the ‘present day cult of athleticism’ with the sun cult in his play The Dance of Death, through the first section in which Death is presented as ‘The Sun God’.229 Thus tanned skin as evidence of good health became important and a signifier of the Art Deco lifestyle; as Spender described in his autobiography, ‘the boys who had turned the deepest mahogany walked amongst those people with paler skins, like kings among their courtiers’.230 As a decorative motif the sun was particularly accessible, attractive to all levels of society and easily created by machinery, a geometric shape formed of circles or arcs and straight lines. A defining characteristic of Art Deco pieces and the Art Deco ‘life style’, the sun was a pervasive motif that affected and attracted all classes of people, was desirable and relatable to all, and in particular held significance for MacNeice in its role as connector to his environment.

229 230

From the theatre programme of The Dance of Death, 1933 (fig.12). Spender, World Within World, p.107.

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Copyrighted image

Figure 12: Theatre programme from Auden’s The Dance of Death (1933) Discussed on pages 74 and 90.

Art Deco Materials There were several specific materials that became popular during the Art Deco period, which were used in a variety of ways such as in furniture, jewellery, and interior decoration. The materials differed as the Art Deco style altered from luxurious, expensive and exclusive in the ‘Jazz’ expression to mass-produced, cheaper and more hygienic in the Moderne. Early Deco pieces incorporated woods, jewels and stones, usually of exotic origin, while the Moderne introduced materials such as mirror, glass and chrome.

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Mirror glass was a particularly prominent material of the Deco style, used from the 1920s in the jewellery of Jean Desprès, to cover the walls in ladies’ restrooms at the cinema, as part of decorative designs in moderne buildings (e.g. as material used to construct doorframes and wash basins), and as an important element of domestic bathrooms in ordinary homes in its usual role of looking-glass.231 Martin Battersby and Bevis Hillier agree that the design of domestic mirrors altered during the period, incorporating the angular, stepped, ‘skyscraper’ motif that Hillier identifies as also being characteristic of Moderne-style fireplaces.232 Owning a mirror styled in this fashion would have reflected an image of the owner literally framed by Art Deco. Bathrooms everywhere began to incorporate Art Deco themes in the use of steel furnishings, which particularly suited the function of the bathroom. The inter-war years became increasingly concerned with health and hygiene, and the bathroom was the ‘domestic embodiment’ of this. 233 Elsewhere in the house modern, streamlined furnishings also adopted steel and metalwork, which were seen as ‘hygienic, clean and modern’.234 As Wilk explains:

The hygienic qualities of tubular steel were frequently commented upon by designers and contemporaries, and this description was used in both polemic and in advertising of the period to advocate use of this type of furniture. The fact that the one context in which people were most likely to have previously come into contact with metal or part-metal furniture was at the doctor’s or dentist’s surgery or in a hospital meant that, for many, the new tubular-steel furniture carried with it associations of hygiene within a medical context.235

Diseases such as polio and tuberculosis were still rife, and the properties of the new, Moderne furniture thus seemed to represent progression in the prevention of these illnesses, in addition to satisfying the period’s concern with the condition of the human body. Battersby also contends that the growing taste for ‘chromium plate, mirror and tubular lighting’ in the home

231

Arwas, Art Deco, p.130 ; Pugh, ‘We Danced All Night’,. p.230 ; Battersby, The Decorative Thirties, p.50, p.55. 232 Hillier & Escritt, Art Deco Style, p.162, p.166; Battersby, The Decorative Thirties, p.49. 233 Hillier & Escritt, Art Deco Style, p.166. 234 Arwas, Art Deco, p.93. 235 Wilk, Modernism, p.233.

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was ‘not uninfluenced by the movies’.236 Thus there was a causal loop, with real-life health concerns affecting Art Deco affecting the cinema affecting life, and so on. Such materials are present in the works of both Auden and MacNeice, and in the case of Auden also reflects the swing from Jazz Deco into the Moderne. As with the element of nature in his poetry, Auden’s juvenilia contains several references to precious stones such as sapphires and opals (AJ, p.4), amethyst and crystal (AJ, p.9), rubies (AJ, p.24) and ‘fine pearls’ (AJ, p.43), while his adult works contain none. The influence of pre-war decadence and aestheticism had by then been assimilated or banished. Instead, Auden speaks more often of ‘steel and polished glass’ (MEA, p.152), ‘light alloys and the glass’ (MEA, p.165), both of which are prominent Moderne materials. Likewise, MacNeice’s first collection Blind Fireworks (1929) contains reference to exotic and expensive materials associated with Jazz Deco, such as pearls (MCP, p.622, p.624, p.655), ivory (MCP, p.625, p.654), and gold (MCP, p.653, p.656) but in contrast to Auden MacNeice continues to reference these materials in addition to those introduced with the Moderne. Silver and gold still appear in Poems (1935) as well as ‘amethyst and moonstone’ (MCP, p.8), yet the Moderne materials also have increasing presence. Glass and mirror is referenced frequently, and ‘Birmingham’ in particular also highlights the use of chrome in relation to motorcar mascots (‘Chromium dogs on the bonnet’, MCP, p.22). Although there are not copious references in either MacNeice or Auden’s work, nevertheless the materials included do match those promoted in Art Deco pieces.

In addition to the fore-mentioned elements of and influences on Art Deco, there are several other areas of everyday interwar life that changed during the same period and became intrinsically linked to the style and expressions of it. These included popular music, cinema, female attitude and appearance, and, of significant importance to the theory of Art Deco, the preoccupation with speed and the capture of movement in static work.

Capturing Movement and Speed One of the clearest and most identifiable hallmarks of the Art Deco style is the Futuristinspired preoccupation with movement and speed, which manifested in various ways including an increased desire to travel and the amelioration of transport, the popularity of the cinema, dance and sports such as tennis and swimming in recreation, and the addition of 236

Battersby, The Decorative Thirties, p.36.

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‘speed whiskers’ as a decorative motif on stationary objects.237 The importance of these to the Art Deco manner of life shall be discussed here.

Copyrighted image

Figure 13: Speedlines in Peugeot poster by Paul Colin, 1935 ©2014 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris Discussed on pp.79-80.

237

Wood, Essential Art Deco, p.81.

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The Illusion of Movement and Speed One common characteristic of Art Deco visual art is portraying the illusion that a subject has been captured during a moment of movement. This is exemplified in the photodynamism of the ballet still from Les Noces (fig.5), the horizontally streaming hair in Le Faguay’s statuette Faun and Nymph, the Egyptian-style ballet pose of figures in the ‘Joliway to holiday’ poster (fig.7) and the car in the 1935 Peugeot ‘Accélération’ poster (fig.13). Speed in this latter poster is implied by three elongated chevrons fanning out behind a streamlined car: these are painted in similar grey tones to the car to indicate that the characteristic of speed belong sspecifically to this vehicle. The poster also utilises sans serif font, bright red and acid shades of yellow and green as taken from the Art Deco palette. The Art Deco preoccupation with capturing in a still, stationary object the illusion of movement was adopted from the Futurists, who believed that ‘the essence of modernity was speed, dynamism, movement’.238 The addition of dynamism to a work impacted significantly on the Art Deco style, resulting particularly in the Moderne hallmark of streamlinism, which was a Futurist concept and followed the principle of hyper-conciseness, ‘a natural consequence of this geometric paring down to essentials’ that was practised in the interwar period, creating smooth, aerodynamic lines.239 In terms of transport, streamlining was based on the assumption that it would ‘eliminate disturbances in the media through which [the vehicles] pass’, echoing the Futurist founder Filippo Marinetti’s ‘scorn of obstacles’. 240 Smooth, clean, streamlined façades later appeared in architecture, many of which were based on the design and appearance of transport. In particular, the characteristics of ocean liners were considered appropriate for static, land-built constructions such as houses, as identified in Patrick Abercrombie’s comment that it was ‘the desire of some architects to make their houses look more like ships, perhaps to create the feeling of rushing air and sunny decks’.241 Notice the reference to ‘rushing air’, the typical sensation felt by individuals when experiencing movement at speed, indicating that this stationary architectural design is inspired in part by the desire to capture the illusion of movement.

238

Robert S. C. Gordon, An Introduction to Twentieth-Century Italian Literature: a difficult modernity. (London: Gerald Duckworth, 2005), p.74. 239 Hillier & Escritt, Art Deco Style, p.76; Klein, McClelland & Haslam, In the Deco Style, p.6. 240 Hillier & Escritt, Art Deco Style, p.90 ; Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, ‘The New Religion - Morality of Speed’ in High-Speed Society: Social Acceleration, Power, and Modernity ed. by Hartmut Rosa & William E. Scheuerman (University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2009), p.58. 241 Adrian Tinniswood, The Art Deco House: Avant-garde houses of the 1920s and 1930s (London: Mitchell Beazley, 2002), p.8.

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Speed and movement became commodities, and the desire to achieve the illusion of movement inspired the use of streamlinism in other designs where the aerodynamic aspect had no useful impact upon the function of the object. In ‘The New Religion - Morality of Speed’ (1916), Marinetti states in characteristically religious terms that:

Speed finally gives to human life one of the characteristics of divinity: the straight line.242

This straight line soon became a group of three, and was often used to denote speed in paintings and posters such as the 1935 Paul Colin work for Peugeot (fig.13), in which three lines, known as ‘speed lines’ or ‘speed whiskers’, suggest blurred movement and ‘accélération’.243 However, speed lines began to appear on incongruous objects that are themselves immoveable, such as household goods including toasters, baths and electric heaters, in architecture and on clothing, where the appearance of speed is non-functional and irrelevant to the real purpose of the object.244 In some areas, however, a speed-lined architectural design was representative of a building’s purpose, for example in the case of London’s Victoria Bus station (1932). Hillier and Escritt assert that the application of streamlining and speed whiskers to so many items, from mass-produced goods to luxury items, contributed to the overall style of Art Deco becoming a ‘total style’, where a common aesthetic was applied to numerous, disparate objects to create the illusion of a unified, cohesive, adaptable decorative style available to all levels of society.245 In 1937 Louis MacNeice declared ‘I dislike streamlining’ (MSPr, p.46), adding in Zoo (1938) that ‘stream-lining makes no difference to speed under speeds of eighty miles an hour’ (LMZ, p.68), suggesting his awareness of streamlining as a decorative idiom in many cases rather than a functional development. However, while MacNeice openly dislikes this and other aspects of the Moderne style, finding it ‘aesthetically frigid’ (LMZ, p.50) he nevertheless does display the interwar desire for speed and movement. Having stated earlier, in 1926, that his preference in design is ‘for flux as opposed to hard lines’ (LLM, p.120), movement is frequently represented in his work in the form of references to transport; cars, trains, trams, aeroplanes, ships and bicycles. Hugh Underhill contends that:

242 243 244 245

Marinetti, ‘The New Religion - Morality of Speed’, p.57. Wood, Essential Art Deco, p.81; Sternau, Art Deco, p.22. Robinson, The Brilliance of Art Deco, p.175; Hillier & Escritt, Art Deco Style, p.166. Hillier & Escritt, Art Deco Style , p.24.

81 MacNeice was a man for the time; he liked making journeys, driving fast, physical discomfort and even danger […], and liked also to apply the term ‘speed’ to the effects sought by modern poets,246

and this effect is achieved by MacNeice in several works. Transport is nearly always in motion, the rare exceptions notable for their impatience at the temporary halt of movement such as traffic lights which deny the need for speed (LMZ, p.24). MacNeice often describes the view from a moving car or train, as in Minch when he describes the passing landscape during his journey to Scotland on the ‘Night Scot’. The passage begins with painting terms (‘The sky part of the landscape was night-blue, but like a child’s painting in watercolours the paint had run out towards the bottom of the page,’ MICM, p.112) but also includes a selection of objects that create both vertical and horizontal straight lines, similar to Art Deco lines:

Between the horizon and the black racing railings, or seen through the railings like a cage, was a waltz of telephone posts and pylons, the posts a heavy black[.] There was a surprising number of trees wandering in herds like emus. (MICM, p.112)

The scene is reminiscent of Matisse’s 1917 painting Le parebrise, sur la route de Villacoublay, which portrays the view through a windscreen from inside a car (fig.14). Matisse’s vehicle is depicted as stationary, yet similarities with MacNeice’s passage are found in the framing of the scene. Enda Duffy identifies three frames in Matisse’s work, citing ‘the overall work, the scene framed by the windscreen, and the painting or drawing which juts into the picture at the bottom of the canvas’.247 In MacNeice’s passage, the frames include the ‘overall’ view, the landscape framed by the carriage window, and the individual aspects of the scene framed by the horizontal and vertical lines provided by pylons, wires and railings. Speed is expressed by the frequent references to movement (‘racing’, ‘waltz’ ‘wandering’) in stationary objects, and, as the scene progresses, by shorter clauses and a listing technique in the repetition of the adverb ‘then’:

246

Hugh Underhill, The Problem of Consciousness in Modern Poetry (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), p.219. 247 Enda Duffy, The Speed Handbook: Velocity, Pleasure, Modernism (Durham: Duke University Press, 2009), p.159.

82 There came an oasis among hedged fields – a large factory with lights. Then many tall chimneys not smoking. Then a forest of telegraph poles and the air was full of wires – a town. A wicked little spire; more gas-drums […]A signal-box full of levers. A hairy slag-heap. (MICM, pp.112-113)

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Figure 14: Henri Matisse, Le parebrise, sur la route de Villacoublay (1917) Discussed on pp.81-82.

Auden, in attempting to create the illusion of speed in his work, also uses shorter clauses and devices similar to those suggested by Futurists. Faster communication is achieved by using the Futurist principle of ‘hyper-conciseness’, the act of stripping back sentences and ideas and communicating only the essentials by excluding definite articles, punctuation and syntactic conventions. 248 Robinson states that this culminates in:

248

Tate Collection, ‘Futurism’ (n.d.) [Online. Accessed 20/09/2010].

83 a form of telegraphic verse […] in which the writer will breathlessly ‘assault your nerves with visual, auditory, olfactory sensations, just as they come to him’.249

This relates significantly to techniques identified in Auden’s work, such as his form of ‘telegraphese’, discarding unnecessary articles and the inconsistent use of punctuation.250 Indeed, the American poet and literary critic Randall Jarrell listed many of Auden’s linguistic quirks, including:

(1) The frequent omission of articles and demonstrative adjectives. (2) The frequent omission of subjects – especially I, you, he, etc [ ...] (4) The frequent omission of coordinate conjunctions, subordinating conjunctions, conjunctive adverbs, etc. Even prepositions are sometimes omitted. (5) The frequent omission of relative pronouns [...] (8) Unusual punctuation; a decided underpunctuation is common [...] (11) Constant parataxis, often ungrammatical. In these poems Auden is willing to stretch or break most rules of grammar and syntax[.]251

These all exemplify a Futurist-like ‘hyper-conciseness’ and communication of only the essentials, at speed and in an experimental manner. One other method employed by both writers to encourage the illusion of speed is the use of the punctuational dash, a literal straight line incorporated into their work. The dash is used more frequently by Auden and by C. Day Lewis (who emulated Auden), and in two ways acts as a ‘speed line’, first by aesthetically referencing the decorative ‘speed whiskers’ found in other works of art but also carrying in its alternate definition connotations of movement at speed. The mark is particularly suited to literary representations of speed, as the horizontal line corresponds to the movement of the reader’s eye over the text and encourages the reader to hurry from one text pattern to the next. Note MacNeice’s use of the dash twice in the above passage during an expression aiming to create the illusion of increased velocity, while Auden uses the dash frequently in situations that do not relate to an expression of speed per se and where other punctuation would suffice, for example in poem XVII of Look, Stranger!:

249 250 251

Alan Robinson, Poetry, Painting and Ideas, 1885-1914 (London: Macmillan, 1985), p.120. Carpenter, W.H. Auden, p.83; Bergonzi, Reading the Thirties, p.48. Hecht, The Hidden Law, p.10.

84 You are not present as a character. – Only the family have speaking parts – (MEA, p.145)

where the single-clause statement could have ended with a period mark as the line above. Auden’s ‘Night Mail’, for example, conveys the rhythm of the train yet contains only one dash used at a point in the narrative where the subject displays no increase in velocity, as the train travels up-hill at a ‘steady climb’ (MEA, p.291). Nevertheless, Auden frequently employs the dash, occasionally in emulation of other writers such as Lord Byron as explored in Chapter Three. It must be noted, however, that the use of the dash more often signifies a shared aesthetic with visual Art Deco pieces than a deliberate incorporation of the dash as a specific motif. It is clear, then, that capturing movement and achieving the sensation of the same was important to the Art Deco style and artists, and that the interwar preoccupation with movement was reflected in the work of Auden and MacNeice.

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Figure 15: Pavilion du Tourisme interior at the 1925 Paris Exposition © RIBA Library Books and Periodicals Collection Robert Mallet-Stevens’ Pavilion featured a clerestory window by Louis Barillet, which depicted an Impressionist-Cubist landscape as viewed from a car moving at speed. Discussed on pages 85 and 197-198.

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Moving the Human Body through Travel and Transport At the 1925 Paris Exposition the information centre and ticket office, the Pavilion de Tourisme, was designed by the French architect Robert Mallet-Stevens. Featuring a high tower which art historians relate to the architectural drawings of the Futurist Antonio Sant’Elia, the interior of the Pavilion was predominantly Cubist in design, with geometric patterns on the floor and an overstory window running the circumference of the room, depicting a landscape rushing by at high velocity (fig.15).252 This Pavilion is significant in its combination of three important elements of Art Deco: Cubism, links to Futurism, and human movement at speed. As previously stated, Cubism concerned itself with the portrayal of movement and dynamism, and thus was sympathetic to Futurist ideals based on ‘the potential power of technology and [which] celebrated the energy, violence and inherent dynamism of contemporary urban life’.253 Art critics concede the relationship between Cubism and Futurism, with the angularity, flux and superimposed planes of the former providing ‘the most suitable language’ through which to express the latter in visual art.254 As Harrison states:

The work of the Italian Futurists abounds in cavalry charges, riots, scenes of traffic and passage, and suggestions of ‘interpenetration’, ‘simultaneity’, ‘synthesis’ and ‘dynamism’. Their work was aggressive, dramatic and ‘modern’. It looked like Cubism in motion.255

The elements of movement and transport were a huge inspiration to artists from the turn of the century, and it became important during the interwar years not only to travel but to travel on the fastest trains, planes, cars and ships that were available. To this end the land speed record rose from 149.8 mph in 1919 to 369.7 mph in 1939. Twenty records were broken by men from the United Kingdom, nine by Malcolm Campbell in his numerous ‘Blue Bird’ cars.256 The shape of trains changed during the period to become more streamlined and aerodynamic. The American industrial designer Norman Bel Geddes, an innovator in streamlining, based his theories on the shape of a falling drop of water, forming an egg shape

252 253 254 255 256

Klein, McClelland & Haslam, In the Deco Style, pp.108-109; Arwas, Art Deco, p.34. Wilk, Modernism, p.31. Klein, McClelland & Haslam, In the Deco Style, p.106. Harrison, English Art and Modernism, p.87. Speedace, ‘Absolute World Land Speed Records’ (2010) [Online. Accessed 26/11/2010].

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or typical tear-drop with one larger, blunt end tapering to a sharper point at the other.257 This theory clearly influenced Nigel Gresley, designer of the UK’s 4468 Mallard steam train, which held the world speed record in 1938, reaching speeds of 126 mph, and can be described as ‘teardrop shaped’.258 At sea, the prestigious Blue Riband award presented for the fastest Atlantic crossing was passed between the liners Normandie and Queen Mary. In the case of these liners, transport, the attainment of speed and Art Deco are intrinsically linked. The French liner Normandie (1932) was held as the superlative in luxury and speed, the greatest ship of its age, and was outfitted to great extents by the French Art Deco masters including Lalique, Dejean, Dunand, Janniot, and Goudissart. These artisans were associated more with the early expression of Deco, and as Hillier states, the Moderne was largely absent: ‘Gone were suggestions of speed, mechanization and abstraction.’259 While this may be true of the liner’s interior it must be remembered that the Jazz Deco fittings were showcased inside one of the fastest, biggest, longest and most luxurious and modern examples of sea-going machinery of the age, as Normandie was fitted with ultramodern turbo-electric engines.260 In contrast, Queen Mary reflected both the early, luxurious expression of Art Deco and the more streamlined Moderne, fitted with both exotic, expensive woods and mass-produced chrome, Bakelite and Formica, in addition to featuring Sport and Sun Decks and Moderne cocktail bars as concessions to modern lifestyles.261 MacNeice experienced much of this Art Deco interior as a passenger on Queen Mary in 1939 (MSAF, p.199). One mode of transport of which both MacNeice and Auden were also aware is the London Underground. The Underground underwent a series of changes during the Art Deco period, which were intrinsically linked to the Deco style. Director Frank Pick often used the Modernist phrase of ‘fitness for purpose’ when creating new designs and plans, and was a follower and promoter of modern art.262 Historian Nikolaus Pevsner remarked that Pick was ‘the greatest patron of the arts’ and ‘the ideal patron of our age’; indeed a commemorative plaque erected to Pick claimed that he ‘made transport an art’.263 This can be supported by

257

Hillier & Escritt, Art Deco Style, p.90; Norman Bel Geddes, Horizons (New York: Books for Libraries, 1972), p.45. 258 Wilk, Modernism, p.386. 259 Wilk, Modernism, p.386. 260 Commander C R Vernon Gibbs, British Passenger Liners of the Five Oceans: A Record of the British Passenger Lines and their Liners from 1838 to the Present Day (London: Putnam, 1963), p.205. 261 Time.com, ‘Foreign News: Stateliest Ship’ (2010) [Online. Accessed 14/05/2010]. 262 Battersby, The Decorative Thirties, p.9. 263 Nikolaus Pevsner, Studies in Art, Architecture and Design: Victorian and After (New York: University of Michigan, 1968), p.209.

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the use of Art Deco ideas in all areas of his business. Elements included the architecture of the headquarters at 55 Broadway and its interior; the design of a new logo and creation of a new, angular sans serif font and diagrammatic map, using black, acid green, bright red and purple from the Ballets Russes palette; and the architecture and fittings of stations and even trains, which featured Jazz Deco moquette and hardwood floor panels indicating both speed and direction of movement to encourage passengers to move down the middle of the train. The Underground also employed the use of Moderne posters designed by artists such as McKnight Kauffer in 1931 and the Surrealist photographer Man Ray in 1938. Thus it could even be argued that under Pick’s direction the London Underground became art, and that anyone who passed by these buildings or used the system themselves would have come into contact with modern, functional Art Deco. All types of transport appear frequently in MacNeice and Auden’s work. Representative of luxury, status and the achievement of movement, transport was a popular motif in Art Deco and was adopted by many writers of the period who reflected contemporary life. As MacNeice indicates in ‘Passage Steamer’ (1936), the ambition or ‘desire’ of many was to achieve a ‘journey’ (MCP, p.62), and very little could replace the constant desire for travel during this period.

Jazz Music An effect of the First World War, and particularly of America’s involvement in the conflict from 1917, was the emergence of jazz music in Europe. The painter Mondrian considered that jazz was a superficial symptom of the world transitioning into a new era, indicating that the War was the acknowledged cause of the perceived confusion and discordant nature reflected in irregular jazz rhythms.264 The fast pace and erratic movements accompanying the music appealed for various reasons. In keeping with Art Deco having been a reaction against its predecessor Art Nouveau, many critics contend that the popularity of jazz music in post-war European culture was based on a need to revolt against what came before, such as the formalised, sedate ballroom dances of the Edwardian age.265 New social roles demanded new pastimes, and the sense of freedom and joie de vivre of the new society rendered many of the previous generation’s

264

Gage, Colour and Culture, p.242. John Lucas, The Radical Twenties: Aspects of Writing, Politics and Culture (Nottingham: Five Leaves, 1997), p.39; Thomas J. Saunders, ‘The Jazz Age’ in A Companion to Europe 1900-1945 (ed. by Gordon Martel.), pp.343-345. 265

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socially acceptable entertainments as restrictive and old-fashioned. The new post-war society found its best expression in jazz music. The faster rhythms also appealed to a generation increasing its interaction with speed in many aspects of everyday life such as in moving pictures at the cinema and in transport. Indeed, Alfred Appel notes that ‘High-note trumpeting conceivably thrills some listeners even now as the aural equivalent of risky flying, of the highs of altitudes’, while Hoare reports that in Strindberg’s Cave of the Golden Calf, black jazz musicians played ‘strident jerking jazz, faster than anything that had gone before; it was the sound of speed’. 266 To achieve movement, at speed, was one of the preoccupations of the Deco lifestyle and thus contributed to its appeal. Another aspect of jazz that was attractive to the new generation was its Black African American origin, which many equated with primitivism and Tribal African motifs as used by Picasso in Desmoiselles d’Avignon, which features the subjects in African masks. Nancy Cunard (fig.16), considered one of the prototypes of the new 1920s woman, was fascinated to such an extent that she collected African objects, wore dozens of ivory and tribal bangles on each arm, and published a book on Black culture which extolled the beauties of Black men. It thus became fashionable and thoroughly modern to accept and enjoy Black culture as the previous generation could not bring itself to do:

Picasso, Léger, Apollinaire, and many others came to recognise the elemental, ‘magical’ power of African sculptures in a period of growing negrophilie, a context that would see the irruption onto the European scene of other evocative black figures: the jazzman, the boxer (Al Brown), the sauvage Josephine Baker. ... The discovery of things ‘nègré’ by the European avant-garde was mediated by an imaginary America, a land of noble savages simultaneously standing for the past and future humanity – a perfect affinity of primitive and modern.267

As with Cubism, and one of the dichotomies of the Art Deco style, the appeal of jazz includes its successful expression of modern primitivism while retaining its function of entertainment. The embodiment of this dichotomy is Josephine Baker, the Black French-American dancehall star most famous for her ‘Banana Dance’ at the Folies Bergère, in which she

266

Alfred Appel, Jr., Jazz Modernism: From Ellington and Armstrong to Matisse and Joyce (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2002), p.189; Hoare, Oscar Wilde’s Last Stand, p.10. 267 Schwarz, Reconfiguring Modernism, p.80.

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provocatively danced nude but for a skirt fashioned from bananas against a stereotypical jungle backdrop to jazz rhythms.

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Figure 16: Nancy Cunard, 1926 © Man Ray Trust / Artists Rights Society, New York Discussed on pages 18, 88, 191-192 and 216.

The impact of jazz was undeniable and the feelings associated with it were clearly positive; exhilaration (speed), freedom (revolt) and modernism (primitivism). It is therefore inevitable that it would contribute to the vocabulary of the new society, yet not always with positive connotations. The ladies who danced to the music with vigour and abandon, with all of their body, were named ‘flappers’; the hip- and shoulder-shaking ‘shimmy’ dance move gradually came to refer to a wobbling or loss of traction when driving an automobile; and ‘jazz’ itself

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was used in a variety of ways.268 The origin of the word jazz is traced to the Creole term ‘jasz’ which refers to sexual intercourse: whether by accident or design, the term ‘jazz’ also began to carry sexual connotations from the 1920s onwards.269 Auden reported this usage himself, when a friend suggests they find a woman and ‘jazz her together’.270 More positive associations are made in Paul Nash’s interior design guide Room and Book (1932) in which he refers to ‘jazz[ing] it up a bit’: although Nash himself sees the current design style of combining modern and ancient negatively as a ‘fatal mariage de convenance’, in this usage ‘jazz’ clearly refers to homeware and haberdashery decorated in the early Art Deco style, or Jazz Deco.271 Perhaps most significant to this work is the ‘jazz’ prefix which, as previously discussed, denotes the first expression of Art Deco. Commenting on work at the 1910-1911 Post-Impressionist exhibition at the Grafton Galleries, Roger Fry referred to ‘Particular rhythms of line and harmonies in colour’.272 For many, the correlation between the styles of jazz music and Art Deco is not simply that they coincided or that they identify a period in time, but that the angular, sometimes jerky, often erratic designs in visual art reflected the irregular rhythms and unusual dance moves associated with jazz. Jazz is present in the works of both Auden and MacNeice. Auden, for example, has his balletic Death the Dancer (The Dance of Death) accompanied by a jazz orchestra, while MacNeice’s character ‘A’ in An Eclogue for Christmas confesses himself ‘jazz-weary of years of drums and Hawaiian guitar’ (MCP, p.3) and wonders at the state of a society ‘planked and panelled with jazz’ (MCP, p.7):273

I turn this jaded music on To forswear thought and become an automaton. (MCP, p.4)274

This appears to be MacNeice’s own opinion of jazz music, as a similar image appears in Minch when MacNeice recalls his experience on the trawler Fisher King, stating that ‘The engineer, a pink callow youth, sang jazz songs indefatigably’ (MICM, p.216). The element of 268

Tim Cesswell, On the Move: Mobility in the Modern Western World (New York: Routledge, 2006), p.132. Robinson, The Brilliance of Art Deco, p.108; Appel, Jr., Jazz Modernism, p.13; Lucas, The Radical Twenties, p.126. 270 Davenport-Hines, Auden, p.102. 271 Quoted in Ward, Home in the Twenties and Thirties, p.75. 272 Roger Fry, A Roger Fry Reader (ed. Christopher Reed. London: The University of Chicago Press, 1996), p.105. 273 Haffenden, W.H. Auden, p.65; Monroe K. Spears, The Poetry of W.H. Auden: The Disenchanted Island (New York: Oxford University Press, 1963), p.93. 274 This quotation will be analysed in more depth in Chapter Two, p.123. 269

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machinery (automaton) is recalled in the youth’s occupation as engineer and that, like a machine, he is ‘indefatigable’, while it is the choice of jazz alone that makes him ‘callow’ and incapable of mature thought in MacNeice’s eyes.

The Garçonne Christopher Wilk states that the period was a time of ‘alteration, transformation and even reinvention’ regarding the body, and this is particularly true for women.275 The Great War was directly responsible for providing new roles in society for women, who were leading ‘more active and useful lives’ in response to the decrease of men in the workplace.276 This in turn altered fashion to reflect women’s new roles and requirements and women began to adopt the ‘garçonne’ or ‘flapper’ style, sporting shorter hair, shorter, streamlined, low- or nowaisted clothes, makeup, a new style of jewellery and a new attitude. The garçonne danced to jazz music, smoked in public, drank alcohol, drove motorcars, moved in society unchaperoned, and demanded all the freedoms of their male contemporaries, hence the name ‘garçonne’, a feminised male. These changes reflected the independence and self-possession women discovered through their contribution to the war effort. The sun cult also in part influenced these changes, as previously discussed. The fashion for bare arms increased a demand for bangles and bracelets in particular. These were frequently made of luxurious, exotic gems and materials in the ‘Jazz Deco’ years, but also were made of cheaper, mass-produced materials such as glass and Bakelite in the Moderne era.277 Bangles were a favourite accessory of Nancy Cunard, a perfect example of a garçonne. Heavily influenced by Art Deco, she can be said to have demonstrated a full Deco ‘manner of life’. Her home was filled with exotic, African influences, and photographs by the Surrealist photographer Man Ray display her shorter hairstyle, heavily made-up face and exotic bangles (fig.16), typical of the modern woman. Her choice of clothes, jewellery and behaviour also reflect the moderne life-‘style’. As Lois Gordon states, her dress included:

the new seamless stockings, which made the leg look naked; African earrings, bracelets, and pendants; long amber or pearl necklaces; jeweled or fabric bandeaux; leopard coats; and slim, long cloche hats or turbans. [...] The foreign

275 276 277

Wilk, Modernism, p.250. Battersby, The Decorative Thirties, p.25. Arwas, Art Deco, p.122.

92 press followed her whenever she traveled, noting the geometrically patterned designs that Sonia Delaunay had created for her[.]278

Gordon’s reference to the press suggests how influential her image became in the period and would therefore have impacted on many women, who Gordon claims followed Nancy’s style of hair, dress and behaviour with regard to smoking and drinking.279 Auden was acquainted with Nancy Cunard, whom he knew through his friend Brian Howard and to whose parties he was invited.280 He would also have encountered the new female appearance in socialising with Spender’s wife Inez, who Spender described as styling her hair in ‘almost [...] an Eton crop’, referencing a short, slicked, masculine hairstyle that was made popular in the early 1920s by celebrities such as Cunard and Josephine Baker.281 One of the few women identified in Auden’s poems includes Lady Diana Cooper:

The poet reciting to Lady Diana While the footmen whisper ‘Have a banana’ (MEA, p.120)

Critics contend that this particular rhyme (Diana/banana) was lifted from another popular song of the period, most likely ‘Burlington Bertie from Bow’ (1915) which referenced Lady Diana (born 1892), who at the time was considered one of the most beautiful women in Britain. 282 Her popularity had not waned by the ‘twenties: she starred in the first British colour film The Glorious Adventure (1922), billed as Diana Manners, and featured on the cover of Time magazine in February 1926. Such was her continued and international appeal that she is presented as the model of new, fashionably careless and carefree women in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s short story ‘Jelly-Bean’ (1920), in which the character Nancy Lamar idolises Lady Diana and her reckless exploits: ‘Well, she’s what I’d like to be. Dark, you know, like me, and wild as sin. She’s the girl who rode her horse up the steps of some cathedral or church or something and all the novelists made their heroines do it afterwards.’ 283 278

Gordon, Nancy Cunard, p.92. Gordon, Nancy Cunard, p.92. 280 Lancaster, Brian Howard, p.xv; Davenport-Hines & Treadwell, Auden, p.256; Gordon, Nancy Cunard, pp.95-96. 281 Spender, World Within World, p.204. 282 John Fuller, W.H. Auden: A commentary (London: Faber, 1998), p.167. 283 F. Scott Fitzgerald, Novels and Stories 1920-1922 (New York: Literary Classics of the United States, 2000), p.813. 279

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Written as part of Fitzgerald’s story collection ‘Tales of the Jazz Age’, the story supports Hillier’s statement that Lady Diana was a highly influential female figure during the ‘twenties and ‘thirties, that she was in fact ‘the goddess of British Art Deco’.284 Thus, although critics cite earlier sources for the reference in Auden’s work, it is clear that that same source was still current and popular at the time of Auden’s writing, and that he has, however inadvertently, referenced one of the most influential and celebrated British garçonnes in his poetry. The garçonne package is also referenced in the two glamorous, unmarried females in ‘Passenger Shanty’, who are not presented in flattering terms:

The belle of the boat-deck laughs like a jay, She models her face upon Ta Beauté And her eyebrows are shifted every day.

Her rival, the bitch from Aix-les-Bains, Has a Pekingese nez and monkey’s mains And her buste, it would seem, has been flattened by trains. (MEA, p.233)

These lines indicate that Auden dislikes the fashion for makeup and an androgynous figure (signified by the lack of bust), that he himself laughs at such fashions, and even that he sees the women’s behaviour as they ‘rival’ for attention as animalistic (jay, bitch, Pekingese, monkey) rather than progressive. In contrast, the new female appearance has a frequent presence in MacNeice’s work. His personal opinion of the ‘garçonne’ trend is coloured by his first wife, Mary, who adds a postscript to a letter to Anthony Blunt in 1934 stating that:

I have taken to rouge & blue eyelids & cardinal nails: having a son makes one rather frisky I find. (LLM, p.250)

Her Victorian-style upbringing had previously made her seem silent ‘like a Japanese doll, slight and dainty’ (MSAF, p.109), yet the new modern look and attitude encourages her to change; she wears makeup, wishes to ‘educate on birth control and hygiene’ (MSAF, p.140) 284

Hillier & Escritt, Art Deco Style, p.17.

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and her increased ‘friskiness’ leads her to commit adultery. Subsequently MacNeice views the new female with mixed feelings, at times appreciative, ambivalent or with distaste. People-watching at the café in 1938 Glasgow, for example, MacNeice comments: Of fourteen women in the room thirteen were dowdy. […] Two women at last came in who had used lipstick. They had spotted veils, button earrings, fingers anxious for cigarettes. (MICM, p.113)

From this description it is clear that the word ‘dowdy’ is synonymous with old-fashioned, and the phrase ‘at last’ indicates that MacNeice prefers the appearance of the new, modern woman. The newcomers are fashionable in their use of makeup, jewellery and haircut (referenced by button earrings, which, being so small, could only have been visible if the lady sported shorter hair), and the indication that they are smokers. As John Lucas states, women smoking in public was: still considered daring and scarcely respectable. The cigarettes had to be ‘Egyptian and Turkish, not Virginian’.285

Daring and the flouting of rules traditionally associated with females was the hallmark of the garçonne, and the preference for ‘Egyptian and Turkish’ cigarettes provides further evidence of exoticism in the Art Deco lifestyle. Likewise, MacNeice comments of the girls in Stornoway that they ‘dress up but do not make the most of themselves’ (MICM, p.222). Presumably this references an underuse of cosmetics as MacNeice has no objection to their ‘dress’, which again indicates that MacNeice prefers women to use cosmetics to highlight their best features. Indeed, he states in his 1937 essay ‘In Defence of Vulgarity’ that: I like women as a rule to use plenty of make-up and also scent. […] Obviously scent and make-up are just forms of self-advertisement, like the peacock’s tail or the mandrill’s cheek-pouches. (MSPr, p.44)

Clearly MacNeice feels that the Stornoway girls do not self-advertise enough, despite his contradictory feelings that such advertising is ‘vulgar’. This negativity pervades a description of the ‘new women’ in Barcelona; ‘harpy-faced women with dyed hair and prominent 285

Lucas, The Radical Twenties, pp.112-113.

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breasts’ and girls with ‘hair carefully waved, in many cases dyed, had high heels, lipstick’ (MSAF, pp.180-181). The tone of this last description is distasteful, disliking the superficiality and artificiality and perhaps, given their supposed profession, their ‘overadvertising’. His aversion to certain aspects of the garçonne is evident in his visit to New York in 1939, where he suffers an extreme physical reaction to the appearance of a nurse, which he also connects to modern art:

There was an oriental woman with an early Picasso profile and a robe without sleeves; her arm from elbow to wrist was a series of copper bracelets and whenever she held her arm out and pointed at the floor, I had to be sick. She never said anything, I never said anything back, I just was sick. (MSAF, p.28)

Significantly, this reaction seems purely in response to the nurse’s appearance and bangle accessories, representative of the garçonne. Despite MacNeice’s conflicted feelings regarding the garçonne, she is nevertheless present in his work. In a conversation with his ‘Guardian Angel’ in Minch, MacNeice’s understanding of the garçonne as a persona is revealed:

Suppose we subtract her stockings, shoes, make-up and permanent wave. There remains her body entirely ungarnished and there remain certain mannerisms, most of which will fail to work without the garnishments. In any case all these mannerisms themselves – gestures of the hand, poise of the foot, intonations of the voice or eyebrows – must also be dismissed as accessories[.] (MICM, p.134)

Note that hair, shoes and make-up are the characteristics remarked upon by MacNeice of the girls in Barcelona, suggesting the wide appeal and adaptability of the garçonne look. This displays MacNeice’s awareness of the ‘new woman’ and his perception of the garçonne as a fashionable trend in both appearance and mindset, but which has no permanence as signified by the quickly-changing styles and temporary nature of a woman’s ‘accessories’. The attitude and clothing, he feels, must be adopted together for the concept to ‘work’, as also indicated in his comment on fashionable Mayfair ladies:

With a Mayfair belle all that is demanded in the face is a few signpost details such as plucked eyebrows and lipstick – anything sufficiently artificial (stylized is the word preferred) to show that she knows the ropes. (MICM, p.29)

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‘The ropes’ signifies the new attitude of daring and flirtatiousness, communicated by the necessary cosmetic accompaniments that ‘signpost’ this attitude to society: in MacNeice’s mind this is the garçonne package and indicates that the garçonne persona is in every respect a ‘manner of life’.

The Cinema One of the most popular leisure activities during the Art Deco period was attending the cinema. Martin Pugh indicates that by 1939 approximately 2 million people attended the cinema in Britain every week.286 Up to 20 million tickets were sold every week, with 80% of the unemployed attending weekly and 25% of the total number of viewers attending more often.287 As with the Art Deco style, the cinema transcended class barriers to show the same films, in the same location, at the same time to all levels of society.288 The cinema was able to influence millions of people across the world and it is inevitable that audiences absorbed the ideas, themes and motifs used in Hollywood. From their writings it is clear that both Auden and MacNeice openly enjoyed the cinema. Auden, for example, wrote of attending the cinema frequently during his time in Germany and, after returning to the UK, famously disrupted a showing of Mata Hari (1931) by loudly ‘sniggering’ with Isherwood through the film’s romance scenes.289 Stars of the cinema are mentioned in his poetry, including Greta Garbo (MEA, p.154) and Mae West (MEA, p.159), in addition to referencing ‘talkie-houses’ (MEA, p.120) and a ‘Gaumont theatre’ (MEA, p.142), referencing the Gaumont-British Theatre Corporation. MacNeice clearly displays his knowledge of contemporary film in Zoo, and in a previous travelogue mentions visiting the cinema in Glasgow to view a film starring the British boxer-cum-Hollywood-actor Victor McLaglen (MICM, p.114). In his autobiography, he also recalls attending the cinema on dates with Mary around ‘four or five times a week’ in 1931 (MSAF, p.138). MacNeice openly admits that he prefers watching the ‘very slick films made at Hollywood’ (MSPr, p.45), while Isherwood recalls that Auden claimed there had been ‘nothing of the slightest use since ‘Way Down East’’, a 1920s movie remade in 1935.290 This indicates that both writers attended the cinema specifically to view 286

Pugh, ‘We Danced All Night’, p.229. Pugh, ‘We Danced All Night’, p.229; Charles Loch Mowat, Britain Between the Wars 1918-1940 (London: Methuen, 1968), p.501. 288 Grace Horseman, Growing Up in the Thirties (Devon: Cottage, 1994), p.231. 289 Davenport-Hines, Auden, p.137; Norman Page, Auden and Isherwood: The Berlin Years (London: Macmillan, 1998), p.146. 290 Isherwood, Lions and Shadows, p.132. 287

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Hollywood movies, through which they would have been subjected to the subliminal promotion of Art Deco motifs. Art Deco themes were mostly conveyed through cinema sets and costumes, often as subliminal stimuli. Oscar Werndorff, director of the Jessie Matthews musical First A Girl (1935), commented in 1933 that the primary focus of the audience is on the characters and the storytelling rather than background sets and that ‘a background it should remain at all costs’: The best ‘sets’ in my experiences are those which you forget as soon as the film is over and the lights go up again in the theatre.291

Yet despite this assertion that the best sets never interrupt the story or action of the characters, the setting of a film plays a significant role, anchoring the narrative in a particular social, historical and cultural context and entering the viewer’s consciousness to some extent so that the projected context is accepted. Movies set in contemporary situations therefore promoted the latest developments in other visual media but without inviting focus or attention from the viewer. As the prominent Art Deco designer Robert Mallet-Stevens stated in 1929: It’s obvious that if you project a setting, a piece of furniture, an object before audiences of millions, at least a few will see it, even if they don’t actually look closely at it,292

indicating an understanding of subception in a cinema-goer and the ability to absorb aspects of the presented picture without fully attending them. This is demonstrated in Alfred Hitchcock’s Champagne, a British-made film starring Betty Balfour, which featured Jazz Deco: the bangle-wearing, plane-flying flapper-heroine wore costumes patterned with chevrons, her hair in the stylish shingle, and drank cocktails in her Paris apartment decorated with geometric-patterned lamps, carpets and door-handles. In contrast, the Gaumont-British musical Evergreen (1934) promotes many aspects of Art Deco. A six-minute dance montage, for example, allows Harriet (Jessie Matthews) to ‘turn back time’ and present dance through the ages: ‘1924’ is represented by the chorus wearing geometrically-patterned skirts as they dance the Charleston, with the background featuring a 291

Tim Burgfelder, Sue Harris & Sarah Street, Film Architecture and the Transnational Imagination: Set Design in 1930s European Cinema (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2007), p.13. 292 Burgfelder, Harris & Street, Film Architecture and the Transnational Imagination, p.58.

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series of caricatured facial depictions of Black jazz singers. ‘1914’, however, portrays the Deco element of the machine, set inside a clock with the chorus girls ‘stamped’ by the machine to emerge on a zigzag-patterned production line as cog-wearing, futuristic, Metropolis-type automatons. The house later bought for Harriet by the Marquis is essentially Moderne, with chrome railings, ribbed walls, mirrors, streamlined furniture and an enormous sunburst pattern upon the lobby floor. The kitchen is also distinctly modern with smooth surfaces and clean lines, and critics contend that the kitchen scene is demonstrative of cinema associating Art Deco with the home in viewers’ minds: The shots of [the protagonists’] frustrated encounters [making tea] are quite laborious but in the process various consumer items in the kitchen are displayed. In this way Deco is presented in a domestic environment, as part of its quest to introduce new, streamlined technology into people’s kitchens.293

Mallet-Stevens stated that the cinema ‘educates and will continue to educate the mass public in artisan matters’ and in a study of Art Deco, Hillier and Escritt attest that the cinema was indeed an ‘important taste-maker’.294 By presenting Art Deco motifs in such a way as to be unattended by viewers yet subceived, in effect subliminally advertised, the public was exposed to the style for long periods which, as psychological studies indicate, increased their acceptance of and desire for Art Deco both inside and out of the cinema. As Ronald Kellogg concludes, ‘People are more inclined to like a stimulus if it has been presented in a subliminal manner previously’, and it is undoubtedly through the cinema that Deco idioms find their way into mass public consciousness.295 The architecture and interior design of many cinemas also disseminated the Art Deco style, such as Leicester Square’s Odeon (fig.9). The Glasgow Herald commented that ‘critics will find themselves living in’ the cinema due to the Odeon’s amenities, yet as Pugh points out, a single sitting at the cinema could ‘last up to three hours’. 296 To spend so much time at the cinema, particularly in multiple visits, could indeed be seen as ‘living’ there. Indeed Louis MacNeice comments in Zoo that:

293

Burgfelder, Harris & Street, Film Architecture and the Transnational Imagination, p.256. Burgfelder, Harris & Street, Film Architecture and the Transnational Imagination, p.58; Hillier & Escritt, Art Deco Style, p.72. 295 Kellogg, Cognitive Psychology, p.114. 296 Pugh, ‘We Danced All Night’, p.229. 294

99 …many of the two million [visitors to the zoo] do feel themselves at home there – just as they feel themselves at home in the bedroom of Loretta Young or the racing car of James Cagney or a Shanghai Express or a Garden of Allah or a Lost Horizon[,]

listing two Hollywood stars and three popular movies, two starring Marlene Dietrich from 1932 and 1936 and the latter a Ronald Colman movie from 1937 (LMZ, p.29). The phrase ‘at home’ indicates both that the cinema is comfortable, welcoming and familiar in terms of immediate environment (due to frequent visits) and also the content of the movie being shown, and also suggests that ‘home’ in reality bears aesthetic resemblance to the same. The cinema was itself a machine of the modern age, and in temporarily absorbing the viewer both literally and figuratively, it allowed viewers to become part of the machine like the chorus in Evergreen, necessary to its function for the duration. The effect of this absorption is its influence on the viewer’s behaviour and choices outside of the machine, in everyday life. It is significant that, as MacNeice suggests, many ideas projected via the cinema such as the style of mirrors and lighting were applied in the home where the viewer truly did ‘live’. Thus it supports the argument of an Art Deco life-‘style’ or ‘manner of life’. Aside from the motifs and themes of Art Deco it is clear that certain aspects related to the style were accompanied by a certain manner of life, particularly the adoption of certain pastimes. Cinema, music and dance, sunbathing and sports, female attitude and clothing, and the preoccupation with achieving travel and velocity were all intrinsically linked to the Art Deco style yet impacted upon the daily activities of and choices made by many people at all levels of society. MacNeice and Auden themselves were influenced by this ‘life’ style, and were aware of the changes taking place in their society as a result. The Art Deco manner of life therefore has significant presence in their lives and work.

Art Deco Poetry This chapter has identified all of the significant inspirations and motifs which art historians agree combine to create the Art Deco style. These include Cubism, which contributed geometric shapes, simultaneity in the juxtaposition of the old and new in the concept of the ‘continuous present’ and polyperspectivism; the Ballets Russes, which inspired the bright, acid colour palette, exoticism, and the desire to create a ‘total’ work of art; jazz music, which inspired new dances, new clothing, angular and abstract visual art, and an increased interest in African primitivism due to its Black African-American origins. The discovery of

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Tutankhamen also inspired exoticism during the period. The style’s predecessor, Art Nouveau, contributed the motifs of flora, fauna and other natural imagery in the early expressions of Deco, while the conditions and restrictions of the Great War inspired travel to hotter climes, increased concern with the body, health and hygiene, and a preoccupation with achieving the physical benefits of sunlight, resulting in new architecture, new building materials and an interwar sun cult. Elements of Futurism contributed a need for speed and the desire to capture the illusion of movement, leading to streamlinism in transport, architecture, and even the human body in the case of the feminine form. Speed was also behind the telegraphese style in literature and the ornamental speedline on numerous objects, which relates to the use and connotations of the punctuational dash. New pastimes were developed that catered to the needs of speed or health, including swimming, tennis, sunbathing and the cinema, and all of these combined created a particular manner of life in Britain between the Wars. Significantly, all of the same elements can be found in the work of both Auden and MacNeice, many traced to the same sources of inspiration. Both writers use Art Deco decorative motifs in their work, and at some time have partaken in every leisure activity associated with the style’s health- or speed-conscious elements, indicating their own personal adoption of the Deco ‘manner of life’. There is no element of the Art Deco style that is not referenced somewhere in their work. There is also correlation between the timeframes in which a motif appears in written work and is also used in visual art, likewise in the progression from Jazz Deco motifs to the Moderne and the change in idioms. There is, therefore, already evidence to support at least a superficial relationship between this specific artistic style and the writings of Auden and MacNeice when viewed as cohesive bodies of work. The following chapter will critically assess the written work of Auden and MacNeice in greater detail to ascertain to what extent their imagery in individual pieces is impacted on by Art Deco motifs. Most importantly, I will argue that if the presence of the characteristics identified here distinguish a piece of visual art as belonging to the Art Deco style, the presence of the same motifs in Auden and MacNeice’s imagery suggests that W.H. Auden and Louis MacNeice can be considered not only as typically ‘Thirties poets’ but also ‘Art Deco poets’.

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CHAPTER TWO: ART DECO POEMS In 2009, the year following Katherine Firth’s identification of five uncatalogued MacNeice paintings, Tom Walker asserted that MacNeice’s Poems (1935) as a whole was ‘deeply engaged with visual art’, citing traceable visual sources such as Poussin (‘August’) and Chardin (‘Nature Morte’) and discussing MacNeice’s use of colour to create visual poems.297 The influence of classical visual art on MacNeice, and indeed Auden, is undisputed here. However Walker’s essay focuses only on classical art: this chapter therefore aims to establish that the works of both Auden and MacNeice were also ‘deeply engaged’ with modern art, however consciously. As Bram Dijkstra states: A poet’s response to painting can tell us why he is a poet and why his poetry has taken a specific form, and allow us to compare his unconscious manipulation of sources with his professed intentions.298

Such comparisons may already be drawn from previous chapters; MacNeice professed to dislike the geometric ‘Pure form’ of abstraction (LLM, p.122) and find the Moderne style ‘aesthetically frigid’ (LMZ, p.50) yet all identifiers of the Art Deco’s dual expressions can be found in his work as a whole, indicating ‘unconscious manipulation’ of the Art Deco style as a source. Therefore, with significant motifs, influences and elements of the Art Deco style now identified, this chapter will explore the ways in which the inclusion of these elements alter, enhance or offer new readings of Auden and MacNeice’s work. A selection of poems by each writer will be freshly analysed and reframed in the context of Art Deco. W.H. Auden, ‘Consider this and in our time’ (1930) One of the most discussed of Auden’s poems, ‘Consider this’ constitutes a synecdochic critique of British society and politics, and the ‘sorry state of England’ at the beginning of the 1930s.299 This reading is widely accepted and will not be argued against here. However, in its 297

Tom Walker, ‘‘Even a still life is alive’’, p.209. Bram Dijkstra, ‘ Wallace Stevens and William Carlos Williams: poetry, painting and the function of reality‘ in Encounters: essays on literature and the visual arts (ed. by John Dixon Hunt. New York: W.W. Norton, 1971), p.156. 299 Rachel Wetzsteon, Influential Ghosts: A Study of Auden’s Sources (Oxon: Routledge, 2007), p.18; Fuller, W.H. Auden, p.74; John Lucas, ‘Auden’s politics: power, authority and the individual’ in The Cambridge Companion to W.H. Auden (ed. by Stan Smith. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), p.156; Michael 298

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portrayal of the modern moment the poem contains several identifiers of the Art Deco style, including early Jazz Deco motifs of nature and Cubist influences. The opening lines of the poem introduce both natural motifs and the Cubist element:

Consider this and in our time As the hawk sees it or the helmeted airman: The clouds rift suddenly — look there At cigarette-end smouldering on a border At the first garden party of the year. (MEA, p.46)

This passage refers to the early Deco motif of clouds, and also the hawk. The hawk, however, is a significant choice of motif for several reasons. Representing not only the Deco motif of nature, the hawk also bears connotations of its heraldic, chivalric past (introducing the Cubist concept of simultaneity when juxtaposed with its counterpart ‘in our time’, the modern airman) and is naturally imbued with the speed and streamlinism so desirable in the interwar period, as symbolised by the man-made aeroplane utilised by the airman in order to achieve a similar aerodynamism and viewpoint. Thus the hawk and airman become interchangeable with the word ‘or’ and the airman is suddenly a heraldic, heroic figure for achieving all of the hawk’s defining characteristics, particularly streanlinism and movement at speed. Simultaneity is also suggested in Michael O’Neill’s comment that: A phrase such as ‘helmeted airman’ suggests the coexistence of the ancient and the modern: the modern ‘airman’ appears as though some ‘helmeted’ warrior from the Iliad[,]300

adding that such imagery ‘owes something to Eliot’ and reducing the presence of this Cubist construct to mere emulation. This assumption, while based on factual knowledge of Auden’s early experimentation with style and choice of literary influence, does not take into account the aspect of simultaneity in everyday life during the interwar period, which manifested for example in leisure, architecture and decorative motifs as part of the Art Deco lifestyle, or

O’Neill & Madeleine Callaghan (eds.), Twentieth-Century British and Irish Poetry: Hardy to Mahon (Oxford: Blackwell, 2011), p.102. 300 Michael O’Neill, ‘The Thirties Bequest’ in The Oxford Handbook of Contemporary British & Irish Poetry (ed. by Peter Robinson. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), pp.38-57 (p.40).

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Auden’s awareness of modern visual art. Therefore, irrespective of the inspiration behind the image, it is nonetheless an example of Cubist simultaneity in Auden’s work. The hawk also accompanies the introduction of the poem’s Cubist polyperspectivism. ‘As the hawk sees it’ clearly indicates an aerial, downward viewpoint, even a ‘panoramic’ view.301 Rod Mengham, however, contends that this perspective applies only to ‘the first few lines’ of the poem, and this is certainly true if one accepts the ambiguity of the ‘cigarette-end’ imagery as pertaining to the ‘border’, suggesting both ‘conflict, trespass and separation’ in terms of geographical space and ‘a literal […] garden border’.302 This latter interpretation suggests a much closer viewpoint than could be achieved by the hawk or airman, indicating that in five lines the perspective has narrowed from a panoramic, separated and ‘estranged’ viewpoint to a close-up at a social ‘garden party’ scene, a sequence identified by Stan Smith as a peripeteia.303 In the following lines the perspective and location changes again:

Pass on, admire the view of the massif Through plate-glass windows of the Sport Hotel[.] (MEA, p.46)

The narrator is now inside, at ground level and depicting a long-distance view of mountains, perhaps even an upward view as suggested by the narrator’s location at ‘reserved tables’ (MEA, p.46) where he presumably sits. This indicates the polyperspectivism of Cubism in its rapid alteration of perspective from aerial to close-up to long-distance. It also echoes cinematic techniques such as ‘wide-lens panning’, indicating the influence of the cinema on Auden’s work.304 John Fuller states that images in the poem are presented ‘cinematically’, and it can be argued that the cinematic technique most evident in ‘Consider’ is the Cubist construct of montage, linking a rapid succession of disparate images in a disruption of temporal and spatial distance.305 Spatial distances are reduced not only in the opening stanza but also in locations presented in lists. These include ‘Cornwall, Mendip, or the Pennine moor’ (MEA, p.46) and abandoned places of employment catalogued as ‘silted harbours, derelict works, | In strangled orchards, and the silent comb’ (MEA, p.47), presenting various aspects of Britain as the view 301

Wetzsteon, Influential Ghosts, p.18. Rod Mengham, ‘The thirties: politics, authority, perspective’ in The Cambridge History of TwentiethCentury English Literature ed. by Laura Marcus & Peter Nicholls (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), p.364; O’Neill & Callaghan (eds.), Twentieth-Century British and Irish Poetry, p.103. 303 O’Neill & Callaghan (eds.), Twentieth-Century British and Irish Poetry, p.102; Stan Smith, W.H. Auden (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1985), p.43. 304 O’Neill & Callaghan (eds.), Twentieth-Century British and Irish Poetry, p.102. 305 Fuller, W.H. Auden, p.74. 302

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moves from different terrains and from industrial areas to rural. The alteration of temporal distance is also a factor of the poem, as identified by Rod Mengham in the lines:306

It is later than you think; nearer that day Far other than that distant afternoon [.] (MEA, p.47)

An awareness of temporal location is evident from the opening line of the poem, ‘Consider this and in our time’. ‘This’ indicates a moment in close temporal and spatial proximity while ‘in our time’ is emphasised by the juxtaposition of hawk and airman, as it is only in recent human history that civilians in particular could access a perspective from which ‘the hawk could always see’ through the use of hot air balloons, airships and commercial aircrafts.307 Stanza two, however, initiates a temporal relocation with the opening ‘Long ago’ (MEA, p.46), continuing with the adjective ‘Ancient’ and referencing Anglo-Saxon burial conventions in the form of ‘barrows’:

Found they no answer, made them wish to die — Lie since in barrows out of harm. (MEA, p.46)

The barrow is referenced in present tense, however, again indicating the continuous present through Cubist simultaneity and returning the narrative to ‘our time’, continued in the following address to the current, modern reader: ‘You talk to your admirers every day’ (MEA, p.47). Mengham states that the poem attempts to establish ‘connections between events that are separated in time’ to create a ‘pattern in events’.308 This suggests the presence of Auden’s cyclical writing in the form of subject, expressing his conviction and recognition that the temporal location of ‘our time’ is in fact interwar by referencing World War One. The image of the airman first introduces this influence, common to Auden and Art Deco, in the connotations of heroism, recent military usage of aviation and the presence of a helmet, suggesting the need for protection and defence. Indeed John Lucas notes that the airman could as easily be piloting a bomber plane as any other non-military aircraft.309 The Great War is again referenced at the end of the poem as ‘that distant afternoon’, the four years of 306

Mengham, ‘The thirties: politics, authority, perspective’, p.365. O’Neill & Callaghan (eds.), Twentieth-Century British and Irish Poetry p.102; Mengham, ‘The thirties: politics, authority, perspective’, p.364. 308 Mengham, ‘The thirties: politics, authority, perspective’, p.365. 309 Lucas, ‘Auden’s politics: power, authority and the individual’, p.156. 307

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war collapsed in the Cubist manner in the immediately following phrase ‘Amid rustle of frocks and stamping feet | They gave the prizes to the ruined boys’ (MEA, p.47), indicating the physical toll and aftermath of the conflict. This is emphasised by the presence of prizegiving women who, being non-combatant at that time, have no experience of the horror of war and seem to perceive little difference between war and sports. The final phrase is also suggestive of war:

The date was yours; the prey to fugues, Irregular breathing and alternate ascendancies After some haunted migratory years To disintegrate on an instant in the explosion of mania Or lapse for ever into a classic fatigue. (MEA, p.47)

Here, ‘The date’ is synonymous with Isherwood’s concept of ‘The Test’, the occasion on which the interwar generation’s forefathers proved their worth, and is supported by reference to ‘fugues’, ‘mania’ and ‘fatigues’ which all suggest the symptoms of war neuroses. Fugue, for example, is defined as ‘flight from one’s own identity, often involving travel to some unconsciously desired locality’ or ‘a dissociative reaction to shock or emotional distress’, both of which apply to the soldiers of World War One as Auden understands it through the work of his hero Wilfred Owen, himself a sufferer of war neurosis.310 This also represents Cubist temporal relocation, first as the excitement of becoming a soldier at the start of war and travel to the battlefield becomes shock and distress during and after the experience of trench warfare, and secondly in the interwar generation’s desire to experience ‘The Test’ themselves, often through travel to locations of adversity. ‘Mania’ further suggests war neuroses, particularly when juxtaposed with the words ‘explosion’ and ‘disintegrate’ to emphasise the horrific sights and sounds which affected the soldiers’ emotional and mental health for, as Charles S. Myers states, the symptoms of war neurosis:

do not [only] depend for their causation on the physical force (or the chemical effects) of the bursting shell. They may also occur when the soldier is remote from the exploding missile, provided that he is subject to an emotional disturbance or mental strain sufficiently severe.311 310

OED, ‘Fugue, n.’ (2014) [Online. Accessed 12/05/2014]. Charles S. Myers, Shell Shock In France 1914-1918 (1940. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), p.25. 311

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‘Fatigue’ too bears connotations of warfare in the definition of being the ‘extra-professional duties of a soldier, sometimes allotted to him as punishment for misdemeanour’, in addition to physical and mental exhaustion.312 Thus in the ending allusions to war neuroses as suffered by World War One soldiers, the poem reveals a further reference to the War separated by spatial distance on the page in the line of the second stanza: ‘Order the ill that they attack at once’ (MEA, p.47). Auden clearly perceives an ‘illness’ in the soldiers; this is both literal as in the closing paragraph, and metaphorical in the participants of conflict being further infected by the symptom of a ‘sick society’ as manifested in the act of war.313 Therefore the Art Deco identifier of World War One is a powerful influence on the poem, and the inclusion of this historical event as a current and future moment portrays Auden’s cyclical writing style and the Cubist construct of simultaneity. In addition to neurosis, the poem contains reference to other health concerns in accordance with the elements of sport and sunlight as promoted by the Art Deco lifestyle. Auden’s montage of images includes a ‘Sport Hotel’ (MEA, p.46), suggestive of the period’s new interest in physical fitness resultant from the War, while the health benefits of the sun cult are alluded to in a political context:

The leisurely conversation in the bar Within a stone’s throw of the sunlit water[.] (MEA, p.47)

Situated in the most politically-minded stanza, this reference to the sun indicates that the ‘leisurely’ yet important conversation regarding the state of the country – or indeed Europe – takes place inside, out of the sunlight and in the shade. This in turn suggests the conversation is ‘shady’ and underhand, and, being conducted away from sunlight, is therefore ‘unhealthy’ and detrimental to the wellbeing of the country if such political decisions did contribute to a second war. The role of women in the Second World War is also seemingly foreshadowed in Auden’s description of the hotel’s clientele:

Join there the insufficient units Dangerous, easy, in furs, in uniform 312 313

OED, ‘Fatigue, n.’ (2014) [Online. Accessed 12/04/2014]. Fuller, W.H. Auden, p.74.

107 And constellated at reserved tables Supplied with feelings by an efficient band[.] (MEA, p.46)

‘In furs’ suggests the luxurious clothing and accessories of the garçonne, particularly in conjunction with the words ‘dangerous’ and ‘easy’ with connotations of sexual availability as associated with the new female attitude. Thus Auden portrays women ‘in uniform’, suggesting military uniform when compared to the male soldiers portrayed in ‘Dover’ (1937), who are also subjected to a reversal of typical gender stereotypes:

Soldiers who swarm in the pubs in their pretty clothes, As fresh and silly as girls from a high-class academy [.] (MEA, p.222)

The male soldiers in ‘Dover’ are attributed typically female behaviour and clothing, just as the garçonne presented at the hotel in ‘Consider’ is a masculinised female in attitude and appearance, to whom Auden briefly yet reluctantly gifts a military presence in an imagined future. However ‘uniform’ also suggests the garçonne package as identified by MacNeice and, later, in Evelyn Waugh’s novel A Handful of Dust (1934), in which Milly’s ‘uniform’ is in fact the garçonne persona:

She, in her best evening frock, backless and vermillion, her face newly done and her bleached curls brushed out, her feet in high red shoes, some bracelets on her wrists, a dab of scent behind the large sham pearls in her ears, shook off the cares of domesticity and was once more in uniform, reporting for duty, a legionary ordered for active service after the enervating restraints of a winter in barracks[.]314

Waugh’s description of Milly’s glamorous ‘uniform’ (exposed skin, cosmetics, bracelets, luxurious accessories, the abandonment of traditional feminine behaviour and ‘domesticity’) seems an expansion of Auden’s ‘insufficient units | Dangerous, easy, in furs, in uniform’: both emphasise the appearance, behavioural aspects, sexual voracity, and the increasing lack of distinction and individuality in women who adopt this persona. The military references also indicate how men perceived these women, associating them with danger and threat; as men who enjoyed same-sex relationships, Auden and Waugh may have felt particularly 314

Evelyn Waugh, A Handful of Dust (ed. by Robert Murray Davis. 1934. London: Penguin, 1997), p.139.

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threatened by the masculinised female. However, Auden’s dismissal of both garçonnes and women generally ‘in uniform’ is evident in the damning adjective ‘insufficient’: such women are lacking in traditional perceptions of femininity, new definitions of masculinity and as military ‘units’. Auden suggests they are much more suited to the vanity and glamour of Hollywood, indicated by the metaphor of wealthy stars and celebrities ‘constellated at reserved tables’, with their behaviour and ‘feelings’ dictated by mass popular culture such as jazz music played by ‘an efficient band’. The final Art Deco element of the poem is the use of the dash, a literal speed-line as influenced by the Moderne. Both uses of the dash in ‘Consider this’ relate to movement at speed; the first in stanza one is juxtaposed with the adverb ‘suddenly’ and indicative of necessary haste to ‘look there’ at a sight only available for that moment in time. The second, in stanza two, also represents movement at speed as two temporal locations separated by centuries are connected by the dash, the millennia of temporal distance reduced to a moment on the page in the use of a literal speed line, reflecting the use and function of the decorative motif in modern art. While not reflecting all of the identified Art Deco signifiers, ‘Consider this’ is undoubtedly influenced by significant elements of avant-garde visual art. Cubism in the form of polyperspectivism and simultaneity is evident in the imagery of the poem, while the Great War influences both Art Deco and this poem to a great extent. Allusions to both the new healthy lifestyle through sun and sports and the new female attitude in the garçonne are present, in addition to the influence of Hollywood glamour and popular music in the form of jazz. The visual motif of the Moderne speed-line is also alluded to in the presence and function of the literary dash. Therefore, in addition to political elements identified by previous critics, this poem can be considered a piece of Art Deco work. Louis MacNeice, ‘Birmingham’ (October 1933) Similarly to Auden’s ‘Letter to Lord Byron Part II’, MacNeice’s ‘Birmingham’ also comments upon modern architecture. His concern, however, regards not only the Moderne but also the Tudorbethan style, the ‘half-timbered modern houses’ (MSAF, p.94) he too associates in his autobiography with Surrey through his school friend Graham Shepard. Its presence in Birmingham, however, further supports that interwar architecture affected areas further north than London. In addition to the Art Deco identifier of architecture, the poem references Cubism, Egyptology, transport, colour, and Art Deco materials.

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In a commentary on MacNeice’s poetry John Whitehead states that ‘Birmingham’ is explicated best by D.B. Moore, who incidentally touches upon several identifiers of the Art Deco style as elements he considers pertinent in the poem.315 These include the traffic policeman as ‘monolith Pharaoh’, ‘chromium dogs’ (MCP, p.22) on car bonnets and consumer items: “cubical scent-bottles” (with its implication of commercialized Cubism), “artificial legs” (crude / purposeful medical technology), “arctic foxes” (unnecessary luxury) and “electric mops” (the new leisure).316

Moore, however, never connects these individual items to the bigger cohesive whole that is the Art Deco style. For example, the early image of the traffic policeman is linked to Egyptology, Moore argues, due to the similarity of the shape of his helmet to the pschent head-dress worn by Egyptian kings, yet the Egyptian element in the poem extends to the closing stanza in which ‘trams like vast sarcophagi move’ (MCP, p.23). Moore does not consider the reasons for this imagery. Jon Stallworthy suggests that Egyptian elements in MacNeice’s work ‘deriv[e]’ from visits to the British Museum as a boy, supported by further reference to Egyptology in the 1933 poem ‘Museums’ and a diary entry from 1921.317 However MacNeice’s letters suggest no significant sustained interest in the subject before December 1922 and the discovery of King Tutankhamen, after which he uses variations of the word ‘excavated’ (LLM, p.77, p.79, p.82), shows interest in his stepmother’s travels to Egypt for the first time (LLM, p.73) and includes the first Egyptian reference of ‘mummies’ in work from 1924 (LLM, p.87). This indicates that a general interest in antiquity – there is little preference for any specific civilization displayed in MacNeice’s 1921 diary entry – has narrowed to specific interest in Egyptology following the opening of Tutankhamen’s tomb. The tram simile in particular supports this as it not only compares the appearance of the tram to a sarcophagus but also indicates awareness of transport around Egypt to sites of interest, as Auden later reports in 1938 that the pyramids and Sphinx of Giza are reached ‘at the end of a tram ride’ (APTB, p.451). Therefore it can be argued that the source of Egyptian elements in ‘Birmingham’ is more strongly allied to the Art Deco inspiration of King Tutankhamen.

315

John Whitehead, A Commentary on the Poetry of W.H. Auden, C. Day Lewis, Louis MacNeice and Stephen Spender (Dyfed, Wales: Edwin Mellen, 1992), p.49. 316 Moore, The Poetry of Louis MacNeice, p.43. 317 Jon Stallworthy, Louis MacNeice (London: W W Norton, 1995), p.67, p.155.

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While Moore ‘obliquely’ links the element of Cubism only to MacNeice’s ‘Cubical scent-bottles’ (MCP, p.22), his reference to a ‘commercialised Cubism’ applying as much to MacNeice’s ‘scent-bottles’ as it would to a description of the Art Deco style itself, it is clear that Cubism plays a more significant role in the composition of the poem than Moore has identified.318 Simultaneity is employed through the ‘continuous present’ in the inclusion of the aforementioned Egyptian motifs in a description of interwar Britain, and also conveyed through the image of contemporary Tudorbethan architecture which combines modern living spaces with a historical appearance. MacNeice mirrors Auden’s dislike of modern architecture in the poem, describing

Splayed outwards through the suburbs houses, houses for rest Seducingly rigged by the builder, half-timbered houses with lips pressed So tightly and eyes staring at the traffic through bleary haws And only a six-inch grip of the racing earth in their concrete claws[.] (MCP, p.22)

However, in contrast to Moore’s explication, the repetition of ‘houses’ suggests a catalogue of examples rather than reference to the one specific ‘half-timbered’ design, indicating that MacNeice too comments upon the Moderne. This is supported by the ambiguous term ‘rigged’, defined in building terms as ‘constructed […] hastily or as a makeshift’ (Moore’s preferred reading) but also bearing nautical connotations in the definition ‘prepared for going to sea’ – a definition briefly touched upon by Moore but dismissed in parentheses in his choosing to take from it only the meaning of being ‘fitted out’.319 While the former definition performs as the beginning of a stanza-long comment upon the general quality of construction during the interwar period, the latter definition clearly refers to the Moderne style houses and their sun-catching, ocean-liner façade. As identified by Patrick Abercrombie, the ‘mere amount of window in some examples and the large use of curved metal tubing and railings’ could indeed make the exterior of some Moderne houses seem ‘rigged’ in the manner of modern seagoing vessels.320 The phrase ‘houses for rest’ in juxtaposition with the word ‘rigged’ also suggests this by indicating the antithetic nature of the Moderne in domestic architecture, as the house’s function as a space of ‘rest’, relaxation and inactivity contrasts with the desirability of personal and geographical movement through travel, manifested in the liner-like exterior design and the corresponding illusion of 318 319 320

Whitehead, A Commentary, p.49. OED, ‘Rigged, adj.’ (2014) [Online. Accessed 25/04/2014]; Moore, The Poetry of Louis MacNeice, p.44. Tinniswood, The Art Deco House, p.7.

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movement. MacNeice here draws attention to this dichotomy and questions the appropriateness of such a design, particularly in coexistence with the faux-historical Tudorbethan which, while appearing more traditional in its face-like exterior, he feels is equally as blank and characterless (‘lips pressed’, ‘eyes staring’) in terms of establishing the period’s own identity in architecture. Although MacNeice did not appreciate these designs, they did in fact represent a uniquely British adoption of Art Deco architecture, expressing the movement and simultaneity of the style’s Cubist element. Moore states that the ‘six-inch grip’ relates to the ‘notoriously shallow’ foundations of interwar houses.321 This shallowness is reflected in the houses’ occupants who are ‘fickle’ (MCP, p.22) in their desire to possess whichever chic and trendy commodity becomes the ‘new intrigue’ (LFI, p.132) of the moment, including ‘wireless and cairn terriers and gadgets’ (MCP, p.22). The reference to shallowness indicates that MacNeice feels both architectural styles, like the currently popular ‘gadgets’, have no permanence beyond this precise moment in time; he describes the houses as ‘jerry-built’ (MCP, p.22), shoddy, flimsy and not intended to last. This indicates a recognition that the interwar period is a time of change, adjustment and experimentation and that many elements of the Art Deco lifestyle will not endure beyond the current fads. In turn, this suggests an awareness of a specific coherent style that characterises the manner of expression, architecture and construction, and the manner of life or behaviour in his time and place. Cubist polyperspectivism is also expressed in the poem. The opening stanza, for example, situates a traffic policeman in the foreground, in line with ‘the queue of fidgety machines’ (MCP, p.22) he controls; the deliberate statement ‘Behind him’ then shifts focus to the background where ‘the streets run away between the proud glass of shops’ (MCP, p.22). Further shifts of perspective occur throughout the poem as the speaker visits ‘the suburbs’, shops, a church, a funfair and a theatre in stanza two, before returning finally to traffic and factory imagery in stanza three. Polyperspectivism is also applied to the shops, presenting first the items in the shop window, later the shop-girls inside and ‘behind their heads’ (MCP, p.23) more consumer items, thereby displaying the shop from varying angles. MacNeice himself indicates that this is a conscious decision in the line ‘beyond this centre the slumward vista thins like a diagram’ (MCP, p.22) which identifies a single temporary point of perspective and relates it to techniques in composing visual art, identifying a ‘centre’, a ‘vista’ and the relationship between distance and depth as in a ‘diagram’.

321

Moore, The Poetry of Louis MacNeice, p.44.

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However this first vantage-point is not fixed. Michael O’Neill and Gareth Reeves state that:

If it is asked where the poet stands [in the poem], the answer seems to be nowhere: he moves too fast, seemingly carried along by the verbal and imagistic flood[.] 322

an assessment with which Edna Longley concurs, arguing that MacNeice tends to portray urban life as ‘sense-experience, mobile experience, stream of consciousness’.323 These impressions capture the movement of the speaker around the city, which itself presents one object (the city of Birmingham) from different angles in the manner of Cubist works. Thus the visual Cubist elements of simultaneity and polyperspectivism combine to create the literary Cubist device of the stream-of-consciousness effect, and in doing so suggest movement in the style of Art Deco pieces. Alternatively it can be considered a montage of snapshots from around the city, including the Cubist cinematic technique of the close-up on girls’ faces: The lunch hour: the shops empty, shopgirls’ faces relax [.] (MCP, p.22)

This too, however, suggests rapid movement from site to site and the Cubist concept of spatial disruption in a single piece. The consumer goods listed in the poem and explained by Moore are also significant in the context of Art Deco. ‘Arctic foxes’ (MCP, p.22) as clothing are indeed ‘unnecessary luxury’ but this luxury is informed by the Art Deco style, representing the changes in female fashion and the ideals of rarity and exoticism in Jazz Deco through being obtainable only somewhere ‘other’.324 ‘Electric mops’ (MCP, p.22) bear similarity to Auden’s symbol of mass-produced consumer goods (‘Lovers will gaze at an electric stove’, LFI, p.51) and likewise indicates some dislike for such items, the ever-changing ‘gadgets approximating to the fickle norms’ (MCP, p.22) and useless ‘gewgaws’ (MCP, p.23) characterising the Moderne life. The juxtaposition of luxurious ‘arctic foxes’ and mass-produced ‘electric mops’ also indicates an awareness of the uniquely British adoption of the Art Deco lifestyle,

322

Michael O’Neill & Gareth Reeves, Auden, MacNeice, Spender: The Thirties Poetry (Basingstoke: Macmillan Education, 1992), p.73. 323 Edna Longley, Yeats and Modern Poetry (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), p.173. 324 In Waugh's A Handful of Dust, Tony Last's ancestral home ends the novel as a fur farm.

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in which the early luxurious Jazz expression ran concurrently with the cheaper massproduced items of the Moderne in the early ’thirties. The way in which MacNeice lists these items is also related to Art Deco through the element of Futurism. Emulating Auden’s telegraphese there is no punctuation used in this line:

Cubical scent-bottles artificial legs arctic foxes and electric mops, (MCP, p.22)

the Futurist hyper-conciseness imbuing the line with a sense of speed to reflect the ‘accelerated pace of modern technological society’ idolised by Marinetti and symbolised by the electric mop.325 Speed is also present in the form of the dash, a literal speedline used by MacNeice to emphasise the ‘accelerated pace’ of modern life in even leisure activities:

patches of emotion, Saturday thrills (This theatre is sprayed with ‘June’) — the gutter take our old playbills[.] (MCP, p.23)

The utilisation of the dash in this specific place indicates the speed in which new ‘thrills’ are sought and previous pleasures are forgotten and discarded like waste, symbolised by the ‘old playbills’ thrown carelessly away and again commenting upon the ‘fickle’ nature of the period. The reference to June in juxtaposition with the dash suggests that life is so fast-paced as to encourage people to will away whole months in order to reach the new thrill quicker (Peter MacDonald dates this poem in October, MCP, p.818). This also references an air freshener used at cinemas to disguise unappealing scents such as food, cigarettes and bodily fluids, emphasising the short-lasting nature of the freshness in a culture which constantly sought new ‘thrills’ in entertainment and sex. The method of controlling speed through punctuation is utilised throughout the poem in long, unpunctuated and breathless phrases that, when considered as a complete composition, create the Futurist signifier of presenting a series of images which ‘assault [the] nerves with visual, auditory, olfactory sensations, just as they come’ to the poet.326 ‘Birmingham’ indeed conveys all of these sensations, including the auditory element of ‘gently breathing’ (MCP, p.23) car engines and the ‘pipe’ (MCP, p.22) of brakes, and the 325 326

Robinson, Poetry, Painting and Ideas, p.120. Robinson, Poetry, Painting and Ideas, p.120.

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olfactory of ‘scent-bottles’. In addition to speed, the lack of punctuation in conjunction with enjambment creates passages of continuous movement not only in presenting images of sites around Birmingham city but also as a reading experience. This is enhanced by the inclusion of words throughout the poem related to movement such as ‘racing’, ‘pivoting’, ‘run’ and ‘blunder’ (MCP, p.22). Other Art Deco identifiers in the poem include reference to the garçonne, colour palette, materials, Art Deco patterns and transport. The garçonne, for example, is suggested by the close proximity of the phrase ‘jerry-built beauty’ (MCP, p.22) to the close-up image of ‘shopgirls’ faces’ (MCP, p.22) opening the following stanza. While critics contend that the former phrase refers to the architecture discussed in stanza two the addition of the word ‘beauty’ relates it to the preoccupation of the interwar woman with achieving an attractive appearance through the use of cosmetics, an aspect often identified by MacNeice. Thus the beauty of the shopgirls’ faces, being ‘jerry-built’, is artificial, intended to ‘sell but not to last’, much as MacNeice contends is the period’s architecture, the useless commodities and ‘ticketed gewgaws’ inside the shop and, in the role of garçonne, the artificial exterior and behaviour of the shop-girls themselves as adopted to aid them ‘[climb …] upwards’ (MCP, p.22) in society.327 The shop-girls are also associated with the Art Deco pattern of the tier, with ‘gewgaws tiered behind their heads’ (MCP, 23) reminiscent of the Mayan-temple influence in the style, and the first explicit colour in the poem which, typically for MacNeice, is green; their faces ‘Diaphanous as green glass’ (MCP, p.22). Colours in the poem relate to the Art Deco palette: green, purples (plum and mauve), bright blue (duck’s egg) and red but also have other implications. The bright green and red of traffic lights described as ‘crème-dementhe or bull’s blood’ (MCP, p.23) connect the colours to interwar leisure in the form of alcohol and cocktails, and hint at the danger of combining drinking with driving: the traffic signals, crème-de-menthe or bull’s blood, Tell one to stop[.] (MCP, p.23) 328

327

OED, ‘Jerry-built, adj.’ (2014) [Online. Accessed 27/04/2014]. The 1930 Road Traffic Act stated that drivers must not be ‘under the influence of drink or a drug to such an extent as to be incapable of having proper control of a vehicle’; however, this law was subjective and no compulsory test was implemented until 1962. (See Louise Butcher, ‘Driving: alcohol’ in House of Commons Library [Online. Accessed 21/09/2014] ) As the number of vehicles on the road increased, the weaknesses of the undefined 1930 Act are clearly noted by MacNeice. He may also recall a 1931 Daily Mail article regarding the trial of a clergyman accused of driving under the influence, whose car contained several bottles of alcohol including crème de menthe (Daily Mail, ‘Bottles In A Car’, 26 November 1931, p.5). 328

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However the vibrancy of the traffic signal colours, at the end of the poem, contrast with the earlier plum, duck’s egg and mauve which are distinctly softer colours. This contrast relates to the polyperspectivism in the poem, and the relation of the work to visual pieces. In composing visual art, Willliam H. Pinnell states that:

As the vibrancy of colors tends to progressively fade as objects become more distant, painting a perspective vista or any exterior scene with deep, rich colours only destroys the illusion of distance[,]329

suggesting in turn that paler tones are more suited to distant objects. MacNeice has clearly applied this technique of visual art to ‘Birmingham’; the distant church of St. Philip’s, for example, is juxtaposed with ‘Insipid colour’ (MCP, p.23) and the softer purples and blue he identifies are applied to the distant object of the sky and clouds. In contrast the traffic lights are vibrant and bright, signifying that the poem completes at the same vantage-point as it began: in close proximity to the traffic which MacNeice clearly states in the first stanza is in the foreground of his word-picture, with the rest of the city’s sights ‘behind’ and ‘beyond’, thus allowing the use of bright colour but only from this perspective. Art Deco materials are also used in conjunction with the motif of transport and interwar development. Chrome, for example, is associated with motor mascots (‘Chromium dogs on the bonnet’, MCP, p.22) while the reference to triplex has several implications. It implies not only the Deco material of glass but also visual Art Deco pieces through the poster artist A.M. Cassandre, who produced a Cubist poster for the glass in 1930 (fig.17). Triplex also represents mass-production, as the 1923 Triplex Safety Glass Company developed from an increased demand in the motor industry.330 Finally it bears connotations of speed, as an American car named Triplex Special broke the land-speed record in 1928 at over 207 mph.

329

William H. Pinnell, Theatrical Scene Painting: A Lesson Guide (Illinois: Southern Illinois University, 2008), p.218. 330 Doug Pelton, ‘Triplex Glass – Originality for MG-T cars’ (n.d.) [Online. Accessed 27/04/2014].

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Copyrighted image

Figure 17: 'Le Verre Triplex' by A.M. Cassandre, 1930 Discussed on p.115.

The motif of transport both begins and ends the poem, beginning with ‘Smoke from the traingulf’ (MCP, p.22) and halted cars and concluding with cars, trams, and Zeppelin airships in the metaphor ‘mauve | Zeppelin clouds’ (MCP, p.23). Significantly, MacNeice’s knowledge of painting composition, in addition to the element of Cubist polyperspectivism, displays the movement of the tram into the distance as ‘mov[ing] | Into the sky’ (MCP, p.23) which, on ‘shining lines’ (MCP, p.23) begins a closing series of images presented in straight vertical and horizontal lines reminiscent of decorative speed-lines. In addition to tram lines these include the blue of the sky ‘barred’ (MCP, p.23) horizontally with clouds and vertical chimneys ‘like black pipes of organs’ (MCP, p.23), images enhanced by the unnecessary double hyphenation of ‘crème-de-menthe’ presenting literal horizontal lines within the

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text.331 Incidentally, compounds through hyphenation occur nine times in ‘Birmingham’ as opposed to longer poems pertaining to movement such as ‘Train to Dublin’, which contains four. This supports the view that the composition of ‘Birmingham’ was informed by knowledge of contemporary visual art, motifs of the Art Deco style and the connection of them with the pace of life in a modern city, which have been incorporated into the stylistic choices made by MacNeice when writing the poem. ‘Birmingham’ is clearly informed by practices in contemporary visual art, including depth, colour perception, ‘diagrams’ and the Cubist influences of montage, polyperspectivism and simultaneity portrayed both in imagery and composition. This indicates that ‘Birmingham’ is, in the truest sense, a word-picture. The poem abounds in Art Deco motifs such as speed lines, expressed in the presentation of text in addition to content; transport, the garçonne, Art Deco architecture in both the Tudorbethan and Moderne designs; the Futurist expression of speed through Auden-like telegraphese, fashion trends and mass-production. It is an expression of his time and place and, in reflecting a society affected by the Art Deco ‘manner of life’, MacNeice crafts through words a series of accurate snapshots which, if truly visual, would bear many signifiers of an Art Deco piece. Louis MacNeice, ‘An Eclogue for Christmas’ (December 1933) As the opening piece of Poems (1935), a collection which has already been linked to visual art by Walker, ‘An Eclogue for Christmas’ is primarily discussed in terms of its presentation of division.332 This division is several-fold, encountered first in the characters of ‘city dwelling speaker (A) and the countryman (B)’ to represent the contrasting viewpoints and experiences in different areas of the country.333 These also reflect the divisions within the poet himself, between urban and rural, self and society, and politically:334

[MacNeice] cannot accept the tenets of Communism or Fascism, yet he is dissatisfied with his present position: and his indecision is reflected in his poems.335 331

Crème de menthe is spelled without hyphenation in newspapers from 1899 to 1938. MacNeice’s hyphenation is therefore deliberate. See Daily Mail, ‘Necessities and Luxuries’, 17 October 1899, p.3; The Times, ‘Christmas Wines’, 29 November 1921, p.12; The Times, ‘Clergyman Fined’, 26 November 1931, p.16; Daily Mail, ‘Priest on Drink Charge’, 22 February 1938, p.9. 332 O’Neill & Reeves, Auden, MacNeice, Spender, p.64; Moore, The Poetry of Louis MacNeice, p.48; Danson Brown, Louis MacNeice and the Poetry of the 1930s, p.53; Richard Danson Brown & Suman Gupta (eds.), Aestheticism & Modernism: Debating Twentieth-Century Literature 1900-1960 (London: Routledge, 2005), p.208; Julian Symons, ‘Louis MacNeice: The Artist as Everyman’, Poetry, 56.2 (May 1940), 86-94 (91). 333 Danson Brown, Louis MacNeice and the Poetry of the 1930s, p.52. 334 Moore, The Poetry of Louis MacNeice, p.48; O’Neill & Reeves, Auden, MacNeice, Spender, p.64. 335 Symons, ‘Louis MacNeice: The Artist as Everyman’, p.91.

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Such division is expressed most clearly through reference to modern visual art:

I who was Harlequin in the childhood of the century, Posed by Picasso beside an endless opaque sea, Have seen myself sifted and splintered in broken facets, Tentative pencillings, endless liabilities, no assets, Abstractions scalpelled with a palette-knife Without reference to this particular life. And so it has gone on; I have not been allowed to be Myself in flesh or face, but abstracting and dissecting me They have made of me pure form, a symbol or a pastiche, Stylised profile, anything but soul and flesh[.] (MCP, pp.3-4)

This passage is significant to this thesis, and has several implications. First, Moore notes that MacNeice himself is conscious of his early years coinciding with developments in modern art, as argued in this thesis: he presents his ‘childhood’ as ‘Posed by’ (juxtaposed next to) Picasso.336 Secondly, although previous critics correctly acknowledge reference to modern art, none have identified this art explicitly as Cubism despite further reference in their explications to ‘the increased fracturing of the human subject in modern art’, life as ‘fragmented’ and the phenomenon of abstract art as ‘a reaction to the unthinking physicality of war’, all of which apply to Cubism and Jazz Deco.337 Neither do critics connect the poem’s high ‘level of abstraction’ directly to Cubism, restricting the phrase of ‘sifted and splintered […] broken facets’ to the context of modern art and MacNeice’s inner struggle despite a clear attempt at a ‘splintered’ and ‘broken’ effect in the poem’s composition:338

B.

The lady of the house poises the silver tongs And picks a lump of sugar, ‘ne plus ultra’ she says ‘I cannot do otherwise, even to prolong my days’ —

A. I cannot do otherwise either, tonight I will book my seat — B. I will walk about the farm-yard which is replete As with the smell of dung so with memories — (MCP, p.6) 336

Moore, The Poetry of Louis MacNeice, p.49. Danson Brown, Louis MacNeice and the Poetry of the 1930s, p.52; O’Neill & Reeves, Auden, MacNeice, Spender, pp.64-65. 338 Danson Brown & Gupta (eds.), Aestheticism & Modernism, p.208. 337

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Here, the conversation is ‘splintered’ through interruption, the sentences and images within them incomplete and presented as fragments. This passage is also an example of literary Cubism, with the opening lines bearing similarity to Eliot’s The Waste Land (see p.52) or The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock (1915) by presenting a series of images with no discernible connection to each other, and breaking down spatial and temporal distances in a polyperspective collage through the jump from country houses to train station to farmyard. Rapid movement from fragment to fragment is enhanced by the use of the dash with its connotations of movement at speed, and which represents a literal, Futurist speed line within MacNeice’s work. The treatment of abstract art by MacNeice is also ambiguous (a literary Cubist device). On the one hand, he is ‘weary’ (MCP, p.3) of the aspects of life which proclaim its modernity, such as abstract art, jazz, mass-produced ‘gewgaws’ (MCP, p.3), and only momentary happy sensations (‘the perfection of a grilled steak’, MCP, p.7) which emphasise the period’s fickleness. Tim Armstrong contends that here MacNeice argues the ‘exhaustion of a style’, citing similarities in the American poet Wallace Stevens’ comment in 1949 that:339

Somehow modern art is coming to seem much less modern than used to be the case. One feels that a good many people are practicing modernism and therefore that it no longer remains valid. It is odd how quickly the experimental becomes routine[.] 340

MacNeice’s weariness is emphasised by his plea for ‘some new coinage’ (MCP, p.4), which in terms of visual art was reflected in the move towards the streamlined Moderne around this time. On the other hand, however, MacNeice clearly recognises – as does D.B. Moore – that ‘Graphic art, a tactile art, is frequently closer to the atmosphere of a period than other forms of artistic expression’.341 Thus the ‘feelings of the uneasy ’twenties’ were best reflected in fragmented, ‘broken facet[ed]’ art, yet confusion and unease has clearly extended into the 1930s through political unrest in Britain and Europe, and the threat of further Wars. 342

339

Tim Armstrong, Modernism: A Cultural History (Cambridge: Polity, 2005), p.36. Wallace Stevens, Letters of Wallace Stevens (ed. by Holly Stevens. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1981), p.630. 341 Moore, The Poetry of Louis MacNeice, p.49. 342 Moore, The Poetry of Louis MacNeice, p.49. 340

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Robert Graves also clearly recognised the reflection of the current human condition in abstract visual art in his poem ‘In Broken Images’ (1931), also written long after the advent of Cubism yet still referencing that artistic style to portray the confusion of the period:

He is quick, thinking in clear images; I am slow, thinking in broken images.

He becomes dull, trusting to his clear images; I become sharp, mistrusting my broken images,

Trusting his images, he assumes their relevance; Mistrusting my images, I question their relevance.343

MacNeice was undoubtedly influenced by this poem in subject matter and content, with both poets doubting the ‘relevance’ of the style yet answering this question themselves in using the style as the most effective means to represent the period’s turmoil. Therefore despite professed weariness of the style abstract art remains the best media to express divided thoughts, and MacNeice employs this style to analyse his situation in time and space, thereby influencing the composition of such analysis to reflect abstract characteristics. In further comparison between professed opinion and ‘unconscious manipulation of sources’, MacNeice has already stated disapproval of the style yet, as Walker contends, reference to ‘pure form’ indicates that: MacNeice is clearly […] using Fry’s and Bell’s ideas about visual art, even as he opposes them – with the concept of literature as pure form condemned. Although he is kicking against these ideas, he was still shaped by them [and] it becomes apparent that MacNeice’s critical vocabulary of the 1930s was formed through his adolescent reading of Bell and Fry back in the 1920s.344

Thus he remains influenced by the art, even in arguments against it, and in providing description of that which he argues against he transforms the visual into poetry. Indeed, ‘An Eclogue for Christmas’, despite its protestations, is greatly imbued with Cubist elements not only in terms of abstraction and fragmentation, and the ‘pure form’ so despised by 343 344

Robert Graves, Poems: 1926-1930 (London: William Heinemann, 1931), p.40. Tom Walker, ‘‘Even a still life is alive’’, p.203.

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MacNeice, but also in the inclusion of Cubist constructs such as polyperspectivism and the continuous present. The form of eclogue introduces both of these: the discussion of social and political climates in Britain allows polyperspectivism of the county’s condition, while simultaneity is evoked through identification of Virgil’s ‘Eclogue 1’ as MacNeice’s inspiration.345 Indeed, the Virgilian form is used to examine the complexities of modern life, with the traditional pastoral values of country ‘truth and morals’ subverted as ‘B’ states that ‘One place is as bad as another’ and that ‘A’ is ‘wrong to turn to’ character ‘B’ (MCP, p.3) under the incorrect assumption that ‘B’ does not also suffer ‘the mad vertigo’ (MCP, p.3) of belonging to an outdated order.346 Seamus Heaney notes that in this poem the ‘pastoral convention is alive and well’ but that the topic is characterised by a ‘ritzy up-to-dateness’, creating simultaneity from the very beginning in MacNeice’s choice of opening line, in which:347

the familiar 1930s backdrop is ever so slightly de-familiarised by the decidedly classical word 'eclogue' in the title and by the conventional utterance, the unapologetically literary arc described by the seven simple words that open the poem: ‘I meet you in an evil time.'

As indicated by Walker, the reference to ‘pure form’ is simultaneous as it relates to the 1909 and 1914 discussions of modern art by Bell and Fry, and to MacNeice’s own introduction to their ideas through Anthony Blunt and consequent opposition to ‘hard lines’ (LLM, p.120) at Marlborough, which still clearly troubles him despite this artistic style being far from new by 1933. Further elements of the continuous present relate to the description of buses: The city’s haze is clouded amber that purrs and croons, And tilting by the noble curve bus after tall bus comes With an osculation of yellow light, with a glory like chrysanthemums. (MCP, p.5)

345

Michael Paschalis (ed.), Pastoral Palimpsests: Essays in the Reception of Theocritus and Virgil (Crete: Crete University Press, 2007), p.162; Seamus Heaney, ‘Eclogues “In Extremis”: On the Staying Power of Pastoral’, Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. Section C: Archaeology, Celtic Studies,History, Linguistics, Literature, 103C.1 (2003), 1-12 (p.9); Peter McDonald, Louis MacNeice: The poet in his contexts (Oxford: Clarendon, 1991), p.23. 346 Heaney, ‘Eclogues “In Extremis”’, p.10. 347 Heaney, ‘Eclogues “In Extremis”’, p.9.

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Moore asserts that the ‘tilt’ and ‘noble curve’ of the buses allude to medieval jousting, while a further historical moment significant to MacNeice is referenced in ‘chrysanthemums’ and the focus on yellow tones.348 As explained in Chapter One, one of MacNeice’s systems of consciousness with which new moments seek to form associations exists in the memory of the colourful Pratts petrol van ‘newly painted an emotional green spangled with letters like flaming yellow chrysanthemums, and vermillion wheels’ (LLM, p.129) in 1926. The colour yellow has already been connected to both transport and flowers, specifically chrysanthemums, in this instance, thus a second occurrence of yellow juxtaposed with transport organically forms associations with the Pratts van system in MacNeice’s consciousness and results in the ‘glory like chrysanthemums’ in ‘An Eclogue for Christmas’. A final aspect of simultaneity in the poem exists in reference to World War I, a second identifier of and common source of inspiration in the Art Deco style. The War is introduced early in the poem as ‘bombs and mud and gas’ (MCP, p.3), followed immediately by the image of the town-dweller ‘stuttered on [his] feet’ (MCP, p.3) in an allusion to Owen’s ‘stuttering rifles’ rapid rattle’.349 However, although ‘A’ insists that he ‘seem[s] to have moved far’ (MCP, p.3) from the War, ‘An Eclogue’ proves that this is not the case. War imagery continues throughout the poem, including ‘barbed wire’ (MCP, p.4), a ‘long trench of pipes’ (MCP, p.5) and what MacNeice imagines may be the result of Isherwood’s concept of ‘The Test’ interpreted by irresponsible, war-hungry youths in a new conflict, again using language similar to Owen:

What will happen when the sniggering machine-guns in the hands of the young men Are trained on every flat and club and beauty parlour and Father’s den? (MCP, p.6)

The Great War, rather than being an event from which society has ‘moved far’, therefore remains a concern in the continuous present, and particularly for MacNeice and other interwar artists as he recognises the threat of another World War as a result of the First. The repetition of events throughout history is also indicated in references to Rome (MCP, p.4, p.5), ‘some new Ice Age or Genghiz Khan’ (MCP, p.4) and the image in which ‘Goths again come swarming down the hill’ (MCP, p.5). 348

Moore, The Poetry of Louis MacNeice, p.47. Wilfred Owen, The Poems of Wilfred Owen (ed. by Jon Stallworthy. London: Chatto &Windus, 1997), p.76; O’Neill & Reeves, Auden, MacNeice, Spender, p.65. 349

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A further Cubist element included in the poem is geometric patterns, including ‘parquet’ (MCP, p.3) and ‘an osculation of yellow light’ (MCP, p.5). Similarly to the Highland games scene in Minch, and to Auden’s writing style, ‘An Eclogue’ is also written in a circular or spiral pattern, with several images recurring throughout. The first of such elements is jazz, where ‘A’ declares himself ‘Jazz-weary of years of drums and Hawaiian guitar’ (MCP, p.3) in response to ‘B’ suggesting ‘wind your gramophone’ (MCP, p.3) yet, contrarily, deliberately provides this music as soundtrack to the conversation in ‘turn[ing] this jaded music on’ (MCP, p.4). This underscores the disillusionment of the poem’s speakers and the sense of a hopeless culture as represented through music:

What will happen to us, planked and panelled with jazz? (MCP, p.6)

The repetition of jazz imagery is complete in ‘A’s final utterance, beginning ‘Let the saxophones and xylophones’ (MCP, p.7) and indicating that the ‘jaded music’ will continue to play long after the conversation has ended. Indeed, jazz and the Christmas period are again associated with each other in the 1938 poem ‘Departure Platform’ as published in TLS, through reference to ‘jazz earrings twisted like Christmas candles’.350 This also indicates MacNeice’s recognition of an aesthetic style influenced by jazz, i.e. Art Deco. Another recurring theme is the automaton, described as a soulless, hopeless machine:

They have made of me pure form, a symbol or a pastiche, Stylised profile, anything but soul and flesh: And that is why I turn this jaded music on To forswear thought and become an automaton. (MCP, p.4)

The automaton is ‘wound up’ (MCP, p.5), a phrase repeated in juxtaposition with other mechanical objects such as ‘tin toys’ (MCP, p.4) and the early image of a gramophone (MCP, p.3), while its blank, immobile features are found on aging women ‘frosted with powder’ (MCP, p.5) and on faces which are ‘all dials and cannot smile or frown’ (MCP, p.6) towards the end of the poem. The circular pattern of the work is highlighted by the use of related words amongst the text, beginning in the fourth line of the poem in the phrase ‘The jaded calendar revolves’ (MCP, p.3) and continuing in ‘Pivoting’ and ‘rotating’ (MCP, p.3),

350

Louis MacNeice, ‘Departure Platform’, TLS, 9 July 1938, p.464.

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‘curve’ (MCP, p.5), ‘osculation’, ‘wheel’ (MCP, p.6), and the repetition of the circular action of winding up a machine. Phrases comprised of circular shapes such as ‘On all the trafficislands stand white globes like moons’ (MCP, p.5) also emphasise the circular aspect, and the poem finishes full circle where it began, with repetition of the phrase ‘Christ is born’ (MCP, p.3, p.7). The Futurist preoccupation with machinery is a prominent theme in the poem and in Art Deco pieces, yet in contrast to Auden’s ‘Night Mail’ (1935), MacNeice does not regard it benevolently and as a natural progression. Indeed, when machinery is applied to human concerns it is decidedly unnatural; ‘faces are all dials and cannot smile’ and tin toys are envied for their ignorance:

The tin toys of the hawker move on the pavement inch by inch Not knowing that they are wound up; it is better to be so Than to be, like us[.] (MCP, pp.4-5)

Nevertheless, the poem responds to ‘the cult of every technical excellence’ (MCP, p.7) much in the same way as to abstract art, by consciously speaking against it yet incorporating numerous examples so as to create unconsciously a cult-following work. Language surrounding the early image of ‘A’s ‘jaded calendar’ suggests a car for example (‘Its nuts need oil, carbon chokes the valves’, MCP, p.3), a machine ‘A’ associates with speed, danger and sex (the latter through a provocative garçonne): And two there are, as I drive in the city, who suddenly perturb — The one sirening me to draw up by the kerb The other, as I lean back, my right leg stretched creating speed, Making me catch and stamp, the brakes shrieking, pull up dead: She wears silk stockings taunting the winter wind, He carries a white stick to mark that he is blind. (MCP, p.4)

In this passage, the garçonne is suggested by her attire and ‘taunting’, ‘siren’ attitude, in addition to MacNeice’s claim that the woman troubles (‘perturb[s]’) him. This is also supported by the references to speed (‘creating speed’ and the dash with its connotations of rapid movement immediately preceding the woman’s description) which signify a ‘fast’

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woman from whom MacNeice, a critic of the new female package, wishes to escape in haste. Speed, however, is both exhilarating and dangerous; the car allows him to achieve speed (‘I lean back, my right leg stretched’) yet the machine protests ‘shrieking’ against life-saving deceleration, further indicating the soullessness of the machine or automaton. In addition to the car, MacNeice also includes other modes of transport such as boats (‘rich man’s yacht’, MCP, p.7) and buses, and despite their categorisation as machines they are less offensive to MacNeice, indeed the buses are beautiful, perhaps due to their association in this instance with the Pratts van:

But yet there is beauty narcotic and deciduous In this vast organism grown out of us: […] And tilting by the noble curve bus after tall bus comes With an osculation of yellow light, with a glory like chrysanthemums. (MCP, p.5)

The yacht, too, is inoffensive and is allied in MacNeice’s mind to visual art:

the miles of canvas in the galleries And the canvas of the rich man’s yacht snapping and tacking on the seas (MCP, p.7)

suggesting that this connection is informed by MacNeice’s own observation of the sailing ship as traditional subject in visual art and of the transport motif in interwar artwork. While the buses are presented as silent, the ‘snapping’ of the yacht’s canvas provides aural elements to this machine yet it is presented in sharp contrast to other machinery, emphasising MacNeice’s general disapproval with items such as ‘the clangour of the pneumatic drill’ (MCP, p.5) and ‘sniggering machine-guns’. Even the cinema, a machine he enjoys, is tainted by the noisy, ‘randy’ (MCP, p.6) behaviour of those who utilise the venue for clandestine, temporary sexual liaisons. Nevertheless, while MacNeice claims to disdain ‘technical excellence’ the Art Deco theme of machinery pervades the poem. As we have seen, elements of Cubism, the Great War and machinery are intertwined with other Art Deco identifiers. Chrysanthemums, for example, relate to simultaneity, transport and the Art Deco colour palette but also represent the early Jazz Deco identifier of floral motifs, as do daisies (‘daisied bank’, MCP, p.4) and polyanthus (MCP, p.5). The Art

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Deco palette also provides the colours grey and orange (MCP, p.4), red, shades of yellow, pink, black and the repetition of silver (MCP, p.5, p.6). Transport and the element of speed also imply the garçonne, who is referenced elsewhere in the poem through cosmetics and luxurious accessories (‘frosted with powder and choked in furs’, MCP, p.5) and, near the poem’s opening, in the new streamlined physical form:

Pivoting on the parquet I seem to have moved far From bombs and mud and gas, have stuttered on my feet Clinched to the streamlined and butter-smooth trulls of the élite. (MCP, p.3)

This further indicates that MacNeice recognises the changes in women over the interwar period and why such alteration has occurred (streamlinism). It also emphasises his own opinion of it in his hesitation (‘stutter’) to be near such women (‘clinch’) and use of the derogatory noun ‘trull’, which support later notions of the ‘siren’ as garçonne due to his extreme aversive reaction. The insertion of the garçonne here casts doubt upon Moore’s interpretation of this passage describing ‘years of ballroom dancing’ following 1914 and leans more towards O’Neill and Reeves’ alternative of ‘the dance-floors of the jazz-age’, as reference to streamlinism in female form and fashion, in addition to sexual licence (‘trulls’), indicate the radical ‘twenties rather than the traditionalism of pre-war society.351 The element of jazz is also intertwined with the Art Deco identifiers of exoticism (‘Hawaiian guitars’, MCP, p.3) and conceptions of primitivism (‘a black man dances like an eel’, MCP, p.6), while the dash, Futurism’s literal straight line to express speed, is used twenty times throughout the poem, particularly in situations in which rapidity is required. The first use of the dash is juxtaposed with movement (‘gyrating and rotating in gauze —’, MCP, p.3) while the second, a line later, emphasises society’s successive yet fleeting fascinations with new and useless consumer items (‘a slick beauty of gewgaws —’, MCP, p.3) such as those listed in ‘Birmingham’ and relating to the ‘ephemeral’ (MCP, p.7) feel of the poem. As previously identified, the dash in connection with the ‘siren’ implies a ‘fast’ woman, while in many instances the dash enhances the rapidity of the conversation through interruption and fragmentation of sentences. Initially speaker ‘A’ interrupts ‘B’ more often, suggesting the impatience of the city-dweller and increased pace of city life, yet as the conversation progresses ‘B’ also begins to interrupt, supporting his original assertion that ‘One place is as bad as another’ (MCP, p.3) and the ‘pretence of individuality’ (MCP, p.5) as 351

Moore, The Poetry of Louis MacNeice, p.48; O’Neill & Reeves, Auden, MacNeice, Spender, p.65.

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the speakers influence each other. Interruption also allows the dash to connect a series of disparate images in the manner of collage. Inclusion of the dash therefore relates to the capture of movement as per Art Deco visual art, and to speed in terms of the poem’s composition and content. W.H. Auden, ‘Night Mail’ (1935) In autumn 1935, Auden left his employment at the Downs School and joined the Film Unit of the General Post Office (GPO) under the management of the British film-maker John Grierson.352 Parallel to the politics of Art Deco and its shift towards the Moderne, Auden believed his association with the GPO would allow his work to ‘reach larger audiences’; his 1936 piece ‘Night Mail’ succeeded in this regard, with the ‘short’ film distributed to cinemas where it reached ‘several million Britons’ with whom, Benjamin Britten observed, it ‘[went] down excellently’.353 The final section of the film was a collaboration of social commentary and documentary (directed by Basil Wright and Harry Watt), poetry (by Auden) and music (by Britten), and as such Auden’s ‘Night Mail’ is a simultaneous piece in the manner of gesamtkunstwerk, existing both as written work and aural and visual media, a ‘consummate integration of sight and sound, of words and music’. 354 As visual media, the form in which 1930s audiences primarily experienced the work, the poem is accompanied by a cinematic montage displaying various aspects of the train. The Cubist construct of montage allows polyperspectivism, including changes in perspective from long-distance shots of the train’s exterior juxtaposed to close-ups of wheels or dark interiors, and also a reduction of spatial and temporal locations: the train’s journey from London to Glasgow in the poem is accomplished in less than three minutes. The poem itself is ‘intoned on a single vocal note’, emphasising and complementing the rhythm of the musical accompaniment to which the verse was strictly correlated, but also, typically of Auden, reflecting the non-human nature of the train itself.355 Grierson requested the poem in order to add a ‘human element’ to the piece in the detailing of who received the letters carried by the 352

Osborne, W.H. Auden, p.109; Richard Davenport-Hines, ‘Auden’s life and character’ in The Cambridge Companion to W.H. Auden (ed. by Stan Smith), p.18; Edward Mendelson, Early Auden (London: Faber, 1999), p.282. 353 Richard Davenport-Hines, ‘Auden’s life and character’, p.18; Ian Aitken, Film and Reform: John Grierson and the Documentary Film Movement (Oxon: Routledge, 2014), p.143; Gary Evans, John Grierson: Trailblazer of Documentary Film (Canada: XYZ, 2005), p.42; Donald Mitchell, Britten and Auden in the Thirties (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2000), p.77. 354 Mitchell, Britten and Auden in the Thirties, p.85. 355 Louise Spence & Vinicius Navarro, Crafting Truth: Documentary Form and Meaning (New Jersey: Library of Congress, 2011), p.240; Mitchell, Britten and Auden in the Thirties, p.84; Fuller, W.H. Auden, p.189; Davenport-Hines, Auden, p.144.

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train, his focus throughout the film on ‘the person first and the job second’, yet this conflicts with Auden’s greater personal affinity with machinery.356 Indeed, it is noted that Auden’s contribution is ‘visually at its most […] impersonal’, the poem containing no people to operate the train or spectate, and portraying only ‘pounding machinery and empty landscape’.357 It is the train itself, for example, which is ‘shovelling’ (MEA, p.291) rather than ‘the fireman’s restless arms’ (MEA, p.290); the few awake, identified humans such as a fireman and driver were deleted from the shortened version of the poem used by the film. Thus the human workers seem absorbed into the machine which becomes a beastlike entity, ‘Snorting noisily’ (MEA, p.291), steaming and dominating the rural landscape through which it passes:

Past cotton grass and moorland boulder, Shovelling white steam over her shoulder, Snorting noisily as she passes Silent miles of wind-bent grasses; Birds turn their heads as she approaches, Stare from the bushes at her blank-faced coaches; Sheepdogs cannot turn her course, They slumber on with paws across[.] (MEA, p.291)

Despite the submission of nature to the oncoming train, symbolised by the bowing grass and crossed paws of the dog, it must be noted that nature is not presented as feeling threatened: nature is ‘silent’ and makes no protest. Industrialization, represented by the train, is therefore shown in co-existence with nature; indeed, Auden portrays it as a natural progression, emphasised by antithetic images of a ‘glade of cranes’ and ‘fields of apparatus’ (MEA, p.291), in which machinery contrasts with yet simultaneously becomes nature. The lack of human presence and the presentation of the train as primary subject supports the notion that ‘Trains are much more real to Auden than people’, and that his own natural affinity with machinery encourages him to portray the train as a natural phenomenon rather than a Victorian-style demon.358 In this manner, ‘Night Mail’ reflects the Art Deco agenda of

356

Alan Burton & Steve Chibnall, Historical Dictionary of British Cinema (Plymouth: Scarecrow, 2013), p.313; Richard M. Barsam, Nonfiction Film: A Critical History (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1992), p.96. 357 Kristin Bluemel (ed.), Intermodernism: Literary Culture in Mid-Twentieth-Century Britain (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2011), p.198; Smith (ed.) The Cambridge Companion to W.H. Auden, p.91. 358 Haffenden, W.H. Auden, p.263.

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achieving the ‘end of the contempt directed at the machine’ (a goal which Auden clearly shares), but is contrary to the intended message of the documentary in which it was included, being antithetic to Grierson’s focus on the ‘dignity of labour’ and the worker as hero.359 Nevertheless, the poem is intrinsic to the visual piece which was, as a whole, considered to be ‘innovative, experimental and “avant-garde”’ in a similar vein to contemporary modern artists and to Auden’s other visual work for the Socialist-leaning, experimental Group Theatre. 360 Indeed, ‘Night Mail’ is often referred to as a cinematic work of art, and as such was able to convey messages to viewers in the same way the Art Deco style was disseminated through cinema:361

[Night Mail] is a paradigm of propaganda so intertwined with art that the viewer experiences pleasure while absorbing the message (painlessly, effortlessly, and probably even unconsciously).362

Viewers were therefore simultaneously exposed to conflicting messages in ‘Night Mail’; Grierson’s appreciation of the human worker, and Auden’s love of the machine which reflects an Art Deco element and which Auden promotes through the same media as Art Deco in order to achieve a similar level of widespread acceptance both personally and professionally. As a written work, ‘Night Mail’ in its original, extended state successfully captures the movement of the train without benefit of Britten’s music, beginning with a repeated staccato rhythm to simulate the blow of the conductor’s whistle (‘North, north, north’, MEA, p.290) while the train is stationary. A combination of dactyls and trochees then emulates the rhythm of the train as it begins movement, with terminal rhyme and devices such as alliteration, sibilance and internal rhyme employed to capture increased velocity as the machine accelerates:

This is the night mail crossing the border, Bringing the cheque and the postal order,

359

Arwas, Art Deco, p.21; Joe Nicholas & John Price, Advanced Studies in Media (Cheltenham: Thomas Nelson & Sons, 1998), p.130. 360 Nicholas & Price, Advanced Studies in Media, p.130. 361 Betsy A. McLane, A New History of Documentary Film (London: A&C Black, 2012), p.85; Scott Anthony, Night Mail (London: British Film Institute, 2007), p.84; Forsyth Hardy, Scotland In Film (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1990), p.36; Mendelson, Early Auden, p.282. 362 McLane, A New History of Documentary Film, p.85.

130 Letters for the rich, letters for the poor, The shop at the corner and the girl next door.

Through sparse counties she rampages, Her driver’s eye upon her gages. Panting up past lonely farms, Fed by the fireman’s restless arms. (MEA, p.290) 363

The images in stanza three, including the driver and fireman, exemplify Cubist polyperspectivism in the poem, flicking rapidly between exterior, panoramic images (‘counties’, ‘farms’) and close-ups inside the train (‘driver’s eye’, ‘fireman’s arms’), which in addition to moving around the object also enhances the sense of speed by emulating a flashframe montage. Speed is also implied in adjectives such as ‘Panting’, ‘Rushing’ and ‘Lurching’ (MEA, p.290), and in the use of shorter phrases. Short phrases, repetition and internal rhyme later create a breathlessly frantic pace in stanza six in Auden’s list of letters carried by the train:

Letters of thanks, letters from banks, Letters of joy from the girl and boy, […] And applications for situations, And timid lovers’ declarations, And gossip, gossip from all the nations[,] (MEA, p.291)

which is emphasised by contrast with slower passages such as stanza five, in which Auden uses longer phrases, abandons all devices and uses punctuation that halts the reader:

Down towards Glasgow she descends Towards the steam tugs, yelping down the glade of cranes. Towards the fields of apparatus, the furnaces Set on the dark plain like gigantic chessmen. All Scotland waits for her. (MEA, p.291)

363

The spelling of gauges as ‘gages’ is correct to the edition cited.

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The dash, a literal speed line, is used only once in the poem, in a section in which the train’s speed increases but has not yet reached maximum velocity, and in an image portraying the machine travelling uphill in a moment where maximum speed is impossible: Pulling up Beattock, a steady climb — The gradient’s against her, but she’s on time. (MEA, p.291)

However, the image is linked to the ‘Futurist optimism in technology’ in the train’s uphill struggle and the Futurist obsession with speed pervades the work; thus the use of the dash here, with its connotations of movement at velocity and its connection to Futurist representations of ‘divinity’ through speed, is entirely appropriate.364 In this manner the poem is able to capture and emulate the movement of the train independently of the visual film or aural music score, and thereby reflecting the Art Deco identifiers of movement, transport, Futurism and speed. Other Art Deco elements in the poem include geometric shapes, colours, nature, and references to visual art. As previously identified, the poem contains animals such as birds and dogs, and the extended poem also references horses and salmon. These are not Auden’s usual choice of animals, being neither hawks nor greyhounds nor racehorses with connotations of streamlinism and speed. Rather they are ordinary, unspecified birds, viewing the train from a lateral (and therefore non-superior) perspective instead of the hawk’s aerial view, while the dog is a humble ‘sheepdog’. Auden seems to suggest relationships between the machine and nature even as he deliberately chooses common breeds of animal, against his normal inclinations, in order to emphasise specifically the speed and implied streamlined form of the train. The animals included are therefore more similar to Art Nouveau motifs than Moderne, but nevertheless include the Art Deco identifier of natural elements in the poem. ‘Night Mail’ is also an unusually colourful poem, particularly when both written and visual media presentations of the work are monochrome. True to Auden’s early work, green is associated with natural imagery, in this instance water (‘pale-green sea-lochs’, MEA, p.291), while much of the poem’s imagery also suggests green, with the train set against backgrounds of ‘sparse counties’, ‘lonely farms’, ‘grasses’ and ‘bushes’. Other colours include paper shades in the Art Deco colours of ‘pink, […] violet, […] white and […] blue’ (MEA, p.291). Significantly, this list informs the colour scheme of the word-picture. 364

Nicholas & Price, Advanced Studies in Media, p.130; Marinetti, ‘The New Religion - Morality of Speed’, p.57.

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White is specified in ‘steam’ (MEA, p.291) and ‘linen’ (MEA, p.292); blue is implied in reference to ‘the wild Atlantic’ (MEA, p.291); violet relates to the colour of ‘heather’ (MEA, p.291) while combinations of violet, pink and blue colour the early morning sky (‘dawn overhead’, ‘Dawn freshens’, MEA, p.291). Although both printed and filmed in black and white, the poem clearly includes colours chosen from the Art Deco palette. In addition to simultaneity, polyperspectivism and montage, Cubism also provides the element of geometric shapes in the poem. The word-picture includes arcs in the form of bridges and bent grass, angularity in ‘a distant ridge’ (MEA, p.291), a pattern in the form of a ‘maze’ (MEA, p.291) and, in a description of the Scottish coastline, two triangles:

Yes, this country, whose scribbled coastline traps the wild Atlantic in a maze of stone, And faces Norway with its doubled notches. (MEA, p.291)

The poem also exemplifies Auden’s cyclical writing style in its alternation of focus. The second stanza, for example, introduces the list of letters carried (‘Letters for the rich, letters for the poor’) yet is abruptly abandoned and not continued until stanza six’s breathless rush (‘Letters of thanks, letters from banks’). The initial focus on the train itself (‘This is the night mail crossing the border’) is interrupted by the beginning of this list only to refocus upon the train almost immediately in stanza three, while the train’s gradual increase in velocity is disrupted by a slower passage. This creates Cubist-like fragmentation, and Auden must therefore return to each topic. Fragmentation and spatial disruption is also present as the narrator increasingly widens his perspective to look further afield geographically. Initially located at ‘the border’ between England and Scotland, the poem expands to include both Scottish coastlines, then Norway and France (‘faces Norway’, ‘Letters to Scotland from the South of France’, MEA, p.291) and finally India (‘Indian fibre’, MEA, p.292) as present in Dundee. This latter reference also inserts the Deco element of exoticism into the work. The final Art Deco element of the poem relates to referencing visual art. Two such references appear in a single line in the identification of popular Scottish tea rooms:

Thousands are still asleep Dreaming of terrifying monsters Or a friendly tea beside the band at Cranston’s or Crawford’s[.] (MEA, p.292)

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Both tea rooms have links to visual art in their interior design. In Edinburgh, the artist Robert Burns designed colourful Art Nouveau interiors for D.S. Crawford’s Tea Room in Hanover Street, opened in the 1920s, while several of Cranston’s shops in Glasgow had interiors designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh, whose stylized work influenced Art Deco. 365 In particular the Ingram Street shop featured Art Deco elements such as red and green plastics, mirrored glass and geometric lattice.366 These are therefore direct references to modern decorative artists with connections to Art Deco. A more subtle allusion to visual art may exist in the reference to a jug:

In the farm she passes no one wakes, But a jug in a bedroom gently shakes. (MEA, p.291)

This relates to the inclusion of bar paraphernalia or drinking vessels as a signifier of literary Cubism and commonality between subjects in Cubist literature and painting. In this respect it alludes to work by Picasso and to pieces such as Carafe, Jug and Fruit Bowl (1909) and Pitcher and Bowl of Fruit (1931), the former of which was greatly admired by MacNeice: There was one distorted still-life by Picasso – a jug and a bowl of fruit – which seemed to me especially real, the distortion bringing out the jugness of the jug and the bowlness of the bowl. (MSAF, p.97)

In ‘Night Mail’, Auden has deliberately chosen a jug rather than any other monosyllabic noun such as vase or cup, indicating that he himself considers this object significant. The specific ‘jugness of the jug’ not only references Cubism as a drinking vessel but alludes to this object in paintings, thereby enhancing the fragmentation of the poem. Fragmentation is also achieved by inserting a close-up image of the jug, situated inside a house, amongst a series of outdoor, panoramic shots of the train and countryside. Its mere presence in the poem therefore clearly references both literary Cubism and visual art, specifically by Picasso as admired by both MacNeice and Auden. ‘Night Mail’ is therefore clearly influenced by Art Deco elements, most particularly Cubism through fragmented narrative, polyperspectivism, reference to signifiers of literary 365

Perilla Kinchin, Tea and Taste: The Glasgow Tea Rooms (Dorchester: White Cockade, 1991), p.123; Perilla Kinchin, Taking Tea With Mackintosh: The Story of Miss Cranston’s Tea Rooms (California: Pomegranate, 1998), p.69. 366 Willow Tea Rooms, ‘Mackintosh & Kate Cranston’ (n.d.) [Online. Accessed 04/09/2014].

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Cubism and Picasso paintings, cinematic montage and the simultaneity of the work as both written and visual media. Its role in the GPO film ‘Night Mail’, allied to music, drama and cinema, also represents another attempt at gesamtkunstwerk, being considered a work of art by critics, and draws parallels with the Art Deco style’s politics and methods of dissemination. Auden too wishes to influence through cinema, appeal to the masses, and ameliorate man’s relationship with machinery, all of which relate to aspects of Art Deco throughout its lifetime. Futurism also influences the poem in its accurate capture of movement in static text, and the focus on speed and machinery, while the presence of nature and colours, both rare in Auden’s adult work, are informed by Art Deco motifs. This clearly indicates that ‘Night Mail’, as a work of art, can be regarded as an Art Deco piece. Louis MacNeice, ‘Morning Sun’ (1935) Published in MacNeice’s second collection, Poems (1935), ‘Morning Sun’ demonstrates MacNeice’s use of the sun motif as a connector to his environment, as identified in Chapter One. The first three stanzas portray a city scene vibrant, colourful and ‘reticulated with sun’ (MCP, p.15), presenting a stark contrast to the final stanza in which ‘the sun goes out, the streets go cold’ (MCP, p.15) and the scene is ‘dead’ (MCP, p.15). Note that both sunlit and dark scenes feature death in the form of fish and meat yet he is able to view them more positively in the sunlight. In the sun, symbolic of MacNeice’s happiness and contentment, they are colourful (‘The red butcher’s’, MCP, p.15) and form attractive patterns (‘scrolls of fish’, MCP, p.15), while without they are ‘merely dead’ (MCP, p.15). The themes of death and conflict run throughout the poem. John Whitehead argues that the poem represents an ‘unceasing consciousness of the transience of human life’ and, in conjunction with Longley’s connection of the sun motif to MacNeice’s feelings, this indicates a moment of adjustment in MacNeice’s personal life.367 Critics connect sunlight to the ‘early days’ of his marriage to Mary, a period MacNeice describes as ‘a life where the clocks had been put back or even replaced by sundials’ (MSAF, p.127), and this connection is supported later in Autumn Journal part VIII in which MacNeice himself associates sunlight specifically with his life as a newlywed: 368

Sun shines easy, sun shines gay […] Life was comfortable, life was fine 367 368

Whitehead, A Commentary, p.49. O’Neill & Reeves, Auden, MacNeice, Spender, p.202.

135 With two in a bed and patchwork cushions And checks and tassels on the washing-line, A gramophone, a cat, and the smell of jasmine. The steaks were tender, the films were fun, The walls were striped like a Russian ballet, There were lots of things undone But nobody cared, for the days were early. (MCP, p.117)

The poem’s title also indicates this association: it is specifically a morning sun. However, their relationship has altered by 1935:

Sometimes in the night I woke and wondered where we were going, but most of the time I was doped and happy, most of the time except when I thought about time that most of the time is waste […] Mariette too was recovering from her earlier life; in 1930 all she had wanted was rest but now she was almost rested. (MSAF, p.143)

The ‘going out’ of the sun in the final stanza of ‘Morning Sun’ therefore reflects the status of his marriage, in which he accepts the passion and togetherness has ‘gone out’ and their happiness has waned. It also foreshadows his divorce in December 1935. This poem exemplifies MacNeice’s use of the popular Art Deco sun motif as a gauge of his emotional response to a scene; Birmingham, the city in which the MacNeices made their marital home, becomes ‘cold’ as his marriage disintegrates, and his gradual inability to connect with his surroundings manifests in his frequent travels and relocation to London in 1936. The breakdown of MacNeice’s marriage has several other implications in the poem in addition to the use of the sun. The Nouveau/Deco crossover motif of the fountain is utilised twice, for example, to create contrast. In the sun, the fountain creates ‘silver sprays’ (MCP, p.15) and ‘Rainbow-trellises the air’ (MCP, p.15) while the sunless, ‘dead’ Birmingham is reinforced by a crematorial image of ‘The blown grey powder of the fountain grey as the ash | That forming on a cigarette covers the red’ (MCP, p.15). This imagery also suggests a wound in the use of the colour red; blood is indicated by the ‘red butcher’s’ (MCP, p.15), supported by the reference to red as ‘bull’s blood’ (MCP, p.23) in

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‘Birmingham’. This therefore suggests a personal hurt or injury resulting from the ‘conflict’ expressed in the poem and identified by Longley.369 Conflict in the poem takes several forms and is often expressed through ambiguity, a characteristic of literary Cubism. Combative imagery begins with the simile of ‘the lines of trams like swords’ (MCP, p.15), continuing with two ambiguities. ‘Shot’ suggests a firearm discharged, a crack of sound like a gunshot and, visually, variegation in fabric (‘shot with words’), while ‘Filleted’ refers to ribbons or thin strips of sun in the visual motif of the sunburst (‘Filleted sun streaks the purple mist’, MCP, p.15) but also ambiguously to meat or fish rolled and tied with string (‘scrolls of fish’) and being cut in a certain manner with a knife.370 The image of swords reappears in the form of a fencing metaphor relating to the frustration and aggression of a slow-moving traffic jam, also presenting a paradoxical metaphor of the car as a 'moving cage' which facilitates greater geographical movement yet simultaneously confines personal space: And horns of cars, touché, touché, rapiers’ retort, a moving cage[.] (MCP, p.15)

This line is again ambiguous, presenting imagery of a combative nature in the fencing terms ‘rapier’ and ‘touché’ yet also clearly referencing motorcars and drivers through deliberate word choice; the car company Lagonda launched a miniature sporting model named Rapier in 1933, while the French phrase ‘à touche-touche’, similar to MacNeice’s repetition, means to be bumper to bumper. 371 In this line the ambiguity is several-fold, including MacNeice’s acknowledgment of the conflicts in his marriage in the fighting imagery, and accepting both the ‘hit’ to his feelings and his own responsibility in the situation (‘touché’); the threat of collision between cars (‘touche-touche’) and a driver’s frustrated desire to be further ahead in a queue (‘touché, rapiers’ retort’). Another element of conflict, identified by Longley, is between the aural and visual in the poem.372 ‘Touché, touché’ is an example of this, bringing to mind the imagery both of fencing and jammed cars, but also acting onomatopoeically to evoke the sounds of both images, i.e. the clash of rapiers and the collision of metal bumpers. While devices such as assonance, alliteration, sibilance and internal rhyme provide flowing movement through the 369

Longley, Louis MacNeice, p.14. OED, ‘Shot, v.’ (2014) [Online, Accessed 20/08/2014]; OED, ‘Fillet, n.’ (2014) [Online. Accessed 20/08/2014]; OED, ‘Fillet, v.’ (2014) [Online. Accessed 20/08/2014]. 371 David Culshaw & Peter Horrobin, The Complete Catalogue of British Cars 1895-1975 (Dorchester: Veloce, 2013), p.191; Oxford Dictionaries, ‘touch-touche’ (2014) [Online. Accessed 21/08/2014]. 372 Longley, Louis MacNeice, p.6. 370

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poem and a sense of ‘shine and sound’ (MCP, p.15) for the reader, the piece nevertheless bears relation to visual art. The aural elements of the poem, for example ‘people all in the vocative’, ‘Whistled bars of music’ and ‘horns of cars’, juxtaposed with vivid visual moments indicate that this particular word-picture is imagined as a collage such as Picasso’s Guitar, Sheet Music and Glass (1912). MacNeice indicates this in the poem; sheet music (‘bars of music’), for example, would be placed across (‘crossing’) spray from the fountain, while other media such as newspaper cuttings would allow him to present ‘variegation’ in the morning scene ‘shot with words’. Other Cubist influences in the poem include polyperspectivism and geometric shapes. The word-picture simultaneously portrays the same space in two different temporal locations (sunlit and dark), emphasised by presenting the same elements (fishmonger, butcher, fountain) in contrasting moments. Polyperspectivism is also employed as MacNeice moves around the city, presenting locations such as a train station, town square and an arterial road, but also utilising cinematic-style close-ups of objects situated within those spaces, such as the fountain, posters, fish and cars. The posters further reference modern visual art, forming another element of MacNeice’s collage in addition to the likelihood of them being Art Deco pieces themselves. Posters also represent the Moderne’s emphasis on mass-production in their promotion of modern consumer items and attractions:

Thousands of posters asserting a monopoly of the good, the beautiful, the true [.] (MCP, p.15)

The scene is also composed of shapes such as ‘scrolls’, a lattice-like ‘trellis’, a ‘maze’, and ‘tiers’, all of which are geometric patterns with the last in particular also reflecting the inclusion of tiers as a decorative motif in contemporary art. In addition to the Art Deco elements of the sun, Art Nouveau motifs and Cubism, the poem also incorporates the garçonne, Art Deco colours and materials. Chromium is referenced, not in conjunction with transport as in ‘Birmingham’, but as a shade of yellow, relating not only to Moderne materials but also to the bright shades of the Art Deco palette, which also provides the scene with silver, purple, bright (blood) red, white and blue. The latter colour is associated with transport in the poem:

Shuttles of trains going north, going south, drawing threads of blue, (MCP, p.15)

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which suggests the blue-tinged smoke trailing behind steam trains but also another ‘reticulation’ as several ‘threads’ cross, indicated by their frequent movement (‘shuttle’) in opposite directions. This is supported by the use of the ambiguous ‘shot’ later in the stanza, which can relate to the ‘passage of the shuttle across the web’ in fabric weaving.373 Unlike the ‘touché, touché’ of the cars, the trains are presented in a moment of movement; the trains are ‘going’ with the ‘threads of blue’ indicating movement in a similar manner to the Moderne motif of speed lines. Thus a sense of movement is captured in the word-picture and indicated by the inclusion of the standard aesthetic used to represent speed in visual art. A final element of the Art Deco lifestyle is portrayed in the image of the garçonne:

and the tiptoed feet Of women hurry and falter whose faces are dead[.] (MCP, p.15)

This phrase supports the notion that ‘Morning Sun’ is inspired by his marriage, as the dishonest, sneaky behaviour of this garçonne, indicated by ‘tiptoed feet’ and her ‘hurry’, suggests his wife Mary, whose adultery was cited in their divorce. While Mary did not leave the marital home until November 1935 (LLM, p.257), MacNeice perhaps suspects and distrusts his wife since her adoption of the ‘frisky’ (LLM, p.250) garçonne package in 1934, the use of makeup removing character from her face to leave her looking artificial and ‘dead’. This image is later expanded upon in ‘Eclogue from Iceland’, published both in Letters From Iceland (1937) and his poetry collection The Earth Compels (1938), in the identification of:

compacts, lipstick, eyeshade and coiffures All tributary to the wished ensemble, The carriage of body that belies the soul. (LFI, pp.133-134)

‘Morning Sun’ therefore includes several Art Deco identifiers but is also informed by visual art in terms of content. The poem is not composed similarly to traditional visual art, absent of the vanishing points and fore- and backgrounds detailed in ‘Birmingham’, but clearly implies multi-media collage, to the extent of explicitly indicating where such media might be placed in the word-picture.

373

OED, ‘Shot, n.1.’ (2014) [Online. Accessed 20/08/2014].

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W.H. Auden, ‘Funeral Blues’ (1936) Most recognisable to modern audiences as the eulogy from the 1994 movie Four Weddings and a Funeral, Auden’s lyrics originally appeared in his play The Ascent of F6 as performed by The Group Theatre with music by Benjamin Britten. Modern critics perceive the poem as does Susan Bassnett, as an elegy or Auden’s ‘famous cry of grief’, or consider the lyrics in their original presentation as a blues or jazz cabaret song.374 However, while these two readings are valid and acknowledged there are wider implications in the reframing of the poem in the context of Art Deco which only enhance these previously identified interpretations. The poem begins with the lines:

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone, Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone, Silence the pianos and with muffled drum Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come[,] (MEA, p.163)

immediately utilising one of Auden’s most prolific motifs, the clock. In ‘Funeral Blues’ the clock has several functions. The imperatives listed by Auden in the first stanza are actions one may be able to execute except the first; to stop time. However the clock is more than simply an instrument with which to measure time, indicated by its recurrence in Auden’s poetry, and his knowledge of its symbolism in Lewis Mumford’s eotechnic phase and the beginning of important machinery as later identified in ‘Letter to Lord Byron’. Auden presents not only the madness of grief in his impossible demand, but also conversely acknowledges that machinery, emotionless without the transferred epithets he bestows upon it, and time will both inevitably continue despite his commands. This is conveyed though the circular face and cyclical function of the clock in conjunction with other cyclical events and images such as the drum providing the beat to which the mourners walk, the aeroplanes that ‘circle’, crêpe bows ‘round’ the neck of doves, the moon and sun, and the constant cyclical nature of the compass, days and weeks. Auden’s cyclical motif therefore not only incorporates the Cubist element of geometric shapes through circular imagery and ‘writing in

374

Susan Bassnett, Reflections on Translation (Bristol: Multilingual Matters, 2011), p.164; Scott Hixson, ‘An Explication of a Poem: W. H. Auden's ‘Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone’’, ESSAI, 7 (2009); Annie Finch & Kathrine Varnes (eds.), An Exaltation of Forms: Contemporary Poets Celebrate the Diversity of Their Art (Michigan: The University of Michigan Press, 2001), p.192; Elizabeth Hale Winkler, The Function of Song in Contemporary British Drama (London: Associated University Presses, 1990), p.48.

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circles’ but also acknowledges that the world will continue despite his demands to the contrary. The clock also relates to machinery in the poem, through Auden’s knowledge of Mumford’s work.375 Its place as the dominant, opening image in the poem reflects Mumford’s contention that the clock was the first significant development in machinery, and other machines in the poem (telephone, aeroplane, traffic) are appropriately secondary to this image. Auden clearly has the eotechnic phase in mind as the poem begins and ends with images significant to that phase’s development; the clock as first machine, water as the period’s power-source and wood as the prominent material, utilised in the opening ‘Stop all the clocks’ and in the penultimate line, ‘Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood’.376 In the context of Mumford’s phases Auden’s continued deliberate confusion of the eotechnic and neotechnic timeframes, which shall be explained more thoroughly elsewhere in this thesis, suggests that the development of the world should have ceased prior to the point at which the speaker finds himself, ambiguously stating both the pointlessness of the world having ever existed without the deceased and also a political aspect in which, according to Auden, the current society has ceased to progress for some time. It is noteworthy that, like the clock itself and the concept of time, other machines are still operating and create the Art Deco element of movement. Despite the negative imperatives ‘Stop’, ‘cut off’, ‘Prevent’ and ‘silence’, the image of the aeroplane is captured mid-movement, ‘circl[ing] moaning overhead | Scribbling on the sky’ (MEA, p.163). Indeed, Auden is selective about what must stop to grieve and what may continue to move, as he allows the plane to sky-write with the imperative ‘Let’, although the machine bears the transference of his own grief through its ‘moaning’ and the message he instructs it to write. This too, however, demonstrates that grief will not last forever, as the sky as palimpsest results in an impermanent message. Road traffic is also given permission to continue: the traffic policemen don black gloves to display grief yet Auden does not demand that traffic itself halts. Reference to the profession indicates that the men continue to work and traffic continues to flow. Therefore traffic, in addition to the aeroplane, is captured mid-movement in the manner of Art Deco pieces. The elements of transport in the poem suggest not only movement but also the interwar preoccupation with travel. In addition to transport and the imagery of the compass 375

Mumford’s epochs of civilization (eotechnic, paleotechnic, and neotechnic) and their corresponding developments in technology are examined more thoroughly in Chapter Three, pp,203-204 and p.206. 376 Lewis Mumford, Technics and Civilization (1934. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010), p.77, p.113.

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(‘He was my North, my South, my East, my West’, MEA, p.163), Auden also includes the imperative ‘Pack up’ juxtaposed with the image of ‘The stars’, suggesting navigation and personal travel and foreshadowing Auden’s abandonment of England for America. This is supported by the verse’s function as a theatrical cabaret song in a style inspired, like aspects of Art Deco, by developments in German arts.377 Donald Mitchell states that ‘Funeral Blues’ resembles experimental interwar German theatre which displayed ‘a strong and radical political commitment’, and it can be argued that the lyrics represent Auden’s own political statement, expressing grief at the state of his country (‘nothing now can come to any good’) and his need to separate himself from it.378 Having received the Kings Medal for contributions to poetry in 1937, the year in which The Ascent of F6 was performed, he stated in 1963: F6 was the end. […] I knew I must leave [England] when I wrote it… I knew it because I knew then that if I stayed, I would inevitably become a member of the British establishment.379

The periodical New Verse commented that Auden’s acceptance of the Royal Medal represented a worrying ‘Left penetration into the Right, or into Right esteem’, which is anathema to Auden who, in F6, argues against the establishment.380 Therefore the elements of transport, travel and travel-based imagery and language indicate that ‘Funeral Blues’ is an expression of Auden’s political viewpoint and his intent to travel. The poem read as lyrics set against a mournful jazz piano piece by Benjamin Britten also has several implications. The German cabaret style not only indicates similar sources of inspiration as Art Deco in the influence of continental art, but also highlights the interwar preoccupation with achieving a gesamtkunstwerk. While often read simply as a poem it must not be forgotten that ‘Funeral Blues’ is a lyric, with musical accompaniment, in a dramatic production performed by The Group Theatre, thereby associated with the painter Robert Medley and the dancer Rupert Doone who contributed - according to Michael Roberts - the element of ‘prancing and bad dancing’.381

377 378 379 380 381

Mitchell, Britten and Auden in the Thirties, p.120. Mitchell, Britten and Auden in the Thirties, p.120. Quoted in Tony Sharpe (ed.), W.H. Auden in Context (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), p.45. Geoffrey Grigson, ‘Remarks’, New Verse, 28 (Jan 1938), 14-15 (p.14). Geoffrey Grigson, ‘Poets and the Theatre’, New Verse, 18 (Dec 1935), 2-3 (p.2).

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Copyrighted image

Figure 18: 'Funeral Blues' sheet music. Text by W.H. Auden, music by Benjamin Britten © Faber Music, 1980

The piece as song is played in common time, the piano providing a constant rhythm on the first and third beat of alternate bars to simulate the slow walking speed of a funeral procession dictated by marching drum. An adagio (slow) tempo is ensured by the specification of sixty-nine beats per minute (fig.18). As a poem, however, the slow speed is achieved by long vowel sounds to emulate mourning and regulate the speed at which the words are read, in addition to irregular iambic rhythm. Capital letters in the text (‘He Is Dead’, ‘my North, my South’) attempt correlation between the written text and the song, in which the pianos rest or diminuendo at these points to emphasise the lyrics, yet no correlation

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is possible in the text for the musical equivalent of the last verse in which the singer crescendos into almost incoherent, hysterical exaggeration.382 Rather, 77% of the text is composed of monosyllabic words to create a staccato effect throughout with the expression of grief affected only by phrasing, beginning in short phrases (‘Stop all the clocks’) and culminating in the longest single phrase of the poem ‘For nothing now can ever come to any good’. The increasing length of phrases, however, also dictates reading speed which is encouraged by no other literary devices, the poem being absent of assonance and sibilance for example. The piece is also devoid of the dash, speed being inappropriate for the subject of this word-picture, and instead a colon influences the flow of reading, bringing it to the temporary stop the speaker wishes for the world. Thus while the piece is not associated with speed it nevertheless contains movement in its association with music, captures movement in its emulation of a funeral procession, in reference to moving transport, and in the rhythm of language. Donald Mitchell notes that two versions of the song were produced, one for dramatic chorus with ‘two pianos and percussion’ and one as ‘solo’ retaining a single piano accompaniment, thus the line ‘Silence the pianos’ (LFI, p.163) indicates a further example of Auden as ambiguous, self-aware and self-critical bricoleur (discussed in Chapter Three).383 The plural ‘pianos’ references the original presentation of the song in F6, indicating selfawareness, while the imperative ‘Stop the pianos’ suggests both refraining from the gaiety associated with jazz in order to mourn in the word-picture and also halting the musical accompaniment in the real-world presentation. The pianos, however, are essential for the piece’s function as cabaret song; to stop them deconstructs the piece and separates lyric from music, and lyric becomes poetry. This line is the command of a bricoleur: Auden wishes to disassemble the piece and disassociate the poem from music, which he does by revising, renaming, and publishing the piece as poetry in later works. Indeed, to today’s audiences recordings of the piece as a cabaret song are rare and the poem is known variously as ‘Funeral Blues’, ‘F6 Blues’ and by its first line.384 The piece as cabaret song also allies to another element of Cubism through simultaneity. Mitchell argues that the grief and overwhelming sadness of the lyrics contrast 382

Comments based upon recorded video performances by Della Johnson and Alexia Mankovskaya. Please see: Youtube.com, ‘Benjamin Britten: Funeral Blues (from Cabaret Songs) – Della Jones’ [Online. Accessed 06/04/2014]; Youtube.com, ‘‘Funeral Blues’ by W.H. Auden, Benjamin Britten – Alexia Mankovskaya’ [Online. Accessed 06/04/2014]. 383 Mitchell, Britten and Auden in the Thirties, p.122. 384 Mitchell, Britten and Auden in the Thirties, p.122; Winkler, The Function of Song in Contemporary British Drama, p.48; Smith, The Cambridge Companion to W.H. Auden, p.131.

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with the ‘triviality’ of popular entertainments such as cabaret, and that the characteristics of each are emphasised in their juxtaposition:

the feelings proper to the cabaret song and the funeral dirge are experienced simultaneously through the unifying agency of the music; and it is the disturbing simultaneity of the experience that is primarily responsible for the powerful impact the ensemble makes.385

The simultaneous and polyperspective nature of the piece, the latter expressed through the poem’s dual service as entertainment and elegy, therefore indicate the presence of Cubism in the poem. So too do changes in perspective throughout the lyrics. The poem begins in the speaker’s immediate environment, suggested by household and interior items such as clocks, telephones and pianos, while the second stanza looks further away to the local exterior (a plane overhead, traffic policeman). The third stanza, however, suggests that the speaker’s grief should expand into a worldwide phenomenon by citing cyclical elements that are experienced by all irrespective of geographical location (cardinal directions, days and weeks) yet the repetition of ‘my’ indicates a simultaneous return of perspective to the speaker’s immediate self. Finally, the last stanza affects the whole universe:

The stars are not wanted now; put out every one. Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun. (MEA, p.163)

Reference to the moon and sun not only adds the Art Deco element of nature but also indicates that the speaker’s perspective has widened from personal to universal, emphasised by interspersed images of closer events such as crêpe bows, talk and song. While ‘Funeral Blues’ is predominantly perceived as an elegy or cabaret song, it is clear that contextualising the piece in terms of Art Deco adds new dimensions such as the aspect of Cubist polyperspectivism to express grief and the perception of the piece as a simultaneous experience, in addition to the element of geometric shapes in imagery and in cyclical writing. The piece also contains the Art Deco element of machinery in reference to Mumford’s phases and transport, and presents in its imagery the interwar preoccupation with personal movement through travel. These Art Deco elements emphasise Auden’s unique location in time and space, contrasting the contemporary with the traditional form and 385

Mitchell, Britten and Auden in the Thirties, p.122.

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‘resurgent trope’ of the elegy.386 The piece as song represents an attempt by Auden to achieve a gesamtkunstwerk in the manner of other artists significant to Art Deco, such as the Ballets Russes, and also emulates other avant-garde developments in modern arts during the period. Thus while not containing every characteristic of Art Deco, ‘Funeral Blues’ is arguably allied to the style through its inspirations, execution as both poem and song, composition and the various signifiers of Art Deco identified in its content. Louis MacNeice, ‘Passage Steamer’ (1936) and W.H. Auden, ‘Passenger Shanty’ (1938) Written eighteen months apart, both MacNeice’s ‘Passage Steamer’ and Auden’s ‘Passenger Shanty’ focus upon the experience of travel at sea, an experience promoted strongly in Art Deco motifs and architecture. Both poems contain a political element, presented by MacNeice as the narrator’s own sentiments on the voyage in contrast to Auden’s observations on fellow passengers, and in the context of Art Deco convey the signifiers of Cubist simultaneity, the capture of movement and the preoccupation with machinery in the form of the ship itself. Published in the collection The Earth Compels (1938), ‘Passage Steamer’ was written in 1936 following MacNeice’s visit to Iceland with Auden, during which both writers considered the state of European politics and their resulting disillusionment which dominates much of their book Letters From Iceland (1937). It is presumably the recent journey to and from Iceland, coupled with remembered voyages in his youth such as his tedious trip to Norway with his father (MSAF, p.116), which inspired ‘Passage Steamer’ and its negative, foreboding tone. In contrast, Auden’s ‘Passenger Shanty’ is jaunty in its satire, set to the tune ‘Mademoiselle From Armentières’ which was a song popular amongst soldiers of the First World War with its various bawdy verses and lyrics criticising the government.387 A lesscritical version was recorded in 1915 by the stage actor Jack Charman and the song remained in public consciousness after the War, inspiring the title of a 1926 war movie; thus the connotations of war in connection with the song are inescapable and resonate in Auden’s use of the song for his poem, written aboard the French liner Aramis on his journey to the SinoJapanese War.388 Auden’s choice of basing his poem upon ‘Mademoiselle From Armentières’ has several implications with regard to Art Deco. First, although the poem has no accompanying 386

Iain Twiddy, Pastoral Elegy in Contemporary British and Irish Poetry (London: Continuum, 2012), p.151. Michael Duffy, ‘Vintage Audio – Mademoiselle From Armentieres’, First World War.com (22/08/2009) [Online. Accessed 14/09/2009]. 388 Osborne, W.H. Auden, p.149. 387

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sheet music it is nevertheless strongly connected to an identifiable melody, thus similarly to ‘Funeral Blues’ the poem is able to function simultaneously as both song and satirical poem. Secondly, the song dictates the rhythm of the poem, which is constant but not influenced by or reflective of the mode of transport unlike MacNeice’s ‘Passage Steamer’, yet bears connotations of movement in its historical use as a song performed by soldiers in transit. Thirdly, the Great War is again proved an inspiration common to both Art Deco and Auden and finally, the use of the song represents Cubist simultaneity in the reduction of temporal distance. Here the Great War song is utilised to present snapshots of 1930s life in addition to suggesting the ‘continuous present’ in terms of significant conflict, connecting the Great War to recent warfare in Spain, Abyssinia and China and also the foreshadow of war in Europe. The threat of war is also a concern in MacNeice’s ‘Passage Steamer’, an awareness of developing conflicts expressed in a similar manner to Auden in the use of Cubist simultaneity, almost paraphrasing Eliot’s concept of the ‘continuous present’: The gulls that bank around the mast Insinuate that nothing we pass is past, That all our beginnings were long since begun. (MCP, p.62)

War is also indicated by the ‘gulls that bank’, referencing the aeronautical term for the ‘lateral inclination’ of a plane when turning and suggesting the First World War’s induction of the aeroplane into a military context.389 The reference to Assyria (‘The great cranks plod with their Assyrian feet’, MCP, p.62) is also simultaneous, indicative of war and implies the capture of movement. The Assyrians were famous for their highly-organised, tactical war campaigns in pursuit of empire yet the civilization fell before the advent of Christianity; MacNeice employs simultaneity by referring to Assyria in the present tense and, in the form of cranks, waging a very real war against the ship’s engine-room workers:390

But down the ladder in the engine-room (Doom, doom, doom, doom) (MCP, p.62)

The ambiguous ‘doom’ is not only onomatopoeic with regard to engine-room cranks but also suggests the hazardous working conditions, danger and foreboding, while additionally 389

OED, ‘Bank, n.’ (2014) [Online. Accessed 03/06/2014]. Adrian Gilbert (ed.), Encyclopedia of Warfare: From The Earliest Times to the Present Day (London: Fitzroy Dearborn, 2000), p.14. 390

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providing the Assyrian imagery with a ‘monotonous’ (MCP, p.62) beat to suggest the marching of armies both historically and in the present. The sense of approaching danger in Europe is emphasised by MacNeice’s change of perspective in the last stanza from the bowels of the ship to a panorama of the wider sea and sky:

The barren skies from wall to wall Appal, appal, pall, pall, The spray no longer gilds the wave, The sea looks nothing more nor less than a grave[.] (MCP, p.63)

The imagery here foreshadows death and destruction in lands across the sea and explicitly predicts loss of life (‘barren’, ‘pall’, ‘grave’), again linking content to war. The setting of the steamer in this context thus reminds the reader of the changing role of seagoing vessels during wartime: the ‘Assyrian’ engines imply the vessel itself will go to war as passenger liners did in World War One, having become warships and hospitals. This was indeed the fate of Auden’s French ship Aramis, which was seized by Japan during World War II and inducted into military service as Teia Maru.391 The ‘monotonous’ cranks provide rhythm to the poem in the simulation of human ‘Assyrian’ marching, the ‘energy of the sea’ (MCP, p.62) or repetitious mechanical action, indicating that the passage steamer is described in a moment of movement. The motion of the waves and action of the cranks is replicated in text as a series of spondees (‘Doom, doom, doom, doom’, ‘None, none, none, none’, (MCP, p.62). This in turn suggests parallels between the composition of ‘Passage Steamer’ and Lord Byron’s poem ‘The Destruction of Sennacherib’ (1815), also inspired by Assyrian history as related in the Bible and in which the rhythm of horsemen riding into battle is reflected in anapaestic tetrameter: The Assyrian came down like a wolf on the fold, And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold; And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea, When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee.392

391

E.D. Gardner, ‘Internees’ Release: British Next Time’, Sydney Morning Herald, 10 October 1943, p.6. Baron George Gordon Byron, The Poetical Works of Lord Byron: Vol. II (Boston: James R. Osgood, 1871), p.199. 392

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MacNeice’s incorporation of similar images to Byron, such as the sea, waves and Assyria, and capturing the rhythm of the transport taken into battle suggest another example of simultaneity by alluding to Byron’s poem in the manner of poetic tradition.393 Thus MacNeice uses the Cubist technique of simultaneity to draw inspiration from several temporal locations at once, and in combining the Art Deco themes of the ancient and exotic, travel, transport, war and the capture of movement expresses a moment that reflects MacNeice’s own location in time and space. MacNeice as passenger is absent in the poem. Only two lines refer to the passenger experience, from which MacNeice separates himself through the use of the pronoun ‘they’:

Upon the decks they take beef tea Who are so free, so free, so free (MCP, p.62)

In contrast, Auden expresses his own experience of the journey which, rather than beef tea, was greatly improved by alcohol: It’s the engineers who run the ship And the stewards who bring us our tots to sip Without which we’d never get through the trip. (MEA, p.234)

This alludes to a specific aspect of life on board interwar liners, in which first-class passengers were provided with a surfeit of personal servants and stewards to accommodate their every wish. Cunard’s Queen Mary, for example, carried over a thousand crew members, 62% of whom were tasked solely in attending to the first-class passengers’ comfort, inspiring Auden to reflect the focus of staff on élite passengers rather than the function or care-taking of the ship in the naming of his shanty after the passengers rather than the sea.394 The use of ‘which’ rather than ‘whom’, however, indicates the importance Auden attributes to the staff; they are less so than the luxurious commodities they deliver. Thus in contrast to MacNeice Auden allies himself directly with the other thoughtless, materialistic, self-absorbed élite passengers on his ship, emphasised by the use of ‘us’ and ‘we’. MacNeice’s poem is perhaps more concerned with war than it is about the ‘Passage Steamer’ itself; very little is said regarding passengers, crew or the experience of travel on an 393 394

Byron's poem was a favourite piece for recitation in schools, probably because of its insistent rhythm. Ian Dear, Great Ocean Liners: The Heyday of Luxury Travel (London: B. T. Batsford, 1991), p.24.

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ocean liner, only that they are portrayed in a moment of transit both personally and politically. The poem therefore includes the Art Deco element of travel, the period’s preoccupation with personal movement expressed in the lines:

Back from a journey I require Some new desire, desire, desire But I find in the open sea and sun None, none, none, none[.] (MCP, p.62)

These lines indicate that ‘a journey’ is the primary ‘desire’ of the speaker; he is returning from a trip overseas (‘Back from a journey’) yet can think of no better ‘new desire’ to replace this pastime and already anticipates another voyage (‘you, my dear, | Who were so near’, MCP, p.63). As he states in The Strings Are False, ‘Travel! Travel must be “experience” at its highest’ (MSAF, p.235). This sentiment is echoed in Auden’s ‘The Voyage’ (1938), which precedes ‘Passenger Shanty’ and also ruminates on the interwar preoccupation with travel described as the ‘heart’ (MEA, p.231) of the traveller and the envy of those who remain on land:

Where does the journey look which the watcher upon the quay, Standing under his evil star, so bitterly envies? (MEA, p.231)

Auden, like MacNeice, concludes that travel is undertaken for travel’s sake in this period; that the taking of a journey is equally as significant as the destination, that the ‘heart’ or ‘desire’ to travel will never be satisfied, and will shun moments of stasis ‘where the heart cannot act’ (MEA, p.231) in its quest for constant movement. This is reflected in domestic Moderne architecture, promoting travel to anywhere ‘other’ in ship-like façades and the illusion of movement even on land, which is antithetic to the house’s function as a place of rest and stasis. The ‘thirties traveller therefore ‘does not want to arrive’ (MEA, p.231), the need to remain in motion like an unshakeable ‘fever’ (MEA, p.231). Indeed, Auden was to comment of his journey on Aramis that ‘Beneath our conversation, our eating, our thoughts, the engines throb, deep down, like a fever. This voyage is our illness’ (APTB, p.451), suggesting an early reference to the colloquial ‘travel bug’ as caught by interwar British culture and portrayed in Art Deco idioms, recognised by both Auden and MacNeice.

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Having explained why the passengers are aboard in ‘The Voyage’ and provided a general overview of life on the liner in ‘The Ship’ (‘It is our culture that with such calm progresses | Over the barren plains of a sea’, MEA, p.232), Auden chooses to caricature a selection of his fellow passengers in ‘Passenger Shanty’. It is appropriate for Auden to present this particular comical word-picture of real passengers in this way as he states in Letters From Iceland that caricatures are his ‘favourite kind of picture’ (LFI, p.123). Depicting each character individually in a stanza of their own is reminiscent of the caricaturist Max Beerbohm who was famous for single-figure drawings, particularly of public figures such as ‘poets, painters, novelists, actors, politicians, royals, artists, critics, journalists, and other notabilities – including himself’.395 Similar figures also appear in ‘Passenger Shanty’, including doctors, businessmen, starlets, planters, the photo-journalist Robert Capa and Auden’s companion to China, the writer Christopher Isherwood. Auden also caricatures himself, expounding on love and displaying hypocrisy in his description of ‘matelots’ who he discards as useless but who also provide him with the liquor ‘Without which we’d never get through the trip’ (MEA, p.234). This further indicates a connection between visual art and Auden’s choices of inspiration. As a snapshot of interwar British leisure, ‘Passenger Shanty’ contains several Art Deco identifiers in addition to the overall themes of travel and transport. These include reference to the Ballets Russes, garçonnes, the sun cult, jazz and interwar leisure, and Cubism. As explained in Chapter One, the theme of travel is intrinsically connected to the pursuit of the sun. This is reflected in the poem in the opening stanza:

She left Marseilles at a quarter-to-one For the China War and the tropical sun (MEA, p.233)

This indicates the purpose of travel: while Auden and Isherwood (and eventually MS Aramis herself) are journeying to participate in the Sino-Japanese War, most of the passengers are pleasure cruising to hotter climes to obtain the benefits of sun exposure as promoted in Art Deco idioms. The health benefits of the sun are emphasised by the poem’s single reference to tanned skin, a strived-for appearance which is attributed to the Siamese doctor, further connecting the sun to good physical health. The Malaysian planter also promotes outdoor 395

J.G. Riewald, Max Beerbohm’s Mischievous Wit: A Literary Entertainment (Assen, The Netherlands: Van Gorcum, 2000), p.69.

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pursuits such as ‘rugger’ and ‘cricket’ (MEA, p.233) in spring and summer months, maximising exposure to the sun and, he suggests, obtaining a further benefit in an increased sex drive. Cubism in the poem takes several forms, in addition to the simultaneity of the poem as song. Ambiguity, for example, occurs early in the poem in the comment that, in Auden’s opinion, some of the passengers are ‘fool[s]’ or ‘beast[s]’ and ‘ought to go west, but [are] bound for the East’ (MEA, p.233). This refers not only to geographical navigation, the ship’s current direction of travel and its ultimate destination in China, but also suggests that some passengers may be more suited to Western life in terms of cultural differences and, more sinisterly, that they should cease to exist entirely through disappearance or death, meanings developed during the First World War.396 The poem also frequently includes words or phrases from other languages. The poem begins:

The ship weighed twenty thousand ton Parlez-vous (MEA, p.233)

and ends:

The sea is blau, the sea is tief Parlez-vous C’est le cimetière du Château d’If No doubt. But it’s dull beyond belief. Inky-pink-parlez-vous[,] (MEA, p.234)

incorporating both French and German languages. This suggests previous travel – the achievement of personal geographical movement as promoted by Art Deco motifs - but also implies movement through various spaces in historical literary locations in its homage to T.S. Eliot and Ezra Pound, who both included foreign languages in their work. This is also suggested by the phrase ‘C’est le cimetière du Château d’If’, referencing the 16th century fortress-cum-prison used as the setting of Alexandre Dumas’s character Edmond Dantès’ incarceration in The Count of Monte Cristo (1844), from which Auden borrows the line (‘La mer est le cimetière du Château d’If’).397 The Château is located within a mile of Auden’s

396 397

OED, ‘West.’ (2011) [Online. Accessed 17/06/2014]. Alexandre Dumas, Le Comte de Monte-Cristo (Paris: Au Bureau de l’Echo des Feuilletons, 1849), p.150.

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route from Marseilles on MS Aramis, indicating Auden’s awareness of temporal and spatial locations in his use of the reference and their relationship to himself on his geographical and literary journey. Foreign languages in the poem also interrupt the narrative, fragmenting the pattern to suggest perspectives ‘other’ than the English Auden’s. Fragmentation and polyperspectivism are hallmarks of Cubism, in addition to reference to real-world songs (‘Mademoiselle From Armentières’) and conversations. The poem contains several snippets of real-life conversations in which Auden and Isherwood engaged with fellow passengers on the ship, including comments for example by Alphonse the political student (‘France may go left, but Annam may not’, MEA, p.233), Mrs. Jackson the armchair astrologer on her husband’s sexual orientation (‘Your horoscope’s queer and I don’t like its look’, MEA, p.233) and even Auden himself (‘Love is exceedingly rare’, MEA, p.234). While the quotations in the poem may be inaccurate they are nonetheless based upon interactions with real people; ‘Mr. Jackson [who] buys rubber and sells it again’ (MEA, p.233), for example, appears as ‘Mr. Potter’ in Isherwood’s account of the trip, which claims that later this passenger disembarked in the company of the Malaysian-based male ‘planter’ (MEA, p.233), confirming the suspicions of ‘Mrs. Jackson’ and her horoscope.398 Including real-world conversation and songs, fragmentation in the form of foreign languages, ambiguity, polyperspectivism and simultaneity in the poem thereby suggests the Cubist influence on Auden’s work. The geographical location of the ship near Marseilles Bay goes some way to explaining the use of French words in the poem such as ‘matelots and mousses’ (MEA, p.234), beginning a rhyme which allows Auden to incorporate another Art Deco identifier:

The beautiful matelots and mousses Would be no disgrace to the Ballets Russes, But I can’t see their presence is very much use. (MEA, p.234)

This stanza, describing ‘sailors and bits of fluff’ circulating on deck, is again ambiguous as ‘matelots’ may refer not only to sailors or the ship’s stewards as previously discussed, but also to nautical styles of clothing and, etymologically, to a ‘hammock

398

Fuller, W.H. Auden, p.301; Christopher Isherwood, Christopher and His Kind (1976. London: Vintage, 2012), p.305.

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companion’.399 Their perceived ‘uselessness’ indicates that these ‘matelots’ are not crew, in turn suggesting passengers wearing nautical-themed clothing and perhaps forming casual sexual relationships. Thus Auden’s deck scene begins to resemble the Ballets Russes production Le Train Bleu, portraying an elite section of society at an expensive holiday location playing sports, displaying their bodies in fashionable leisure-wear and seeking sexual liaisons with abandon (fig.19). The ballet’s ‘flappers and athletes, sun-worshipping tarts and gigolos’ become Auden’s ‘beautiful matelots and mousses’; this indicates Auden’s awareness of the similarity in setting between his poem and the ballet but also attributes balletic grace to the postures of the chic, carefree yet sexually promiscuous passengers in his word-picture, presenting the scene as a postcard similar to the directions of the ballet.400

Copyrighted image

Figure 19: The Ballets Russes’ Le Train Bleu (1924) © Bibliothèque nationale de France This 1920s ballet featured costumes by Coco Chanel, a libretto by Jean Cocteau and reflected several aspects of the Art Deco lifestyle. It also influenced modern fashions in its turn. Discussed on pages 66, 153, 169 and 200.

399 400

OED, ‘Matelot, n. and adj.’ (2014) [Online. Accessed 27/04/2014]. Garafola, Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, pp.108-109.

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The poem makes several references to sexual promiscuity but, in contrast to MacNeice, regarding the behaviour of men rather than women. The Malaysian planter, for example, ‘feel[s] starved for sex at the end of the day’ (MEA, p.233) while Capa the photojournalist makes a pastime of pinching ladies’ bottoms; the Siamese doctor in turn ‘cures V.D.’ (MEA, p.234), indicating sexual infections resulting from such license. Auden also suggests that the characters Mr. Jackson and Alphonse may enjoy homosexual relationships: Alphonse ‘waggles his bot’ (MEA, p.233) in a suggestive manner while Mr. Jackson’s future is determined as ‘queer’ (MEA, p.233), indicating that his marriage may be similar in nature to Auden’s own. A recent change in sexual politics, the reckless risk-taking behaviour of the interwar generation and the period’s attraction to jazz are also indicated in Auden’s description of the only family in the poem:

The idiot child stole a cigarette; The father looks at his wife with regret And thinks of that night at the Bal Musette. (MEA, p.234)

Bal musette refers to a type of Paris dance hall or nightclub developed during the interwar period. Lured by the danger and excitement of socialising with the poor and ‘neighbourhood toughs’ in working-class areas of Paris, such clubs became popular with the upper classes to the extent of attracting celebrities including Arletty, Rita Hayworth, Gregory Peck and Marlene Dietrich after World War Two, and played a variety of music including traditional folk and American jazz.401 Thus Auden’s reference to ‘Bal Musette’ suggests the new interwar leisure pastime of dancing to jazz, the carefree and reckless pursuit of pleasure, and the new sexual interaction between previously separated social classes. This last is indicated by the father’s ‘regret’ at having met his wife in a reckless moment at a bal musette; his son’s ‘idiocy’, he believes, must be the fault of his socially inferior wife, whose working-class background has seemingly tainted his child with undesirable habits and, to his mind, substandard intelligence. As discussed in Chapter One, women on the ship are portrayed in an unflattering manner and in animalistic terms, yet it is implied that ‘The belle of the boat-deck’ and ‘Her

401

Michael Dregni, Django: the life and music of a Gypsy legend (New York: Oxford University Press USA, 2006), p.19; Anna Czekanowska, Ursula Hemetek and others (eds.), Manifold Identities: Studies on Music and Minorities (Amersham: Cambridge Scholars Press, 2004), pp.151-152.

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rival’ (MEA, p.233) are garçonnes, the epitome of the interwar new woman. The ‘belle’, Auden remarks:

models her face upon Ta Beauté And her eyebrows are shifted every day. (MEA, p.233)

This suggests the female preoccupation with a fashionable appearance and the use of cosmetics: her eyebrows ‘shift’ as they are pencilled on daily, yet the image is comic, ridiculous, and conveys Auden’s distaste of women in general. This is emphasised by the animalistic terms used to describe the women in addition to their namelessness. It also highlights Auden’s own sexual preference: he does not remark upon the flirtatiousness or forwardness of garçonnes as MacNeice does throughout his work because he himself is immune to such advances. Despite this, however, Auden clearly recognises the garçonne as an interwar phenomenon: similar to MacNeice’s opinion the women are portrayed as artificial, overusing cosmetics and assuming loud, attention-seeking behaviour, for example in laughing ‘like a jay’ (MEA, p.233). The changing female figure becoming more streamlined and less curvaceous is also referenced in Auden’s asexual comment that their ‘buste […] has been flattened’ (MEA, p.233), but this again is presented in a series of unflattering similes and shows Auden’s dismissive attitude towards women. Nevertheless it is clear from the brief descriptions that the females on board MS Aramis represent the garçonne. While both MacNeice’s ‘Passage Steamer’ and Auden’s ‘Passenger Shanty’ share a common setting and subject, the composition and focus of the poems differ in a variety of ways. It is clear, however, that Art Deco elements are expressed in both. Both poems are concerned with moments of travel to and from hotter climates as promoted in Art Deco motifs, and while MacNeice includes the identifier of machinery and the accurate capture of movement, Auden’s poem relies upon simultaneity to imply movement. Both are influenced by Cubist techniques, including simultaneity, polyperspectivism, the continuous present and ambiguity, while ‘Passenger Shanty’ also incorporates fragmentation and real-world content. The simultaneity of the continuous present often relates in both poems to the condition of wars past, present and future, but implies World War One as a primary source of inspiration. In addition, ‘Passenger Shanty’ references the Ballets Russes, the garçonne, the sun cult, jazz music and interwar leisure, and attempts to imitate the style of the visual artist Max Beerbohm in the presentation of caricature. This last strongly indicates that visual art greatly

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influences and inspires Auden, and complements the various Art Deco identifiers located in the poems.

This selection of poems, although small, indicates the high level of influence exerted upon the worldview of Auden and MacNeice by interwar visual art. Cubism seems to have influenced both writers in a variety of significant ways through literature, visual art and the cinema, and there is a clear correlation between sources of inspiration to both the Art Deco style and Auden and MacNeice, such as World War I, Egyptology, the sun cult, transport, polyperspectivism and political aspects such as mass appeal. Several works by Auden in particular further demonstrates his personal preoccupation with gesamtkunstwerk through their simultaneous role as multi-media pieces. The relationship between Art Deco and both writers as explored in this chapter is therefore undeniable, and I posit that the pieces examined here are no less Cubist than Eliot, and equally as representative of the Art Deco style as any of Cassandre’s posters or the interior of Leicester Square’s Odeon. However, to fully reclassify Auden and MacNeice as ‘Art Deco’ artists it is necessary to examine prose in addition to poetry, for which I will examine their co-authored work Letters From Iceland (1937).

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CHAPTER THREE: LETTERS FROM ICELAND (1937)

In June 1936, W.H. Auden journeyed alone to Iceland to begin gathering inspiration for a travel book commissioned by his publisher, Faber & Faber. After six weeks he was joined by friends, first Louis MacNeice who would also contribute to the book, and later by a party from Bryanston School including his friend and previous Downs School pupil, Michael Yates.402 Critics highlight several reasons why Auden found himself in Iceland. These include his own affinity with the country through a belief in Norse ancestry and appreciation for the sagas since childhood; an opportunity to join an excursion to Iceland already planned by Bryanston School, related to him by Yates during a visit that summer; and the simple desire, as with all vacationers, to escape one’s everyday life, the trip, according to Tony Sharpe, ‘initiated […] in a holiday spirit’.403 Whatever the motivation it is accepted that the book was commissioned on Auden’s suggestion. Escape is also the motivation of MacNeice on the trip. In winter 1935, MacNeice suffered the breakup of his marriage to Mary and, in 1936, began to feel dissatisfied with his status in life. The Iceland trip represented an opportunity to separate himself physically and geographically from the situation and re-evaluate, as he wrote to Anthony Blunt on 3rd August, the day before departure, that:

this house for the first time ever is entirely empty except for me so I have been playing ancient dance records & walking up & down through all the rooms which are all much too reminiscent so that I am glad to be leaving them. On Tuesday I go to Iceland & that will be the end of an epoch. (LLM, p.269)

To MacNeice, Iceland would be associated forever with a defining moment of change in his life, as he later wrote in The Strings Are False: Birmingham had now begun to irk me. […] I accepted a post at Bedford College for Women in London, then went off to Iceland to join Wystan and collaborate with him in a travel book. (MSAF, p.164)

402

Osborne, W.H. Auden, p.120. Peter H. Salus, ‘Englishing the Edda’ in Comparative Criticism: A Yearbook, Volume 1 (ed. by E.S. Shaffer. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979), p.141; Davenport-Hines, Auden, p.16; Sharpe (ed.), W.H. Auden, pp.52-53; Osborne, W.H. Auden, p.120. 403

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This sense of distancing oneself, reflection and separation from both personal and political situations in Europe pervades much of the book. James Wilson states that: Auden and MacNeice […] seem to insist that we embrace their book precisely because it is less than the sum of its parts, and to speak of it as an artistic whole risks taking seriously what was not seriously intended[.]404

Regardless of the writers’ intentions, the work’s relationship to the period’s visual art indicates that Letters must indeed be seriously considered as an artistic whole, and as a sum of its parts the book undoubtedly contains every defining characteristic of the Art Deco style, suggesting that the work presents more to the modern reader than has previously been perceived. Art Deco signifiers include elements of nature, dancers and references to the Ballets Russes, colours from the Art Deco palette, modern architecture and materials, the garçonne, cinema, transport and, of course, travel. The capture of movement is represented in the raison d’être of the book: an account of the writers’ movements to and around Iceland presented as a travelogue. Much of the book is allied to the early Jazz expression of Deco through Cubism, including geometric shapes, polyperspectivism, and simultaneity in the use of the continuous present, and certain elements bear close relationship to visual artistic practices. These characteristics and their relationship to contemporary avant-garde art have gone without notice in previous critiques of the book, and evidence of their significance will be discussed below.

Cubist Influences The element of Cubism is employed from the beginning of the book, in Auden’s ‘Letter to Lord Byron Part I’. Although this poem shall be discussed in more depth elsewhere, it is significant to the identification of the book as an Art Deco piece in its continued use of Cubist devices and motifs. These include the continuous present, represented through the reduction of temporal distance by Auden’s addressing a long-dead poet in present tense; the inclusion of real-world conversation and quotations; and references to geometric shapes and Cubist techniques such as montage. The aspect of polyperspectivism 404

James Matthew Wilson, ‘Explaining the Modernist Joke: W.H. Auden, Louis MacNeice and Letters From Iceland’, Contemporary Poetry Review (01/10/2007) [Online. Accessed 09/10/2014].

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is also found in Letters as the Iceland trip as a single subject is presented from two perspectives, those of Auden and MacNeice, and the book includes several examples of the same event recurring yet portrayed from a different viewpoint. One such event is the excursion to Arnarvatn Heath: Auden relates this under the category ‘places to visit’ (LFI, p.25) as ‘the rock where | An outlaw dreaded the dark’ (LFI, p.26) while MacNeice provides much greater detail of the spot and the ‘outlaw’ by setting his chapter ‘Eclogue From Iceland’ in this location. Later, in montage-form Auden writes in ‘Letter to William Coldstream, Esq.’ that:405

I woke in the night to hear Louis vomiting Something like a ship siren And I played ‘O Isis and Osiris’ on the harmonium next day […] And the soup they gave us the last day tasted of hair oil [.] (LFI, p.225)

The information is presented in a realistic, warts-and-all manner here appropriate for the recipient, William Coldstream, who was a naturalist and realist painter. Yet the polyperspectivism of Cubism is also evident as MacNeice’s account of this same event is slightly different. He chooses, unlike Auden, to ‘spare you the details of my symptoms’ (LFI, p.177) regarding his illness, and states that on one particular evening Auden (identified as Maisie in this chapter) played the piano and not a harmonium. MacNeice stresses this detail by remarking that ‘it is very unusual to have a piano and not a harmonium’ (LFI, p.183). His opinion of the soup, however, matches Auden’s:

The Icelanders when they want to give you a special treat put brilliantine in their soup or else flavour it perniciously with almond. (LFI, p.183)

Yet even here the accounts do not perfectly align, as MacNeice writes that the piano-playing and soup took place on the same evening, while Auden’s use of ‘next day’ and ‘last day’ presents the same events as a series in a differing timescale, suggesting the Cubist aspect of distortion in their overall presentation of the trip. 405

Sir William Coldstream (1908-1987) was a British Realist and naturalist painter who based his paintings on careful measurement. In 1934 he joined the GPO Film Unit due to his ‘concern about the role of the artist in society’, working with John Grierson, Auden and Benjamin Britten. In 1937 he founded the Euston Road School of painting, reacting against avant-garde styles and advocating leftwing politics and ‘politically charged subject matter in a realist manner’ (Honeywell: 45). For a more detailed discussion of Coldstream’s artistic style and life, please see Tate Online, ‘Sir William Coldstream’ [Online] and B. Laughton, The Euston Road School (1986).

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Differing perspectives are also evident elsewhere, for example in accounts of cardplaying during the trip. In the chapter ‘Hetty to Nancy’ members of the all-male travelling party are allocated female names in a sexual joke with critics suggesting that ‘Hetty to Nancy’ denotes ‘hetero[sexual] to nancy-boy’ and a correlating alteration of behaviour from masculine to feminine.406 MacNeice states that they played rummy and ‘Ruth had all the luck’ (LFI, p.171) while in contrast Auden recalls that ‘Louis’s scandalous luck caused a lot of ill feeling’ (LFI, p.224). In his own chapter, MacNeice’s name is Hetty and he is therefore not the character Ruth, yet his description of Ruth’s game-playing reflects the ‘ill feeling’ that was directed at himself:

sitting there saying nothing, with a pale quiet smile, time after time laying down her cards and going out. Irritating little girl! (LFI, p.171)

The subjective nature of experience replaces the single objective account found in many travel books, and also allows for sexual diversity and the refashioning of masculinity in the ‘Hetty to Nancy’ chapter, which shall be discussed more thoroughly elsewhere. In this manner the use of literary polyperspectivism results in a similar sense of confusion as in a visual piece, in which the various angles imposed upon each other create uncertainty regarding the real subject when the piece is viewed. Confusion and ambiguity, enhanced by occasional photographs, also add to the fragmentation of the work. A 1939 review of Auden and Isherwood’s travelogue Journey to a War (1938) stated that ‘for the most part what remains in the memory is brilliant, fragmentary and odd’, an impression emphasised by the inclusion of photographs, and this indicates that the earlier Letters may have been perceived in a similar way.407 A fragmentary, disjointed Cubist approach is implied by reference to collage, the use of both written and visual content, the various voices and temporal locations amongst the ‘Sheaves’ chapter, and the book’s inclusion of a ‘fragmentary laughter at modern and Icelandic life’ even as the work presents serious contemplation of the writers’ role and location in time and place.408 Fragmentation and confusion is also achieved by the inclusion of Auden’s letter to ‘Kristian Andreirsson, Esq.’: although this chapter remains concerned with Iceland and Auden’s experience of it, it

406

Miranda Carter, Anthony Blunt: His Lives (London: Macmillan, 2002), p.175; Janet Montefiore, Arguments of Heart and Mind: Selected Essays, 1977-2000 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2002), p.241. 407 Gates, S. Barrington, ‘Auden and Isherwood in China’, TLS, 18 March 1939, p.158. 408 Wilson, ‘Explaining the Modernist Joke’ [Online].

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must be noted that this is a letter to Iceland rather than from it and is therefore contrary to expectations as inspired by the book’s title.409 The Cubist construct of the ‘continuous present’ is also employed in Letters From Iceland. The book begins with this in Auden’s conversational epistle to the long-dead Lord Byron but there are many other examples of this device. In ‘Letter to Graham and Anne Shepard’, MacNeice references other historical articles that bore some significance in modern imagination, such as Stonehenge (LFI, p.32) and ‘Medici manuscripts’ (LFI, p.33).410 These lines are accompanied by a print labelled ‘Fifteenth-century Screen in Museum’, a painting on wood of the Last Supper which, as previously identified, Auden describes as ‘worth seeing’ (LFI, p.39). Both writers therefore establish early in the book Eliot’s concept of the ‘presence of the past’, indicated by MacNeice’s musings on ‘The tourist in space or time’ (LFI, p.33) and reinforced by the selection of excerpts from earlier travel books about Iceland as presented in the chapter ‘Sheaves from Sagaland’, which spans five centuries of comments on the country that Auden feels are still relevant to 1930s Iceland.411 Elsewhere Auden’s ‘Letter to R.H.S. Crossman, Esq.’ highlights moments from Iceland’s past as if they were current events by referencing them in present tense:412

See Gunnar killed At Hlitharendi white across the river, And Flosi waiting on Three Corner Ridge, (LFI, p.92)

while MacNeice’s ‘Eclogue’ chapter features the modern-day tourists ‘Craven’ and ‘Ryan’ in discourse with the ancient saga character and outlaw Grettir Asmundarson, emphasising the writers’ awareness of the continuous present which Auden explicitly expresses in ‘Letter to Lord Byron Part IV: I know – the fact is really not unnerving – That what is done is done, that no past dies[.] (LFI, p.211)

409

Auden met Kristian Andreirsson during his Icelandic trip. This chapter is the fulfilment of a promise to tell a native Icelander his impressions of their country, and invite a similar trip to England for Andreirsson. 410 Graham (1907-1943) and Anne Shepard were friends of MacNeice. Graham, an illustrator and cartoonist, met MacNeice at Marlborough College and their friendship continued at Oxford. Graham was killed during World War II. 411 T.S. Eliot, ‘Tradition and the Individual Talent’, p.141. 412 Richard Howard Stafford Crossman (1907-1974) met Auden at Oxford University and became a leading Labour councillor for Oxford City in the 1930s. In later years Crossman became the Leader of the House of Commons and Secretary of State under Harold Wilson.

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This blurring of temporal boundaries is a characteristic feature of literary modernism, but in this book, it reflects too the authors' abiding concern with the aesthetic revolutions of the period. Letters From Iceland therefore provides many instances of the continuous present in both Auden and MacNeice’s contributions. Geometric shapes are also present in Letters, represented not only by actual shapes in the word-pictures offered by the writers but also by Auden’s cyclical writing style. In Letters, the cyclical style becomes almost a spiral as one location recurs in three places throughout the book and not always described by the same writer. The recurring location focuses on the interior of the Reykjavik student hostel, which is first described by Auden in the second chapter, ‘Journey to Iceland’, as ‘look[ing] like waiting-rooms of an airport’ (LFI, pp.27-28). This simile is repeated seven chapters later in a letter to Erika Mann Auden dated July: It’s a hostel for university students in the winter. The furniture is of that cosmopolitan modern sort you find in the waiting-rooms of all European air-ports [,] (LFI, p.110)

commenting on the Moderne-style furniture appropriate for a space associated with aerodynamism.413 MacNeice’s account of the trip, dated August and written in the distorted, topsy-turvy chapter ‘Hetty to Nancy’, again returns to the hostel although, in MacNeice’s alternative landscape, he names it the ‘Lunatic Asylum’ and states that it is ‘quite fittingly the place where Marshal Balbo landed on his flight across the Atlantic’ (LFI, p.198). This description again links the hostel to aviation and suggests why Auden separately made this same connection, however MacNeice’s conversion of the building into an asylum also adds a political comment, as Italo Balbo was a prominent Italian Fascist instrumental in the Italian push into North Africa. Thus the asylum is ‘fitting’ for a person suffering from the ‘lunacy’ of the current political dilemma, as Auden and MacNeice vacillate between Communism and Fascism.

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Erika Mann Auden (1905-1969) was the eldest daughter of the German author Thomas Mann, and a writer and actress. A lesbian, she entered into a marriage of convenience with Auden to obtain British citizenship in 1935 yet continued her same-sex relationships, most notably with Therese Giehse who is mentioned by Auden in Letters from Iceland. For more information please see: Andrea Weiss, In the Shadow of the Magic Mountain:The Erika and Klaus Mann Story (2008).

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The repetition of this hostel location in the book is cyclical but not perfectly circular, however, as the image is presented from two perspectives and in three different temporal locations: in July by Auden, in August by MacNeice, and again by Auden in a letter to Christopher Isherwood which reflects on Iceland after the trip is over. The fact that this last letter is presented first in the book indicates that Letters From Iceland is a non-linear account, again reducing temporal distance in the Cubist manner, and which is further indicated by the accompanying photographs, few of which are situated opposite written accounts of the visual source.414 This deliberate positioning contributes to the cyclical element, referring to one single item in more than one location in the book, the non-linear aspect, the fragmentation of the work, and adds a third perspective of the camera, which supplements the authors’ impressions as expressed in writing. The conveniences of modern publishing are, in this respect, utilised by Auden and MacNeice for their own artistic purposes.

Nature and a Return to Juvenilia As a travel guide, the book touches on the topic of wildlife and nature in Iceland. The birds include ‘tern and wild duck’ (LFI, p.28) and two eagles that ‘looked far too heavy to fly’ (LFI, p.114); these birds do not impress Auden however, being too common or too unlike the swift birds of prey that he prefers. Auden therefore imports his own trademark motif of the sleek, speedy, streamlined hawk into the landscape of the Iceland book in ‘Letter to R.H.S. Crossman, Esq.’:

The hawk flieth the long Spring day, With a fair wind behind him and wings outspread; (LFI, p.95)

which is incorporated into a list of other cyclical, timeless events such as the wind blowing, ships sailing and life on Earth. It is necessary for the hawk to appear in Auden’s landscape here in metaphorical terms as the bird does not feature in the real-world Icelandic scene, yet it provides a significant contrast to the animals and wildlife that are present in Iceland, such as the unglamorous ducks, and ordinary sheep, cows and ponies. As discussed in Chapter One, natural motifs represent a return to an earlier, juvenile style for Auden while the hawk, one of the few birds featuring in later work, represents his own streamlined, modern form of writing. Contrasting the hawk with the Icelandic animals in this manner encourages the reader to make similar comparisons between the ordinary and glamorous, non-movement and speed, 414

Photographs are located in various locations throughout the book in first edition.

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the old and the new, and Iceland and Europe. For example, Auden stated that Icelandic people have ‘no particular intellectual interests or ambition’ (LFI, p.30). To Auden, ambition is clearly equated with the desire to travel and be somewhere ‘other’ as he states almost perplexedly that:

A few of the professional classes would like to get to Europe; most would prefer to stay where they are and make a certain amount of money. […] Unlike the German, he shows no romantic longing for the south, (LFI, p.29)

suggesting that travel of any kind, but ideally to a warmer climate, should be the goal of every modern person. Although Auden and MacNeice have visited Iceland to escape Europe, Auden implies that Europe is still a better, more advanced place to be (ironically because the people always aspire to be somewhere else) in the suggestion that Icelanders should wish to be in Europe instead. Having absorbed the aspects of the Art Deco lifestyle and become an avid traveller himself, Auden cannot understand the Icelandic outlook and believes that a motionless and therefore speed-less society cannot develop. By writing segments of the book in the style and motifs of his juvenilia work, Auden has consciously associated Iceland with the past, and presents this underdeveloped country in a style that is, to his mind, also less developed. This also reflects his own fascination with Icelandic sagas (‘With northern myths my little brain was laden’, LFI, p.205) which began in childhood and thus relates to a childish style. This is further supported by the inclusion of other early Art Deco motifs such as clouds which appeared more frequently in his Juvenilia, and a return to his own early use of colour: […] one moment the rain blots out everything, the next, the sun is shining behind clouds, filling the air with an intense luminous light in which you can see for miles, so that every detail of the cone-shaped mountains stands out needle-sharp against an orange sky. There is one peak which is always bright pink. (LFI, p.28)

The element of Cubism is also represented here in the geometrical shape of the ‘cone-shaped mountains’, a description repeated to his wife Erika Mann (LFI, p.114) and reminiscent of Cézanne’s comment that early Cubism should represent nature ‘by means of the cylinder, the sphere, the cone’. 415 This suggests that exposure to this style of art influences the way in

415

Lichtheim, Europe in the Twentieth Century, p.87; Schwarz, Reconfiguring Modernism, p.107. Cézanne’s comment was discussed previously on p.36.

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which the writers see and describe a landscape. MacNeice also uses geometrical shapes in this manner, describing Auden’s tent as ‘conical’ with a ‘large triangular hole’ (LFI, p.158) as door in his chapter ‘Hetty to Nancy’. However while the usage of shapes in MacNeice is not uncommon, Auden does not usually describe his scenes with such language. That he does so here is also a part of his juvenile style in describing ‘intellectually’ undeveloped Iceland. In a poem to Isherwood, Auden writes of ‘immature mountains’ (LFI, p.25): this does not relate to the age of the mountain but is a hypallage indicating how Auden will treat the subject in the following pages.

The Art Deco Colour Palette and the Ballets Russes Auden is also unusually colourful in Letters From Iceland as part of his return to a pre-adulthood repertoire of motifs. In addition to the pink and orange used above, Auden also includes blue, remarking on ‘middle-aged men in blue suits with brass buttons’ (LFI, p.147), and most significantly green and red. These latter colours appear more often than any other as they do in MacNeice’s work, and are used to contrast scenes of pleasant normality with a moment of apprehension or distaste. Green is first used in a rural context, describing a scene that Auden ‘likes’:

I also like green plains where cattle are, And trees and rivers [.] (LFI, p.102)

However its next usage appears during a bus journey which Auden is not enjoying, being ‘crammed’ into a space with many other passengers and feeling ‘embarrass[ed]’ (LFI, p.115) that he is a late arrival and must sit near the back of the bus where it is more uncomfortable, away from the ‘élite’ (LFI, p.116) sitting at the front. Other passengers at the back include ‘a man with a convict’s face looking very green’ (LFI, p.116). The use of green here contrasts with the first: the benefits of open space and fresh air in the rural scene are replaced by a crowded, airless, enclosed environment resulting in the man’s sickness, which threatens (highlighted by the description of the man as a ‘convict’) to make the journey unpleasant for more than just himself. The threatening connotation of the colour green in this scene continues into a dream Auden relates to Erika Mann, in which he is pursued by a man with ‘green eyes and a terrifying affection for me’ (LFI, p.149). In a similar manner, red is first used as part of a positive experience when Auden meets a ‘very hospitable and friendly’ Icelandic family and remarks of the farmer’s eleven-

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year-old son that he wears ‘a fetching red shirt’ (LFI, p.115). Auden is clearly attracted here to the shirt rather than the wearer, appreciating a youth with similar physical colouring to his own in red and its connotations of liberty, protest, political movements and most importantly Communism. No other family members, or indeed other people recalled in Auden’s book, are described in terms of garment or garment colour, and as with MacNeice in Minch, that Auden chose to remark upon it indicates significance to the writer, which in this instance is positive. The contrast Auden wishes to make becomes clear in the next usage, in his description of a whaling station: In the lounge the wireless was playing ‘I want to be bad’ and ‘Eat an apple every day’. Downstairs the steward’s canary chirped incessantly. The sun was out; in the bay, surrounded by buoys and gulls, were the semi-submerged bodies of five dead whales: and down the slip-way ran a constant stream of blood, staining the water a deep red for a distance of fifty yards. Someone whistled a tune. A bell suddenly clanged and everyone stuck their spades in the carcase and went off for lunch. (LFI, pp.149-150)

Auden is distressed by this scene, his emotional engagement indicated by the reference to the sun (suggesting Auden’s understanding and borrowing of MacNeice’s use of the motif as connector). In ‘Letter to Lord Byron, Part II’ he states that:

Tramlines and slagheaps, pieces of machinery, That was, and still is, my ideal scenery[,] (LFI, p.51)

yet he struggles to describe the whaling station because he considers the whale to be a beautiful, natural machine:

It combines the fascination of something alive, enormous, and gentle, with the functional beauties of modern machinery. (LFI, p.149)

Even more distressing to Auden is the use of ‘steam winches and cranes’ (LFI, p.149), manmade machinery which would ordinarily appeal to the writer, in aiding the callous destruction of something he finds naturally beautiful. The colour red is thus used by Auden to contrast the benevolent, friendly and welcoming attitude of man towards man and the horrifyingly

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‘cold controlled ferocity’ (LFI, p.150) of man towards nature and their use of machinery to destroy another, albeit natural, machine. MacNeice’s contributions are typically colourful, particularly in the chapter ‘Hetty to Nancy’. Comparing the use of colour in both writers’ contributions indicates that MacNeice is more comfortable using colour as a natural and intrinsic element of his word-picture, due to his own early experiments in visual art and friendship with Anthony Blunt. He is drawn to colour. This is demonstrated in his noticing the ‘colour scheme’ (LFI, p.160) of a man’s hands, while Auden is interested in the man’s politics:

Maisie, who is an indefatigable interviewer, was interviewing a Social Democrat […] a lost soul M. says […] All I noticed was the colour scheme of his hands – dark brown to deep orange, strong black hair on them, and very light pink fingernails. (LFI, p.160)

The admission that colour associated with the man was ‘all [he] noticed’ and that he did not attend a single part of the political discussion, indicated by his reliance on what ‘M. says’, further supports the idea that MacNeice experiences a kind of tunnel vision with regard to colour. He is attracted to this element above all other aspects and indicates that, unlike Auden, his appreciation for colour has little relation to politics and only aesthetics. This is seen again in a comparison between bus journeys undertaken by Auden and MacNeice. In Auden’s account there is a single colour, the green of the ‘convict’s’ face, and there is an emphasis on aural stimuli, including passengers singing on the bus, a side-note on gramophone records, ‘loud cries of excitement’ and the ‘bus roar[ing] when I sneezed’ (LFI, p.116). MacNeice’s description, in contrast, says very little of the environment inside the bus on his own journey and focuses on visual stimuli outside the vehicle:

the landscape to-day was rather nice from our bus, at one point there was a perfectly lovely vista in all stratas – first brilliant green grass, almost emerald, then a bank of pink clouds I suppose of dust, then blue serrated crags, and last but not least a glacier floating in the distance, milky blue [.] (LFI, p.162)

In comparison to Minch there are fewer instances of colour in MacNeice’s accounts of Iceland, however his preference for tones of green is evident in the above passage, his renaming of the Downs School headmaster Bill Hoyland to ‘Margery Greenhalge’

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(LFI, p.157) and his description of a farmhouse:416

The farmhouse is a large respectable building of corrugated iron standing in the middle of an emerald green tún. Tún […] is the specially cultivated meadow attached to an Icelandic farm. Kalmanstunga has many stone outhouses roofed with nice green sods[.] (LFI, p.182)

Note that there is no further description of the farmhouse despite it being ‘respectable’ and, one assumes, improved accommodation compared to their previous stay in a hut he describes as akin to a ‘henhouse’ (LFI, p.174). The primary subject for MacNeice is therefore the colour green, associating itself with the memory of the Pratts petrol van, rather than the houses or architecture It is through MacNeice’s descriptions that the reader discovers that Auden, in addition to incorporating more colour into his own writing in Letters, is himself a colourful character in MacNeice’s word-picture. Auden’s mattress, MacNeice reports, is ‘yellow on one side and blue on the other’ (LFI, p.158), his ‘sou’wester is bright yellow, [his] oilskin coat is black, and [his] enormous gumboots are brown’ (LFI, p.173) and he owns ‘yellow oilskin leggings’ (LFI, p.180). However, it is noteworthy that, despite advancements in colour cinematography, colour is absent in Auden’s montage of snapshots as described to his film director friend, William Coldstream, indicating that any reproduction of his stills would be presented in monochrome, just as the photographs and prints which are included in the book. Most significantly, the colours Auden and MacNeice do choose to include in the work (pink, orange, blue, yellow, red and green) all form the Art Deco palette as informed by the Ballets Russes. The Ballets Russes is referenced in Letters on several occasions, the first in ‘Letter to Lord Byron Part II’ in conjunction with the Cubist painter Picasso, who designed many of the Ballets Russes sets. Auden writes of ‘Picasso, all-in-wrestling, or the Ballet’ (LFI, p.54), the capital letter indicating that Auden is referencing the Ballets Russes in particular rather than the genre in general. This is supported by further references throughout the work to persons associated with that troupe, including the Ballets’ former principal dancers Rupert Doone (LFI, p.244, p.246) and, in MacNeice’s chapter ‘Eclogue from Iceland’, ‘that dancer | Who danced the war’ (LFI, p.131) whom Edna Longley identifies as Vaslav Nijinsky.417 There is also an ambiguous reference in Auden’s first letter to Erika Mann when he states that 416

Osborne, W.H. Auden, p.120. Edna Longley, ‘War Pastorals’ in The Oxford Handbook of British and Irish War Poetry (ed. by Tim Kendall. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), p.475. 417

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he ‘caught the Icelandic Train Bleu’ (LFI, p.115). While this is undoubtedly an ironic comparison of the Iceland bus and passengers to the luxurious Calais-Mediterranée Express, colloquially known as ‘Le Train Bleu’, it also recalls the Ballets Russes production of the same name. ‘The élite’ (LFI, p.116) of society, represented by ‘an immense woman in a tiger skin coat’ (LFI, p.116) on Auden’s bus, is present in all three ‘Trains Bleu’, but the ballet is particularly implied by the description of various songs performed by the bus’s passengers, which imitate the musical accompaniment of a ballet, and by a comparison of Jean Cocteau’s libretto with Auden’s stylistic approach to Letters From Iceland. Both Auden and Cocteau utilise the tools associated with the tourist, including epistolary media, the movie camera and photography. While Letters is written primarily in the form of traditional, enveloped letters Cocteau directs dancers to ‘assume the graceful poses of colored postcards’ in Scene I, followed by instructions relating to visual media in following scenes.418 These include forming an ‘immobile tableau’ at the close of Scene II, an action Lynn Garafola views as akin to pausing ‘as in a movie’ (fig.19), and simulating slow motion in Scene V.419 Although such specific directions are not present in Letters it must be noted that Auden presents visual memoirs of his trip to William Coldstream in the form of a montage or movie-reel as indicated by motion-picture terminology, perhaps aided by footage taken on the ‘ciné-camera’ (LFI, p.159) brought on the trip by one of the schoolboys. The photograph, however, is most significant to both Le Train Bleu and Auden, particularly the ‘action photograph’.420 In Le Train Bleu, Cocteau directed Scene VI as follows: People racing — photographed with a foot in the air — in front; people talking — photographed with their mouths open; people jumping, tennis: (reverse, collecting balls, etc …)421

The photographs included in Letters bear striking similarity to these instructions, including the precise position of a leg in frame in the picture ‘Stella’s Boot’ (LFI, p.156), couples dancing in ‘The shuffling Couples’ (LFI, p.96) and Icelanders preparing to ‘jump’ or dive in ‘Local swimming Sports’ (LFI, p.145). At least thirty-six percent of the photographs chosen by Auden are non-posed, natural action shots and parallel the capture of movement conveyed in Cocteau’s posed directions. 418 419 420 421

Garafola, Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, p.109. Garafola, Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, p.109. Garafola, Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, p.109. Garafola, Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, p.109.

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Architecture, Materials, Cinema and Egypt A further element of the Art Deco lifestyle is present in Iceland in the form of architecture. Both MacNeice and Auden claim that there is absolutely no noteworthy architecture in Iceland on three occasions (LFI, p.31, p.109, p.217), and MacNeice’s description of local buildings is limited to ‘little tin houses[s]’ (LFI, p.164, p.169), which is briefly expanded upon in the chapter ‘Hetty to Nancy’:

The walls are of rough stone banked outside with turf, the corrugated iron roof is also covered with turf; the stone walls inside are unlined and the whole place is incredibly damp. (LFI, pp.174-175)

However, in Auden’s ‘Letter to William Coldstream, Esq.’ one finds amongst the four-page montage of snapshot impressions a reference to a ‘long shot of Reykholt school | Corbusier goes all Northern’ (LFI, p.223), correlating to the photograph printed earlier in the book (opposite LFI, p.38) titled ‘A new School’. The photograph displays a new school that bears similarity to flat-roofed Moderne designs with a stepped effect to the top of the corner tower and sets of three full-length vertical windows resembling speedlines. The reference to Le Corbusier indicates an awareness of the building as a Moderne structure, as does the mention of Walter Gropius in ‘Last Will and Testament’ (p.249), yet MacNeice and Auden’s insistence that there is ‘no architecture’ (p.109), coupled with the brevity of reference to the school and distance between this reference and the photograph, indicates that the authors are no more impressed by modern architecture than they are by ‘little tin houses’. Conversely, however, the inclusion of this photograph in Letters indicates that there is indeed variety of architecture in Iceland and that the island is not without modern European influences. Significantly, despite his own disapproval of the style as indicated by the distance between himself and the building in the ‘long shot’, Auden himself tacitly admits that Iceland contains some architecture rather than none by choosing the building as a subject for his photograph and including this shot in the book. Art Deco materials are also present in Letters, including concrete (LFI, p.27), chrome and glass (LFI, p.50), in addition to the popular pastime of attending the cinema. In contrast to MacNeice’s Zoo and Minch no visit to the cinema is related during the Iceland trip despite there being two in Reykjavik (LFI, p.39), yet nonetheless the cinema is referenced frequently. Several actors are referenced, from the opening of the book and first stanza of Auden’s ‘Letter to Lord Byron Part 1’ featuring the actor Gary Cooper, followed in ‘Part II’ by Disney

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and Mickey Mouse (LFI, p.55) and the singing actor Richard Tauber (LFI, p.57), while ‘Part V’ comments upon the actor John Gielgud (LFI, p.232). Other than citing actors, however, Auden says very little else about the cinema experience other than to comment that cinema houses have ‘perfect taste in seating’ (LFI, p.51), making light of his interest and enjoyment in the pastime but alluding to the use of cinemas for sexual assignations as indicated by the ‘randy’ (MCP, p.6) cinema-goers in MacNeice’s ‘An Eclogue for Christmas’. The luxury promoted by Hollywood and its influence on everyday life is suggested elsewhere by MacNeice who, during contemplation of appropriate attire for a trip in Iceland, states that: crêpe-de-chine panties may be all right for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer but it won’t do round the Langjökull. (LFI, p.162)

The experience of visiting the cinema is also referenced but, in contrast to Auden, MacNeice considers the sensations felt by the audience aside from physical comfort, which he describes as ‘sitting among the stars | Among the electric signs’ (LFI, p.132). Unlike Zoo and Minch there is no direct reference to any specific movie in MacNeice’s contributions to Letters. However the description of a particular horse ride in ‘Hetty to Nancy’ alludes to the 1921 Rudolph Valentino movie The Sheikh in its fantasy of heroism and parallels between desertlike locations:

we got our best gallop yet across a long expanse of grey sand by a lake called Sandurvatn. In our hearts I think we were all playing sheikh. It is very nice when the sand flies up in your face and you plop up and down in the saddle to a perfectly regular rhythm – chichibu, chichibu, chichibu (LFI, pp.189-190)

with the onomatopoeic ‘chichibu’ also providing an example of the Art Deco element of conveying the illusion of movement. The Sheikh movie link is further indicated by the comment that ‘stony deserts [are] rather reminiscent of Hollywood’ (LFI, p.165) and use of the word ‘chic’ (LFI, p.180) earlier in the chapter, itself a recent word in the new interwar vocabulary inspired by the ‘extravagant, risqué elegance’ associated with Rudolph Valentino and his exotic movie.422 Thus while the cinema is not visited during the Iceland trip, both

422

Robinson, The Brilliance of Art Deco, p.171.

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MacNeice and Auden indicate the cumulative influence of the movies and Hollywood on their imagination and consciousness of everyday experiences. MacNeice is also responsible for one of three references to Egyptology in the book, including the exotic element of Art Deco pieces in his description of Icelandic brown bread as ‘brick-hard, the sort of thing you find in Egyptian tombs’ (LFI, p.160). The word ‘tombs’ relates directly to the discovery of King Tutankhamen and again indicates the impact of this event on MacNeice’s consciousness in particular for it to appear in his writing fourteen years after the event in an environment otherwise devoid of Egyptian motifs. This same event is also present in the awareness of Auden, who refers to ‘finds in the Egyptian graves’ (LFI, p.104) reported in the news. Auden, however, also writes of the Egyptian gods Seth and Horus (LFI, p.58). Horus was the sun god, represented by a falcon and also associated with vengeance, the sky and war.423 His antithesis and rival was Seth, a god of night primarily associated with the desert, due to the deserts surrounding the centre of his cult, and the harsh weather conditions Egyptians believed originated there such as storms, thunder and rain.424 The desert was also associated with the colour red for its dust, in contrast to the black soil of fertile areas, and Seth was named the ‘Red God’ in addition to ‘Lord of Foreign Lands’ and of ‘everything foreign’.425 These gods are particularly appropriate for Auden to invoke in his status as interwar traveller in Iceland. The sun cult is referenced and his favourite motif of a bird of prey is once more imported into the landscape in the form of Horus. In Seth, Auden alludes to the desert-like environment of Iceland, the rain the group experiences on their travels, and their own status as foreigners (outsiders) in a foreign (unfamiliar and ‘other’) land. While the Icelandic desert bears no aesthetic resemblance to those in Egypt Auden once more suggests a politically-minded attraction to the colour red in Seth, implied by the connotations of war and conflict associated with the myth of Seth and Horus.

Visual Art Both writers engaged with visual art throughout their trip. In ‘Letter to Kristian Andreirsson, Esq.’ Auden states that in addition to ‘no architecture’ Iceland boasts ‘little knowledge of painting or music’ (LFI, p.217) yet the book abounds in references to visual art including three separate allusions by Auden to the Icelandic painter Jóhannes Kjarval (1885423

Barbara Watterson, Gods of Ancient Egypt (Stroud: Sutton, 1996), pp.81-87. Watterson, Gods of Ancient Egypt, p.102; Geraldine Pinch, Egyptian Mythology: A Guide to the Gods, Goddesses, and Traditions of Ancient Egypt (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), p.192. 425 Watterson, Gods of Ancient Egypt, p.102; Pinch, Egyptian Mythology, p.192. 424

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1972), an artist who experimented with impressionism, symbolism and Cubism in the first half of his career. In contrast to Auden’s generally dismissive attitude regarding Icelandic art, implied by his description of the art collection at Akureyri school as ‘not […] very wonderful’ (LFI, p.121) and a typical Icelandic inn as ‘full of bad oil paintings’ (LFI, p.114), the frequency of references to Kjarval indicate that, as with architecture, there is in fact some knowledge of art in the country. Indeed, Kjarval spent a decade in Europe and studied at schools in London and Copenhagen between 1911 and 1922, the formative years of Art Deco; therefore European and modernist influences account for elements of Cubism in Kjarval’s work, and indicate why this painter stands out for Auden.426 Auden’s approval is further suggested by the positive connotations of the contexts in which Kjarval is mentioned, with Auden listing Kjarval as one of the ‘sights’ (LFI, p.39) in Reykjavik, as the painter of ‘some heads […] which I liked’ (LFI, p.114) and including the reproduction of one of these heads amongst his chosen prints accompanying the book. Kjarval is also mentioned by MacNeice, and in contrast to Auden’s brief itemisation MacNeice describes the painting of Thingvellir gorge, which varies from the impression of unimaginative simplicity given by Auden and the accompanying monochrome print of ‘Head’:

Cascades of paint, a drunk pink sky, a whole lot of things looking like sunflowers and wheels flying about over the rocks, a total effect of perfectly tropical luxuriance. (LFI, p.192)

Although the artist is the same, the difference in choice of paintings both writers wish to reference again indicates that Auden is drawn to style and subject in a painting while MacNeice attends colour. Five prints in total included in the book show visual art sources encountered during the trip. In addition to Kjarval’s ‘Head’ (LFI, p.64) Auden also picked the ‘Fifteenth-century Screen in Museum’ (LFI, p.33) as well as three landscapes of Mount Hekla (LFI, p.65), ‘The Geysirs’ from the travel book by Ebenezer Henderson (LFI, p.80) and ‘Reykjavik 1735’ (LFI, p.81). This indicates that on the Iceland trip Auden actively engaged with art that was previously unknown to him. He may even have occasionally gone out of his way to do so, as he states that there is ‘a collection of Icelandic paintings in the Parliament house’ (LFI, p.39) and that he ‘went up to the school’ (LFI, p.121) in Akureyri after having ‘[gone] down’ (LFI, p.121) to the town in the first instance. 426

Guđmundur Hálfdanarson, The A to Z of Iceland (Maryland, USA: Scarecrow, 2008), p.119.

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It is clear, however, that Auden also encounters visual art with which he is already familiar, specifically the caricatures of Honoré Daumier and Max Beerbohm.427 This form of visual art is absorbing for Auden, who based several early poems on the caricature-like fantasy world of ‘Mortmere’ as devised by Isherwood and his Cambridge friend Edward Upward. The level of his interest is evident as the caricatures are even more exciting to him than news of war:

Have just heard for the first time of the civil war in Spain. Borrowed two volumes of caricatures, which are really my favourite kind of picture, and spent a very happy evening with Goya and Daumier and Max Beerbohm, only slightly marred by the consciousness of a sore throat [.] (LFI, p.123)

The approaching civil war remains only a passing thought in later letters (‘I wish I knew how things were really going in Spain’, LFI, p.147) but Auden’s fascination with caricature endures to the final summary of the trip in ‘Letter to William Coldstream, Esq.’ in which Auden recalls a Daumier picture (LFI, p.223). Thus in the references to art and reproduction of art prints, it is clear that Auden pursues his interest in visual art even in apparently unpromising circumstances. In another example of cyclical writing and Cubist polyperspectivism both Auden and MacNeice also view sculpture at the Einar Jonsson museum in Reykjavik (LFI, p.39, p.159). In a difference of opinion MacNeice contradicts Auden’s list of ‘sights’ and states that this is ‘the only one real sight in Reykjavik’ (LFI, p.159), although both agree that the museum is disappointing. Auden describes the collection simply as ‘not for the fastidious’ (LFI, p.39) in ‘For Tourists’ while MacNeice is typically more descriptive in ‘Hetty to Nancy’:

The worst sculpture I have ever seen in my life, and that is saying a lot. First of all all the pieces are in plaster and you know how filthy plaster gets, secondly they are all, or nearly all, enormous, thirdly they are symbolic. And the symbolism, darling, is the sort they used to have in the Academy before someone put their foot down [.] (LFI, p.159)

MacNeice’s experience of sculpture is indicated later in the same chapter as he muses on an element of the landscape that ‘is of a very odd formation – quite Barbara Hepworth’ 427

Auden’s appreciation of Max Beerbohm has been discussed previously on p.20, p.150 and p.155.

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(LFI, p.195), referencing a modern and abstract British sculptor. His consciousness has associated the rock formation with not only sculpture but a particular artist, indicating the influence of visual art on MacNeice’s perception, and although MacNeice suggests he finds Hepworth’s work to be ‘odd’ he does not find it to be as objectionable as Jonsson’s, indicating his scale of preference with regard to modern art. Cubism is also referenced by MacNeice in ‘Hetty to Nancy’ when ‘Hetty’ encounters a painting by Johann Briem (1907-1971), an advocate of German Expressionism learned in Dresden who in later years re-introduced a Fauvist-like element to his work in the 1960s. MacNeice comments on Briem’s: very sombre lava-scape […] which only demonstrates that the Icelandic cubist has no call to distort as Nature has done that for him (LFI, p.192)

again suggesting both MacNeice’s knowledge and recognition of modern artistic styles and automatic association of his perception of the landscape with visual art. Both Auden and MacNeice separately reference the artist Cézanne, and agree that Iceland has responded unfavourably to his influence. Auden states categorically that:

Cézanne has done them no good [,] (LFI, p.114)

while MacNeice likewise dismisses the Icelandic imitators’ brand of ‘fake Cézanne’ (LFI, p.192), preferring the real article himself. Instead he appreciates the ‘mania for colour’ (LFI, p.192) demonstrated by Kjarval which MacNeice could consciously associate with the bright colours of Fauvism, a style with which he himself experimented at college and could therefore justify his preference. MacNeice also displays his knowledge of more classical art, stating that Auden ‘looked like something out of Brueghel’ (LFI, p.158) while blowing up his colourful blue and yellow mattress. This, however, also references Auden’s knowledge, as Auden had shown interest in a ‘magnificent Brueghel’ (APTB, p.74) during a visit to the Bavarian Schloss Eisenberg in 1932, and would refer more explicitly to this painter two years later in the poem 'Musée des Beaux Arts' (1938). Thus while both MacNeice and Auden maintain that there is ‘little knowledge’ of visual art in Icelandic culture, they have demonstrated their own extensive knowledge on the subject in the pages of their Iceland book.

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Travel and Transport An examination of the photographs included in the book reveals that nearly a fifth contain reference to transport in the form of motorised road vehicles (buses, cars, trucks), boats both motorised and man-powered, or items relating directly to transport. The titles of several shots, including ‘A new School’ (LFI, p.38), ‘Grylla’ (LFI, p.39), and ‘Farm in the Desert’ (LFI, p.42) indicate that the intended subject is a building, geyser or farm respectively, yet the element of transport is deliberately included by Auden. The new school picture, taken in a ‘long shot’ (LFI, p.223), shows a group of men and two cars in front of the building; behind the erupting geyser stand two men, next to whom is the rear of their truck; standing in the foreground of the farm shot is a Shell petrol pump. These pictures could easily have been taken from angles which exclude these elements, indicating that Auden wished to include them deliberately. The motorcar, a symbol of modernity, is clearly present in Iceland but it must be noted that there is only one single car journey undertaken (LFI, p.146), with a rich farmer, and while many of the vehicles appear new, suggesting that road transport is a recent occurrence in the development in Iceland, most of the trip is conducted inland via bus or horses, modes of transport that contribute to the authors’ opinion that Iceland is underdeveloped. This is supported by contrasting descriptions of motorised transport with equestrian activities. Auden’s trip to Hraensnef states that the ‘buses are comfortable but the roads are not’ (LFI, p.114) on his journey of six-and-a-half hours, and a visit to Holar by milk cart is arduous and slow: A milk cart was due to leave for Holar at 2. It left at 5.30. […] We stopped every five minutes to dump empty cans by the road side. Both my feet were sound asleep by the time we reached Holar […] The milk cart back to Sandakrökur was worse than the first because we had to collect full cans. It took us four hours to go forty-two kilometres [.] (LFI, pp.118-119)

Later the bus to Myvatn is a ‘dud’ with a blocked petrol pipe causing the vehicle to move ‘slower and slower’ (LFI, p.137) and develop a back-fire (LFI, p.138), and the maximum velocity of a bus driving east through brush and stones Auden scathingly estimates at ‘about 5 m.p.h.’ (LFI, p.139). The main type of motorised land transport is therefore presented as dissatisfying, boring and extremely slow.

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Conversely, travel by horse is associated with speed, acceleration and excitement. In Auden’s first description of a horse-ride in a letter to his wife Erika he states that he was provided with ‘a really frisky horse who bucked and galloped as hard as one could wish’ (LFI, p.115), and later asserts that a ‘full gallop’ is ‘more exciting than a really fast car’ (LFI, p.144). Also MacNeice’s account of the trip around the Langjökull on horseback is peppered with descriptions of the horses’ movement. Speed on horseback gradually increases over the course of the excursion as the group begins at a canter (LFI, p.165), which increases later to a ‘charge’ (LFI, p.172) and escalates into the horse going ‘full speed ahead’ (LFI, p.173). By the end of the trip he achieves his ‘best gallop yet’ (LFI, p.189), which again escalates in velocity to become a metaphorical ‘stampede’ (LFI, p.190). Although MacNeice may be exaggerating to some extent, the desire to achieve speed is evident in both Auden and MacNeice’s contributions, indicated particularly in MacNeice’s self-correction of a ‘terrific gallop’ to ‘canter actually’ (LFI, p.169), suggesting that MacNeice wishes he had experienced the increased velocity of the former. Nevertheless, the horse is the vehicle through which they experience speed of any kind, and the comparison of the horse to its cosmopolitan counterpart, the car, is used again by MacNeice:

Anyhow this horse was a goer and for the first time I felt the joys of horsemanship, though to start with I was very much alarmed especially when it opened its throttle on the edge of a precipice. (LFI, p.169)

The element of danger allied to speed, symbolised by the ‘edge of a precipice’, again draws parallels with the car, and MacNeice delights in describing moments of peril or misfortune as a result of acceleration. These include grit in his eyes (LFI, p.169); his horse ‘charg[ing] straight in amongst the pack-horses and gor[ing] my leg’ (LFI, p.172); his tumble off his horse after going ‘full speed’ (LFI, p.173); and ‘Maisie’s’ bed being temporarily lost during the ‘stampede’ (LFI, p.190). A final gallop at the end of the week sees Maisie thrown from her horse but remaining unharmed ‘except for a little mud on the face’ (LFI, p.196), reminiscent of the minor injuries sustained by MacNeice in the ‘ephemeral excitement’ (MSAF, p.118) of two car crashes he experienced before 1936.428 The potential for danger and element of risk is therefore expressed as exciting to MacNeice in direct contrast to the 428

In 1928, MacNeice was ‘unscratched’ after a near-collision with an oncoming Chrysler although cuts, bruises and a cracked collarbone were suffered by his passengers after their falling ‘through the roof’ (MSAF, p.271) as the car overturned. A second collision in 1935 resulted predominantly in MacNeice ‘covered with mud and blood’ (MSAF, p.150), similar to ‘Maisie’s experience.

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dull, slow accounts of motorised transport, and the experience of velocity becomes an almost religious experience: I turned my face to the left to avoid the grit in my eyes and there was suddenly a shining sea tilted obliquely upwards, catching the sun. Like something in the Ancient and Modern hymnbook. (LFI, p.169)

Thus while the use of horses as a primary mode of transport supports the authors’ opinion of Iceland as undeveloped, they conversely offer the only opportunity for the group to satisfy the period’s craving for movement at speed during their trip. Women and the Garçonne in ‘Hetty to Nancy’ With regard to women, Auden largely ignores their presence in Iceland: of fifty-two images included in the book only eight include women, of which only three photographs are taken from angles that show their face, indicating that the woman is mostly incidental to Auden and that she is rarely his attended subject. This is entirely appropriate for Auden’s personal politics, being a homosexual who entered into a sexless marriage of convenience only to help a German lesbian escape from the Nazis, and this is reflected in the text of Letters. 429 Of the women who are included in the Iceland word-picture, few are named and are referred to only as extensions of a male, such as ‘the farmer and his wife’ and ‘rather spoilt daughter’ (LFI, p.115), the ‘old postman and his wife’ (LFI, p.147) and ‘a German lady who married an Icelander’ (LFI, p.146). Auden’s own wife, to whom two letters are addressed, is referred to only in the form of her initials ‘E.M.A.’ and MacNeice’s correspondent Anne Shepard remains the only female whose full name is used, however both women remain in geographical and physical terms firmly outside Iceland. As MacNeice indicates in ‘Eclogue from Iceland’ both he and Auden have visited Iceland to escape the situation in Europe, thus Iceland is their temporary haven or ‘fort’ and women must be excluded from their environment if they adhere to ‘Viking Law’ (LFI, p.97), which Auden claims states that:

No man should bring a woman into the fort. (LFI, p.98)

429

Firchow, W.H. Auden: Contexts for Poetry, p.67; Andrea Weiss, In the Shadow of the Magic Mountain: The Erika & Klaus Mann Story (London: University of Chicago Press, 2008), pp.113-114, p.116; Smith (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to W.H. Auden, p.20.

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The women who are encountered in Auden’s contributions, however, display characteristics associated with the garçonne; these include current fashion trends in the wearing of exotic fur by the woman on the bus (LFI, p.116), drunkenness and forward behaviour from a girl named Toppy (LFI, p.110) and a selfish lack of morals from the German lady (LFI, p.146). MacNeice, in contrast, deliberately incorporates the motif of the garçonne into the Icelandic landscape, being naturally more concerned with women than Auden due to his heterosexuality and his reconsideration of sexual politics following his divorce. Primarily this is done in the chapter ‘Hetty to Nancy’, in which the all-male travelling party is transformed into a group of females, some of whom bear similarity to the new, fashionable, European female. This is often implied through references to clothing, behaviour, beauty products and treatments, with which MacNeice as ‘Hetty’ pretends a preoccupation. At the beginning of the chapter ‘Hetty’ states that she is not correctly ‘equipped’ (LFI, p.158) for her Icelandic visit, and this seemingly includes clothing. While she describes ‘Stella’s’ leather riding boots (LFI, p.162) and Maisie’s ‘sou’wester’ coat, Greenhalge’s ‘amazing woollen helmet with earflaps’ and Anne’s ‘Cossack hat’ (LFI, p.173), it seems that Hetty remains the typical garçonne even in Iceland. Hetty’s clothing choices include ‘crêpede-chine panties’ (LFI, p.162), luxurious (presumably silk) stockings rather than ‘anything woollen’ (LFI, p.177), an inappropriate ‘pair of hopcloth beach-trousers I bought in the South of France’ (LFI, p.162) and dainty ‘patent’ shoes (LFI, p.176). Although Hetty admits that the others’ functional clothing ‘serve[s] a purpose’, her main concern is obvious as she adds that they are not ‘very chic’ (LFI, p.180). Elsewhere Stella, Hetty reports, has brought a ‘vulgar but no doubt expensive bracelet’ (LFI, p.167) on the trip, an inappropriate luxury which is carelessly broken by Stella herself ‘in a typical manner by snapping it backwards and forwards’ (LFI, p.179). These items stress MacNeice’s opinion of the nonchalant, thoughtless and self-centred attitude of the luxury-loving garçonne, further indicated by several references to cosmetics and the goal of personal beauty. Twice he refers to the popular cosmetic company Elizabeth Arden (LFI, p.160, p.176) and an awareness of the trend for beauty treatments is suggested (‘you know when they plaster you with eggs and whey and things’, LFI, p.163) although MacNeice mocks these rituals by revealing that the ‘clammy thing’ (LFI, p.163) on his face is in fact his tent. The perception of modern women as vain and overly concerned with their appearance is symbolised by lipstick, which MacNeice mentions three times. In the first instance MacNeice ponders the use of lipstick and its effect on men, suggesting that sexual allure could be used as a tool to manipulate the opposite sex:

180 Incidentally I haven’t noticed much galanterie on the part of the guides. Maisie says it’s because the North is ascetic but I think it’s just because we’re dowdy. The Icelandic girl is never without her lipstick. Your poor Hetty has lost hers in her sleeping-bag. (LFI, p.176)

The vanity of the garçonne is emphasised later as ‘Hetty’ overhears two ‘schoolgirls’ talk about ‘her’ appearance which the girls ‘do not think […] is nice’ (LFI, p.184), and in MacNeice’s garçonne persona he insists that this can only be due to cosmetics, or the lack thereof:

the other says I use make-up (this is not at the moment true as I have lost my lipstick). (LFI, p.184)

At the end of the chapter a modern youth is described as a ‘boring little girl who poses as rather fast and has begun using lipstick, needless to say very badly’ (LFI, p.199). This is the scathing comment of a seasoned garçonne, who has no need to ‘pose’ and is presented as ‘fast’ in her comments and behaviour. All of the girls on the trip play cards and smoke, with this hobby receiving seven mentions throughout the chapter; Maisie is reported to swear (LFI, p.163); and Hetty is shockingly comfortable discussing ‘undies’ (LFI, p.162), mentioning her own panties twice (LFI, p.162, p.172) and even Maisie’s bra (LFI, p.179). Hetty’s ‘fast’ behaviour is also suggested in her experience of velocity on horseback, the horse compared to a motorcar with the word ‘throttle’ (LFI, p.169) during the group’s trip around the Langjökull. Hetty relishes the speed and element of risk symbolised by riding on the ‘edge of the precipice’ (LFI, p.169), as previously discussed on p.177. This emphasises MacNeice’s portrayal of ‘Hetty’ as a ‘fast’ woman, a garçonne with an attraction for reckless, dangerous, sexually-liberated and socially risqué behaviour. However, it must be noted that the garçonnes portrayed in ‘Hetty to Nancy’ were in real life male rather than female. This change may in part be due to the sexual orientation of some of the trip’s participants, supported by instances of gay humour in the chapter such as ‘Maisie’, the name assigned to Auden, being a ‘shirt-and-tie girl’ (LFI, p.162) and ‘These queens of the schoolroom begin to think that anything will go’ (LFI, p.174). If MacNeice had been aware of the term used to identify the modern woman it could also be suggested that the chapter was inspired by the term itself, the connotations of ‘garçonne’ being a feminised boy. Nevertheless, it remains that the garçonnes in MacNeice’s contribution do not relate to

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real persons and are instead projections of the perceived feminine package onto males already situated in the landscape. Thus the garçonne is not physically present in ‘Hetty to Nancy’ but is represented throughout the chapter, adding this element of Art Deco life to Letters as a whole. ‘Eclogue from Iceland’ The main poetic contribution from MacNeice to Letters From Iceland, ‘Eclogue’ is most often discussed in terms of its political content. As indicated by Auden in the chapter ‘Journey to Iceland’, to travel ‘North means to all: ‘Reject!’’ (LFI, p.25) and both Auden and MacNeice attempt to regard Iceland, a desert-like location ‘very little changed […] from the days of the Sagas’, as a complete escape from the political climate and personal issues of home.430 This is not possible, however, as Bernard Schweizer finds that:

even when abroad was sought as an antithesis to home, it often ended up reflecting (or inflecting) rather than contrasting ‘home’[,]431

and this is true of the scene presented in ‘Eclogue from Iceland’, in which the characters Craven and Ryan are quickly drawn into a discussion of their homelands despite their recent self-congratulation on finding ‘an enviable terminus’ away from ‘the public voice’ (LFI, p.124). The travellers admit that Iceland has offered them little but ‘more copy, more surface’ (LFI,p.127) of the type they already experience in Europe. However, inasmuch as the piece is considered a political poem it also contains many characteristics of the Art Deco style. The discussion is initiated by ‘the ghost of Grettir’ (LFI, p.124), a character portrayed in Icelandic sagas as a roughhousing man of no great intellect or ambition, considered unworthy by his own father and who was cursed to live as an outlaw for over nineteen years:432

The last of the saga heroes Who had not the wisdom of Njàl or the beauty of Gunnar, 430

Terence Brown & Alec Reid (eds.), Time Was Away: The World of Louis MacNeice (Dublin: Dolmen, 1974), p.40. 431 Bernard Schweizer, Radicals On The Road: The Politics of English Travel Writing in the 1930s (Charlottesville, VA: The University Press of Virginia, 2001), p.105. 432 William R. Short, Icelanders in the Viking Age: The people of the sagas (North Carolina: McFarland, 2010), p.29, p.51, p.184.

182 I was the doomed tough, disaster kept me witty; Being born the surly jack, the ne’er-do-well, the loiterer, Hard blows exalted me. (LFI, p.127)

The appearance of Grettir is foreshadowed in Auden’s chapter ‘Journey to Iceland’, in which he references Arnarvatn Heath as ‘the rock where | An outlaw dreaded the dark’ (LFI, p.26), and in an example of the spiral structure of the book the same image occurs eight chapters later but from the alternate perspective of MacNeice. Grettir also exemplifies the Cubist construct of the continuous present which is demonstrated throughout the chapter in a figure from history interacting with modern-day visitors and existing in different temporal locations. This is emphasised by MacNeice attributing a physical presence to Grettir’s ‘ghost’, allowing him audible footfall (‘I think I hear | Someone walking over there’, LFI, p.125) and a solid corporeal state:

There he is coming now. The mist makes him look so big And he is limping in one leg. (LFI, p.125)

Grettir is also given a voice which the characters Ryan and Craven (based however loosely on MacNeice and Auden respectively) are able to attend, allowing discourse, in contrast to the ‘Voice from Europe’ (LFI, p.124) whose words are never acknowledged by the other characters in the scene.433 The character Ryan is accepted as a ‘thin mask’ of MacNeice yet it must be noted that MacNeice does not put himself into the scene, merely a projection of himself or, as Ryan states in the poem, ‘an echo’ (LFI, p.125).434 Thus it relegates the characters Ryan and Craven to the roles of puppets which recount the real-world lives, problems and activities of the poets without actually being them in truth: it must be noted that MacNeice is also ‘speaking’ for Auden in the poem as the work was not jointly composed. This suggests that MacNeice is the sole source for all ‘voices’, similarly to ‘An Eclogue for Christmas’ (see Chapter Two) in which he explores the division within himself through an imagined conversation between his conflicting opinions. A reading of the poem less as a realworld conversation between Auden and MacNeice and more of an exploration of MacNeice’s 433

Whitehead, A Commentary, p.67; O’Neill & Callaghan (eds.), Twentieth-Century British and Irish Poetry, p.116; Sarah Crangle & Peter Nicholls (eds.), On Bathos: Literature, Art, Music (London: Continuum, 2010), p.68. 434 Edna Longley, ‘Studies on Louis MacNeice’, Open Edition Books (1988) [Online. Accessed 24/01/2014].

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various concerns (political, sexual, artistic and national identity) thereby enhances the sense of fragmentation and simultaneity found in both ‘Eclogues’, and is supported by fictional Ryan and real-world MacNeice’s differing responses to Grettir’s final challenge:

G:

I tell you still Go back to where you belong […]

R:

Yes, he is right. […] (LFI, p.134)

While Ryan agrees, in reality MacNeice continues to reject his homeland after this point and Auden emigrates to America. The continuous present is also represented in the reduction of temporal space by drawing parallels between Grettir’s description of careless youth in his day: Are there men now whose compass leads Them always down forbidden roads? Greedy young men who take their pick Of what they want but have no luck; Who leap the toothed and dour crevasse Of death on a sardonic phrase? (LFI, pp.125-6)

and Craven’s report of his own ‘dyspeptic age of ingrown cynics’ (LFI, p.128), who wear:

a blasé face in the face of death. Who risk their lives neither to fill their bellies Nor to avenge an affront nor grab a prize, But out of bravado or to divert ennui Driving fast cars and climbing foreign mountains. (LFI, p.128)

Craven’s comment here also demonstrates MacNeice’s awareness of Isherwood’s idea of ‘The Test’ and includes in the poem the Art Deco influence of World War I. The interwar period’s fascination with speed and danger is referenced here and symbolised as unnecessary risk associated with ‘fast cars’ and ‘foreign mountains’. However MacNeice disapproves of ‘The Test’ and indicates that the motivation behind such behaviour is poorly justified and meaningless, contrasting this behaviour with the treatment of those returned from the real danger of war and emphasising this with the use of the noun ‘hero’ (LFI, p.128), which is

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used in various ways throughout the course of the book. MacNeice has previously allowed Grettir to define himself as a hero (LFI, p.127) while later as ‘Hetty’ he comments that a long ride through pouring rain makes the party feel ‘rather heroic’ (LFI, p.181). This latter use corresponds to the period’s new perception of heroism as displayed by those who seek danger and speed out of excitement or boredom, yet the true hero is the war veteran who had better reasons to risk his life yet is now forced to beg ‘Outside the delicatessen shop […] | With his ribbons and his empty pinned-up sleeve’ (LFI, p.128) for means to live. In this manner such references to the Art Deco lifestyle are used to make political comments regarding the moral compass of a pleasure-bent, irresponsible society. The question of heroism is reflected in the form of the poem, which begins with rhyming couplets as Craven and Ryan discuss their current contentment. Yet the irregular syllabic pattern prevents the verse from being heroic, thus posing questions regarding the later discussion of what, according to the characters, is ‘heroic’ and what is not. The rhyme is then interrupted as temporal distance is reduced to allow discourse with Grettir. Grettir too begins in couplets but quickly abandons formalised style and reverts to free verse:

Your day spits with a damp wick, Will fizzle out if you’re not quick. Men have been chilled to death who kissed Wives of mist, forgetting their own Kind who live out of the wind. (LFI, p.125)

The conversation continues in free verse until other ‘heroes’ of the modern age are referenced in the form of movie stars and the cinema. On hearing music MacNeice, as Ryan, reminisces of hearing the organ at his local cinema in Birmingham, ‘the Gaiety’ (LFI, p.129), while Craven recalls the spectacle of cinema, incorporating another element of Art Deco life. However as this form of entertainment is too modern, alien and inconceivable to Grettir he cannot hear the music and as once again Craven and Ryan display disillusion with such ‘heroes’ the verse returns to free form:435

C:

What is that music in the air — Organ-music coming from far?

R: 435

Honeyed music — it sounds to me

Crangle & Nicholls (eds.), On Bathos, p.68.

185 Like the Wurlitzer in the Gaeity. G:

I do not hear anything at all.

C:

Imagine the purple lights on the stage,

R:

The melting moment of a stinted age,

C:

The pause before the film again Bursts in a shower of golden rain.

G:

I do not hear anything at all.

C:

We shall be back there soon, to stand in queues For entertainment and to work at desks […] (LFI, p.129)

A brief return to couplets, again inspired by music, is disrupted by Grettir and the remainder of the men’s discourse is presented in free verse as they each identify the men they consider their true ‘heroes’ from the arts, politics or society. The disembodied ‘Voice from Europe’, influenced by similar devices in Eliot’s The Waste Land and Gerontion, attempts to return rhythm with fast-paced internal rhyme but the men do not attend or acknowledge: VOICE:

Always on the mend coming around the bend Always on the dance with an eye to the main Chance, always taking the floor again —

C:

There was Tchekov, His haemorrhages drove him out of Moscow […] (LFI, pp.130-131)

The war is again referenced in conjunction with the Ballets Russes principal dancer Vaslav Nijinsky, the ‘dancer | Who danced the war’ (LFI, p.131), whose innovative talent was, in later years, overshadowed by schizophrenia. This mental condition MacNeice refers to as a ‘coma’ and as a false state of mind, represented by the traditional literary image of the deceitful ‘ivory gate’ (LFI, p.131) through which Nijinsky walks with ‘hunched shoulders’ (LFI, p.131) in contrast to his impressive dancer’s physique to signify the effect upon his career. The reference to Nijinsky is the vaguest in the list of heroes, with the dancer unnamed and his mental illness disguised as another. However the imprecise nature of the reference in comparison to the others indicates some significance to MacNeice, who would be aware of Nijinsky’s creative contributions to the Ballets Russes’s attempts at gesamtkunstwerk, a concept he is allied to himself through his work with Rupert Doone’s avant-garde Group Theatre.

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As Grettir represents the archaic and primitive in the poem, it is fitting that this character introduces elements of Jazz Deco that were allied to its predecessor, Art Nouveau, such as flowers and nature. Grettir reminiscences of ‘celandines and bogcotton’ (LFI, p.128); old-world ‘ravens’ (LFI, p.128) common in Norse mythology; and later Ryan, echoing MacNeice’s close relationship with nature, speaks of ‘roses’ to describe the ‘sweet confetti of music’ (LFI, p.130) and ‘peonies’ (LFI, p.130).436 Nature is also represented by the sun as Ryan echoes MacNeice’s experience in Zoo, in which the presence of the sun allows him to connect more thoroughly with his environment:

R:

Though at intervals They paused in sunlight for a moment’s fusion With friends or nature till the cynical wind Blew the trees pale — (LFI, p.131)

Significantly, the sunlight is presented as to suggest that it is an essential agent for ‘fusion’ with one’s surroundings: without it, there would be no connection, however momentary, between Ryan (MacNeice) and his surroundings or other people. MacNeice’s peonies are crimson and likewise all specified colours in ‘Eclogue’ are taken from the Art Deco palette (blue, red, grey, purple, gold) yet unusually for MacNeice there is no green identified in the scene, due to the grey, desert-like atmosphere of Arnarvatn Heath. The bleak vista of Iceland is drawn in geometric shapes such as inverted arcs (‘craters’) and angular ‘crags’ (LFI, p.127) and the lack of architecture forces Ryan and Craven to import notable designs into the landscape, particularly an exotic ‘romantic grill (Spanish baroque)’ (LFI, p.132) from a warmer climate, remembered by Craven (Auden) from a visit to Spain and described as ‘Moorish mudejar churriguerresque’ (LFI, p.127). While the image is associated with pre-war Spain and indicates the writers’ growing concern for conflict in that country (it is from ‘before the Civil War’, LFI, p.126), it is also an entirely appropriate style of historical Spanish architecture in terms of Art Deco aesthetics. It appeals to both Auden and MacNeice not only for its associations with travel, exoticism and the past but also in its similarity to aspects of the Jazz expression: while the Baroque architect Churriguera was known for ornamentation, the earlier mudéjar style was characterised by its geometrical elements such as:

436

Kathleen N. Daly, Norse Mythology A to Z (New York: Chelsea House, 2010), p.84.

187 geometrical ceiling carvings, towers that were originally minarets, horse-shoeshaped arches and geometrical patterned wall tiles.437

All of these elements relate to aspects of early Deco design including geometric patterns, tiers or towers, and arches or curves. By importing this specific architecture into the Icelandic landscape further examples of the Deco elements of geometry, architecture, travel and exoticism are thereby incorporated into the poem. The straight line is also overwhelmingly present in ‘Eclogue’. Craven’s remembrance of Spain includes a snapshot of a bullfight, ‘the banderillas like Christmas candles’ (LFI, p.127) describing the matador’s barbed sticks. This image contains both horizontal and angled lines in the form of banderillas and also vertical lines in the form of candles. However the horizontal line is present elsewhere in the use of the punctuational dash, which also incorporates the period’s preoccupation with speed. The dash is used almost exclusively in conjunction with the present tense or aspects of modern life, for example:

R:

And so we came to Iceland —

C:

Our latest joyride (LFI, p.127)

which references the thrill of speed in a motor vehicle, or, combined with another reference to transport in the form of the London Underground: C:

[…] It is the world which these have made where dead Greek words sprout out in tin on sallow walls — Clinic or polytechnic — a world of slums Where any day now may see the Gadarene swine Rush down the gullets of the London tubes[.] (LFI, p.134)

The dashes in this excerpt, however, surround the subclause ‘clinic or polytechnic’ rather than transport but they are nonetheless referring to modern developments in those institutions, particularly in interior design with ‘sallow walls’ denoting the lack of decoration associated with the Moderne and simple whitewashing used in times of austerity. The most convincing use of the dash as a symbol of speed comes at the conclusion of the scene as Grettir persuades Ryan and Craven that returning home is the only way in which to make a 437

Jeremy Head, Frommer’s Seville Day by Day: 17 Smart Ways to See the City (Chichester: John Wiley, 2008), p.166.

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positive difference, his assertion that ‘it is your only duty | And […] only chance’ preceded by the phrase :

G:

Minute your gesture but it must be made — (LFI, p.134)

The repetition of ‘only’ indicates that immediate action is imperative and this is reinforced by the dash: haste is required, the gesture must be made quickly. Speed and the dash are particularly associated with women and the garçonne in the poem, continuing the running joke throughout Letters From Iceland that women are ‘fast’. Ryan, for example, reveals in an unguarded, private comment:

R:

Wrong numbers on the ‘phone — she never answered[,] (LFI, p.132)

indicating the false and cruel behaviour of the provocative, promiscuous modern woman who would lead on a man only to provide incorrect information or refuse to follow through on her tacit promises. Ryan’s disillusionment with women is summarised by Craven, who describes them as soulless, materialistic, cold, fickle and unfaithful, even succubus-like: C:

There are the lures of women Who, half alive, invite to a fuller life And never loving would be loved by others. (LFI, p.133)

Yet while the homosexual Craven (Auden) expresses these sentiments as a man who has no personal affinity for women, Ryan, as a projection of the heterosexual MacNeice, feels personally betrayed by the modern woman, suggested by his scathing tone as he lists aspects of the feminine consumer lifestyle. Dashes appear in this impassioned tirade surrounding a mini-list of popular fabrics (‘—georgette or velvet or corduroy —’, LFI, p.133), indicating the movement of different fabrics and the speed with which women change their look in addition to reinforcing MacNeice’s personal opinion of the wearer. John Whitehead reduces the presence of women in the poem to a mere list: here [women are] described as so often in MacNeice’s work by reference to their accessories,438 438

Whitehead, A Commentary, p.67.

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yet it can be argued that the aspects listed are specifically those of the modern woman or garçonne. MacNeice references the careless behaviour, luxurious modern fashion, exotic materials and accessories, a preoccupation with personal appearance and the attainment of beauty, and the ‘wished ensemble’ of the specific attitude and appearance that creates the garçonne package as MacNeice perceives it:

R:

Who fortify themselves in pasteboard castles And plant their beds with the cast-out toys of children, Dead pines with tinsel fruits, nursery beliefs, And South Sea Island trinkets. Watch their years The permutations of lapels and gussets, Of stuffs —georgette or velvet or corduroy — Of hats and eye-veils, of shoes, lizard or suède, Of bracelets, milk or coral, of zip bags, Of compacts, lipstick, eyeshade, and coiffures All tributary to the wished ensemble, The carriage of body that belies the soul. (LFI, pp.133-134)

In the chapter ‘Journey to Iceland’ Auden states that ‘Europe is absent’ (LFI, p.26) as are, for the most part, women in the book’s Icelandic landscape. There are, for example, no women in the poem’s list of heroes. Auden demands, as in the example discussed on p.178, that ‘No man should bring a woman into the fort’ (LFI, p.98): their fort is Iceland, where they have exiled themselves and deliberately attempted to exclude the problems of Europe including that of the new woman such as MacNeice’s adulterous wife. To Auden and MacNeice’s minds, women have been left behind in Europe. However, Europe is imported into Iceland in MacNeice’s poem not only by discussing their dissatisfaction with it but by giving the continent a voice, and the name itself bears female connotations in its derivation from the name of Europa, bestowed upon both an earth goddess and the thirtieth Oceanide (a lower-ranking sea goddess) in Greek mythology and a Phoenician princess.439 Europe, associated in MacNeice’s mind with the currently-absent women, is therefore not entirely absent, and due to the nature of the Voice’s contribution, dismissed by Peter McDonald as a

439

Peter H. Gommers, Europe: What’s In A Name (Belgium: Leuven University Press, 2001), p.41, p.48.

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mere ‘glamorous hail of consumer data’, it can be argued that Europe’s voice is female.440 Its presence in the discussion of politics leads many critics to determine that the Voice is of Europe but the distinction ‘from Europe’ indicates that its speaker is elsewhere, in Europe, just as are the women of their acquaintance. It is appropriate that MacNeice here connects the garçonne to Europe and politics due to the distrust he associates with new women due to his wife (see ‘Morning Sun’). Politically, Europe is also untrustworthy, for example regarding appeasement, and the behaviour of both Fascist and Communist leaders. MacNeice’s unerring description of the garçonne in comparison with the Voice’s opening speech also supports the view that the elusive ‘Voice from Europe’ is in fact the voice of a woman, specifically a garçonne. The Voice enters the scene ‘maundering, meandering’ (LFI, p.130), heard only by Ryan (MacNeice). It is fitting that only Ryan hears the Voice: Auden has no interest in women and, as with the Wurlitzer, Grettir cannot comprehend of what it speaks and so again hears nothing. Ryan has a better relationship with women despite his current disillusionment, thus he hears but chooses to ignore. The Voice quickly abandons the ‘maundering’ tone to introduce a jarring, jaunty rhythm in a ‘tasteless jazz ditty’ and a series of literary devices including assonance, alliteration, internal rhyme, emjambment and a sudden lack of punctuation.441 This contrasts sharply with the loose, relaxed free verse employed by the three male characters, indicating that the Voice is disruptive, attention-seeking and somehow out of touch with the rest of the scene, something ‘other’. That the Voice is female is suggested by what it chooses to speak of, contrasting with the men’s discussion of heroes and soldiers, and how it is spoken. The literary devices increase the speed to an almost frenetic pace compared to the Voice’s opening sequence of ellipses, indicating the presence of a ‘fast’ woman, while she speaks of similar characteristics to those later listed by Ryan – vain beauty, fashion, flapper-style dancing, fast cars and care-free promiscuity:

VOICE:

Blues…blues… high heels and manicured hands Always self-conscious of the vanity bag And puritan painted lips that abnegate desire And say ‘we do not care’ … ‘we do not care’ — I don’t care always in the air Give my hips a shake always on the make

440 441

Peter McDonald, Louis MacNeice: The poet in his contexts (Oxford: Clarendon, 1991), p.72. Crangle & Nicholls (eds.), On Bathos, p.68.

191 Always on the mend coming around the bend Always on the dance with an eye to the main Chance, always taking the floor again — (LFI, p.130)

The repetition of ‘always’ indicates the restless nature of the garçonne, her propensity to remain unsatisfied, and the unrest her behaviour causes in society. Two dashes are included in this passage, emphasising the increased speed and the distasteful attitude of the ‘fast’ modern woman. However the latter dash also signals an interruption as the men’s discourse continues, the Voice remaining unacknowledged and ignored. Her attempts to reintroduce rhyme and rhythm, symbolic of the modern cosmopolitan culture in Europe, are futile as she has no place either in the men’s discussion or in the Iceland they wish to experience. The Voice’s second speech contains only internal rhyme at a slower pace, yet the content again indicates a female. Dancing is again referenced in the repeated ‘Blues, blues’ (LFI, p.132) and also feminine accessories in the form of ‘tiny lavendered fetishes’ (LFI, p.132). The care-free, non-combatant mindset of the garçonne is reflected in the imperatives ‘sit back, relax’ and the rhetorical ‘Who cares | If floods depopulate China?’ (LFI, p.132). The Voice clearly cares little for politics, repeatedly asserting ‘I don’t care’ (LFI, p.132), yet politics dominates the conversation between Ryan, Craven and Grettir, further indicating that the owner of the Voice is so far removed from the male viewpoint that they are ‘other’. The Voice lives only for enjoyment like the garçonne, talking of modern pleasures such as ‘sitting among the stars’ (LFI, p.132) at the cinema, enjoying ‘electric signs’ in city nightlife (LFI, p.132), drinking ‘imported wines’ (LFI, p.132) and delighting carelessly in both personal and sexual risk and danger symbolised by her ‘climbing the forbidden tree’ (LFI, p.132). These are all hallmarks of the behaviour and lifestyles exhibited by women between the wars, enjoying their newfound liberties. The ‘forbidden tree’ here also provides evidence to support the view that the Voice is female by alluding to Eve in the Garden of Eden, particularly when followed by the imagery of an apple: VOICE:

Always on the spree climbing the forbidden tree Tossing the peel of the apple over my shoulder To see it form the initials of a new intrigue[.] (LFI, p.132)

Significantly the Voice uses a definite article to refer to ‘the’ apple rather than ‘an’, emphasising the connection to Eve, and employs the peel in a divining ritual performed

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exclusively by females, most often witches, to discover a ‘new intrigue’.442 While the ritual was commonly used to discover the name of one’s husband, the Voice attempts to discover ‘intrigue’ which MacNeice uses ambiguously to refer to sexual intrigues, thereby emphasising the garçonne’s promiscuity and inconstancy, and also to any new and popular commodity that the materialistic and ‘acquisitive’ (LFI, p.132) modern woman would find ‘intriguing’. The Voice’s third and final speech again references beauty treatments:

VOICE:

Hot towels for the men, mud packs for the women Will smooth the puckered minutes of your lives. (LFI, p.133)

However this suggests not only cosmetic procedures to minimise superficial worry lines on a person’s face or brow, but also the futility of attempting to reverse time and the artificiality of the modern world. The sinister tone also indicates danger associated with such a carefree, luxurious, superficial way of living - the worries are removed but such carelessness results in death and decay as the Voice concludes:

I offer you each a private window, a view (The leper window reveals a church of lepers). (LFI, p.133)

This last threatening statement, and the only political comment from the Voice, suggests the price of such a fast, decadent, carefree and vain existence. The modern world’s quest for personal beauty, luxury and pleasure (‘a private window, a view’) leads only to a community of ‘lepers’: a society falling apart, diseased, rotten and isolated – or as Auden stated in The Orators (1932), a country ‘where nobody is well’ (MEA, p.62). Yet it must be noted that the Voice itself predicts this result, accepting the consequence of its current situation and resigned to events which have already come to pass and cannot be altered even by hot towels and mud packs. This supports the view that the Voice is as much of Europe as it is from. However the Voice is ignored. No character in the poem addresses the Voice or directly acknowledges what it says. The questions following the Voice’s final statement could as easily be applied to Grettir’s comment before it (‘Though the open road is hard with frost and dark’, LFI, p.133) as Ryan and Craven prefer to believe that exile is the better 442

Bill Ellis, Lucifer Ascending: The Occult in Folklore and Popular Culture (Kentucky, USA: The University Press of Kentucky, 2004), p.146.

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choice over returning to their homelands, an idea of which Grettir proceeds to disabuse them. Grettir also states that they ‘cannot argue with the eyes or voice’ and urges them to ‘give the voice the lie’ (LFI, p.133), yet this does not prove that the Voice has finally been attended, as prior to the entry of ‘Voice from Europe’ the conversation had turned to the attitude of heroic rebels:

R:

[…] Soldiers of fortune, renegade artists, rebels and sharpers Whose speech not cramped to Yea and Nay explodes In crimson oaths like peonies[.] (LFI, p.130)

The language of the conformist is thereby heard here through Ryan’s inclusion of ‘Yea and Nay’, and it could as easily be the voice of conformity of which Grettir speaks. This is further supported by the use of pronouns ‘him’ and ‘her’. After the Voice has spoken for the last time, Ryan and Craven ask ‘Do you believe him?’ (LFI, p.133), while Grettir clearly associates a country or homeland with a female identity: G:

[…] I could have fled To the Hebrides or Orkney, been rich and famous, Preferred to assert my rights in my own country, Mine which were hers for every country stands By the sanctity of the individual will. (LFI, p.134)

As a country is female, the questions regarding ‘him’ cannot therefore have been associated with the Voice from Europe, indicating that the Voice is never attended or responded to and is certainly a female voice. Ryan, as the only man to remark on it at all, wilfully chooses to ignore the Voice and deny it influence purely due to MacNeice’s personal dislike and distrust of the modern female at this time. Therefore this poem alone contains all of the significant elements that influenced the Art Deco style, including World War I, the garçonne, cinema, jazz and dancing, the Ballets Russes, simultaneity, numerous links to Cubism and other popular visual art, and the interwar preoccupation with speed and the capture of movement. As a word-picture it portrays every characteristic needed for it to be considered an Art Deco piece.

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‘Letter to Lord Byron’ Auden’s five-part epistle is one of the most highly-regarded poems amongst his body of work, and has been interpreted in a variety of ways. Its value is most often defined in terms of its political and social commentary on Britain and Europe between the wars, the elements of satire and autobiography, and its relationship in form and style to Byron’s Don Juan (1818-24), which Auden was reading at the time of his Iceland trip.443 However, value may be added to each of these interpretations when read in the context of Art Deco and its influence on interwar lifestyle. Much is made of the poem’s connection to Don Juan and the choice of Lord Byron as correspondent, yet these choices immediately introduce Cubist elements into the work, particularly in Part I’s placement as the book’s opening chapter. Lord Byron is the only correspondent in Letters who is not a contemporary of either Auden or MacNeice, yet the letter is written in present tense and speaks of Byron and other authors as if they were Auden’s living contemporaries. Although Auden ‘remember[s …] that you were dead’ (LFI, p.20) he nonetheless addresses Byron in a manner which implies they exist in the same temporal space, thereby reducing temporal distance between himself and other highlyregarded writers of the past and culminating in Part V in a scene in which a selection of writers spanning eight centuries occupy the same temporal location: Shakespeare is lounging grandly at the bar, Milton is dozing, judging by his looks, Shelley is playing poker with two crooks, Blake’s adding pince-nez to an ad. for players, Chaucer is buried in the latest Sayers. (LFI, p.235)

It is clear that the location is in Auden’s ‘time and place’, indicated by the ‘bar’ and reference to the interwar crime fiction writer Dorothy L. Sayers (1893-1957). This demonstrates Eliot’s Cubist notion of the ‘pastness of the past, but [also] of its presence’, and indicates Auden’s awareness of Eliot’s essay ‘Tradition and the Individual Talent’, which continues:

443

Marsha Bryant (ed.), Photo-textualities: Reading Photographs and Literature (London: Associated University Presses 1996), p.109; David Roessel, In Byron’s Shadow: Modern Greece in English and American Imagination (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), p.228; Ruben Quintero (ed.), A Companion to Satire: Ancient and Modern (Oxford: Blackwell, 2007), p.446; Sharpe (ed.), W.H. Auden in Context, p.289; Tim Youngs, ‘Auden’s Travel Writings’ in The Cambridge Companion to W.H. Auden ed. by Stan Smith, pp.72-75; Whitehead, A Commentary, p.66.

195 the historical sense compels a man to write not merely with his own generation in his bones, but with a feeling that the whole of the literature of Europe from Homer and within it the whole of the literature of his own country has a simultaneous existence and composes a simultaneous order.444

This description of Cubist simultaneity is apt to define ‘Letter to Lord Byron’, not only in the inclusion and present-tense address of historical persons but also in the form of the poem. Tim Youngs states that ‘Letter to Lord Byron’ is a ‘literary journey’ in its reference to deceased writers through the ages, and this journey is also both geographical and temporal in Auden’s choice of Don Juan as inspiration and rime royal as form.445 Byron’s Don Juan was inspired by the poem ‘Whistlecraft’ (1817) by John Hookham Frere, itself written in ottava rima in the tradition of Italian ‘burlesques’ by Francesco Berni (1497-1535) and Luigi Pulci (1432-1484) on which ‘Whistlecraft’ was ‘modelled’.446 Auden acknowledges the literary tradition of Don Juan and its form of ottava rima which he accepts is the ‘proper instrument’ (LFI, p.22) with which to compose a Don Juan-inspired work, yet instead chooses a sisterstyle, rime royal, more commonly associated with Geoffrey Chaucer (1343-1400) and an earlier period of English history to write to Byron of Auden’s ‘own generation’. Thus Auden demonstrates a sense of both the ‘literature of Europe’ and of his own country, in an essentially English form that relates to yet is disconnected from the literary lineage of Don Juan to reflect the uneasy atmosphere of interwar Europe as experienced by Auden’s generation. Auden’s personal history also plays a role in his ‘literary journey’ and allows him to place himself in various literary, geographical and temporal locations in an example of Cubist ‘simultaneous existence’:

My name occurs in several of the sagas, Is common over Iceland still. Down under Where Das Volk order sausages and lagers I ought to be the prize, the living wonder, The really pure from any Rassenschander, In fact I am the great big white barbarian, The Nordic type, the too too truly Aryan. (LFI, p.201) 444

T.S. Eliot, ‘Tradition and the Individual Talent’, p.141. Tim Youngs, ‘Auden’s Travel Writings’, p72. 446 Caroline Franklin, Byron (Oxon: Routledge, 2007), p.63; Harold Bloom (ed.), George Gordon, Lord Byron (New York: Infobase, 2009), p.6. 445

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The possessive adjective in ‘my name’ indicates that Wystan Auden situates himself in spaces occupied by the family name Auden in Icelandic sagas which he read from childhood, reducing temporal and literary distances between himself as the character in Nordic myths and the author-narrator of 1937’s Letters. The passage also indicates simultaneous existence in various geographical locations, situating Auden in both Iceland and Germany which is also suggestive of differing temporal spaces in that Auden had visited Germany in 1929 but refers to his social place in fitting the German ideal of Nordic aesthetics under the current Nazi regime. Several Cubist elements include those found in Eliot, such as fragmentation, the polyperspective swing of focus from back- to foreground, ambiguity, and the inclusion of real-world conversation and lyrics. Ambiguity is evident in such comments as ‘There is no lie our children cannot read’ (LFI, p.52) regarding the state of education and ‘those who are as good at games as he | Acquire the back-hand quite instinctively’ (LFI, p.53). The latter refers both to the game of tennis mentioned in the same stanza and also ‘tips’ (LFI, p.53) and bribes associated with celebrity and success. Another ambiguous phrase includes ‘I’ll clear my throat and take a Rover’s breath’ (LFI, p.50), which implies that Auden is a traveller (rover) but also alludes to a Rover motorcar, with the clearing of the throat simulating the noise of a starting engine (‘Rover’s breath’). This is particularly suggested by the phrase’s location amongst reference to other forms of transport, such as bicycyles, motorbikes and the railway. The poem is also fragmented, offering frequent sequences of images bearing little similarity to the one presented before, for example jumping from fashion (‘To start with, on the whole we’re better dressed’, LFI, p.52) to education, to ‘dandruff’ (LFI, p.52) to ‘field sports’ (LFI, p.52) within the space of thirteen lines. Fragmentation is also conveyed in Auden’s choice of rime royal, with the fourth line of each stanza serving both as the last line of a quatrain and the first of a couplet which enforces a ‘gradual disruption’ appropriate for the ‘delineation of […] temporal experiences’ and simultaneity, while the inclusion of phrases in various foreign languages is ‘disjunctive and unsettling’.447 Including ‘other’ languages in this manner fragments the narrative, facilitates polyperspectivism, and suggests frequent travel through personal geographical movement and also in literary spaces in its emulation of

447

Roland Greene, Stephen Cushman and others (eds.), The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2012), p.1194; Juliette Taylor-Batty, Multilingualism in Modernist Fiction (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), p.30.

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Eliot and Pound. Other examples of polyperspectivism include the opening to Part V:

Autumn is here. The beech leaves strew the lawn; The power stations take up heavier loads; The massive lorries shake from dusk till dawn The houses on the residential roads; The shops are full of coming winter modes. Dances have started at the Baths next door Stray scraps of MS strew my bedroom floor [,] (LFI, p.232)

in which the focus of the passage flickers from mid-ground leaves to background power stations, mid-ground houses to the immediate foreground and objects on the floor. The poem also contains frequent reference to real-world conversation and songs. Part I begins in this manner, listing examples of questions from readers which both Byron and Auden could have been asked, such as ‘‘My daughter writes, should I encourage her?’’ (LFI, p.17). Allusions to song lyrics occur in Part V through adapted misquotes, including ‘Land of Hope and Glory’ (1902) in ‘The Mater […] of the free | […] Whatever happens I am born of Thee’ (LFI, p.233), and ‘It Had To Be You’, a 1924 song featured in the 1936 Ruth Etting movie Melody In May, from which Auden misquotes ‘With all thy faults, of course we love thee still’ (LFI, p.233). This last example, in addition to real-world elements, demonstrates simultaneity in the lyrics’ existence in poetry, song and film, and again the influence of cinema on Auden’s creative processes. Although this content could be considered the influence of Eliot on Auden’s work rather than awareness of visual modernist techniques, it is nonetheless demonstrated that these examples are allied to elements of literary Cubism as identified in the work of Eliot and regarded by Auden as significant devices.448 Other Cubist elements in ‘Letter to Lord Byron’ include geometric shapes, which occur in the form of arcs and circles; a ‘three-quarter circle’ (LFI, p.23) turn in Part I and a ‘circle’ (LFI, p.105) of friends in Part III. A further, less explicit, geometrical image is presented in the form of a ‘square-windowed mill’ (LFI, p.50). One final allusion to Cubism exists in the image of a car travelling ‘too fast […] | To look too closely at the wheeling view’ (LFI, p.50), as movement at speed, facilitated by the car, and the resulting blurred or fragmented vantage-point also inspired the clerestory window of the Pavilion du Tourisme at 448

Please see examples from Eliot’s The Waste Land as identified in Chapter 1, pp.52-53.

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the 1925 Paris Exposition (fig.15), as previously discussed on p.85.449 Designed by the French artist Louis Barillet (1880-1948), the stained glass depicts a Cubist interpretation of the view from a car travelling at velocity and promotes the speed, personal movement and preoccupation with mechanized transport which were incorporated into the Art Deco lifestyle, in addition to the polyperspectivism and movement associated with Cubism. Thus Auden’s ‘wheeling view’ bears similarities to that of Barillet, one of the earliest examples of Cubist Art Deco associated with movement. Movement in the poem is conveyed in a variety of ways. These include references to transport such as riding ‘pillion’ (LFI, p.50) on motorbikes and bicycles, cars, charabancs (LFI, p.52), ‘bus-stops or the aerodrome’ (LFI, p.51), the London Underground (LFI, p.55, p.205), trams and railways (LFI, p.51). Travel is also conducted personally by Auden via ships, the initial ‘boat to Reykjavik’ (LFI, p.18) in Part I, an unnamed boat at the ‘quay’ (LFI, p.49) in Part II and the steam merchant vessel Dettifoss (LFI, p.200) in Part IV, which is the only part written at the moment of movement. However this mode of transport clearly impacts upon the choice of form, with the constant rhyme and rhythm of rime royal reflecting the pattern of the sea, similar to MacNeice’s ‘Passage Steamer’ (1936) in which repetition in the second and fourth lines of each stanza imitate the lull of waves as in the example discussed on pages 147 and 149: Back from a journey I require Some new desire, desire, desire But I find in the open sea and sun None, none, none, none [.] (MCP, p.62)

The boat is one of the few vehicles on which a traveller may expect a consistent rhythm irrespective of where the journey occurs geographically, yet Isherwood reports that Auden disliked the sea as it is ‘formless’, indicating that the choice of rime royal is influenced by the ship as a reaction against the matter on which the boat functions. Auden thereby superimposes upon the ‘formless’ sea a strict literary form associated with significant historical literary travels, such as Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales.450 This is suggested by no fewer than six direct references to the sea throughout ‘Lord Byron’, demonstrating his

449

Klein, McClelland & Haslam, In the Deco Style, p.109; Arwas, Art Deco, p.34. Isherwood, Lions and Shadows, p.117; Monroe K. Spears (ed), Auden: A Collection of Critical Essays (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1964), p.13. 450

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preoccupation with form against formlessness, and supported by his statement that he requires a form that is significant or ‘large enough to swim in’ (LFI, p.21). Physical movement is also expressed in references to popular interwar sports such as golf and tennis (LFI, p.53) and swimming (LFI, p.52, p.100), in addition to exerting exercise such as climbing (LFI, p.22), hiking (LFI, p.52), wrestling (LFI, p.54), walking (LFI, p.102) and dancing (LFI, p.106). This reflects the interwar concern with health and fitness, of which Auden demonstrates his awareness in Part II. To his mind the traditional English ‘penchant for field sports’ has become a ‘passion for the open air’ (LFI, p.52), indicating the switch of importance from the playing of a game to being outdoors where one can benefit from the sunlight. The important role of the sun and sun-cult in interwar British culture and the lifestyle promoted by Art Deco is also recognised by Auden in his comment that ‘The sun is one of our emotive nouns’ (LFI, p.52). Movement is also indicated in the use of the punctuational dash, a mark also associated with the style of Byron. Andrew Nicholson’s analysis of Byron’s use of the mark identifies four different stylistic implications (impatient, ironical, comical and ‘furioso’) but indicates that dashes usually facilitate accretion and the addition of material to modify or qualify the original statement.451 Auden too uses the dash in these ways; of nineteen marks throughout ‘Lord Byron’, seventeen are juxtaposed to sub-clauses or employed as connective punctuation. However, there are also uses in a ‘comical’ connective sense (‘And then a lord — Good Lord, you must be peppered,’ LFI, p.17), ‘impatient’ (‘manuscripts — by every post…’, LFI, p.23) and ‘ironical’: So started what I’ll call the Poet’s Party: (Most of the guests were painters, never mind) — (LFI, p.106)

indicating Auden’s thorough knowledge and emulation of Byron’s style particularly in the use of the dash. Arnold Schmidt, however, suggests that Byron’s dash also adds an element of ‘energy and fluidity’, and for Auden it is this aspect of movement that attracts most as he later comments that Byron’s work should be ‘read very rapidly, as if the words were a single frame in a movie film’.452 This connects in Auden’s mind the fast movement associated with

451

Frederick Burwick, Nancy M. Goslee & Diane M. Hoeveler (eds.), The Encyclopedia of Romantic Literature, Volume 2 (Sussex: Blackwell, 2012), p.208; Arnold Anthony Schmidt, Byron and the Rhetoric of Italian Nationalism (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), p.45. 452 Schmidt, Byron and the Rhetoric of Italian Nationalism, p.45; Franklin, Byron, p.99; Michael Ferber, The Cambridge Introduction to British Romantic Poetry (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), p.211.

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the dash in written work and other media capable of projecting fast-paced images, and these aspects are transferred to the use of the mark in his own work. Nearly one third of the dashes in ‘Lord Byron’ are juxtaposed with images associated with movement, such as temporal relocation (‘skip a century of sin —’, LFI, p.50), the geographical relocation of correspondence (LFI, p.17) and physical exertion (‘A poet, swimmer, peer, and man of action, | — It beats Roy Campbell’s record by a mile — ’, LFI, p.100). In addition to the Art Deco elements of movement and the dash, transport, sports, the sun and Cubism, the poem contains the majority of the remaining identifiers of the Deco style. Both Art Deco and ‘Letter to Lord Byron’ are influenced by the First World War and the discovery of King Tutankhamen, for example, with each referenced in two Parts of ‘Lord Byron’. As previously discussed, Egyptian motifs are incorporated into the word-picture including ‘Egyptian graves’ (LFI, p.104) plus two rival gods (LFI, p.58), while the War is represented by reference to ‘Ypres and Passchendaele’ (LFI, p.55) in Part II and in the autobiographical Part IV, which suggests the more personal impact of the War on Auden’s generation. The War occurs in three locations in Part IV, the first highlighting a young boy’s limited understanding of its political significance. The biggest consequence of the war as identified by Auden is the absence of worthy male role models: The best were fighting, as the King expected, The remnant either elderly grey creatures, Or characters with most peculiar features. (LFI, pp.205-206)

His father’s absence is referenced again in his remembrance of the post-War years – ‘Butter and Father had come back again’ (LFI, p.207) – and his description of ‘that debauched, eccentric generation | That grew up with their fathers at the War’ (LFI, p.209). This last statement suggests that the lack of men-folk during and after World War I directly results in the perceived eccentricity of his own interwar generation, which includes Isherwood’s concept of ‘The Test’ and the preoccupations with fitness, speed, reckless daring and sexual licence as identified by MacNeice in ‘Eclogue from Iceland’ and Ballets Russes’ Le Train Bleu. The War and ‘The Test’ also play a role in Auden’s own decisions to travel and the locations to which he journeys, including a desert-like Iceland, Civil War-torn Spain, wartorn China, and primitive areas of Africa and Asia – locations in which one may experience physical discomforts and dangers akin to those suffered by ‘their fathers’. As Bernard Schweizer suggests, the destinations chosen by many interwar travellers reflected a need to

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experience the ‘other’ without creature comforts:

In their attempt to face the reality of violence, poverty, and oppression, politically minded travelers of the 1930s shunned the sunny seaside resorts of Saint-Tropez and Capri. Indeed, the slum, the trench, the rat-infested African hut, and the decrepit Dalmatian village were the most typical loci of their investigations.453

Auden himself perhaps realises the underlying reasons for his own journeys to locations associated with hardship, as he comments in 1938 that ‘This voyage is our illness’ (APTB, p.451) and in the same year writes the poem ‘Passenger Shanty’, set on an ocean liner, to the tune of the World War I song Mademoiselle From Armentières (1915). Others, however, reacted differently to the War such as Evelyn Waugh, John Betjeman, the Sitwells and the Bright Young Things, whose wild and decadent behaviour is clearly implied in Part III:

To-day, alas, that happy crowded floor Looks very different: many are in tears: Some have retired to bed and locked the door; And some swing madly from the chandeliers; Some have passed out entirely in the rears; Some have been sick in corners; the sobering few Are trying hard to think of something new. (LFI, p.106)

This references the excessive drinking, drug-taking, chaotic jazz dance parties and constant need to outdo themselves as exhibited by that social group following World War I, and forms part of the ‘debauchery’ in society which Auden attributes to the War. Jazz elements also include reference to popular jazz songs and musicians, such as the song ‘It Had To be You’ (1924) and the pianist Duke Ellington (1899-1974) (LFI, p.57). Auden indicates that he dislikes such music, listing it amongst aspects of modern life that mark society’s decline such as modern warfare and ‘Britannia’s lost prestige and cash and power’ (LFI, p.56), and that jazz is an eccentricity which has negatively impacted upon interwar Britain. Its presence in this particular list, however, also suggests that Auden regards the jazz phenomenon as a significant characteristic of post-War society and thus of the British 453

Schweizer, Radicals on the Road, pp.105-106.

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adoption of the Art Deco lifestyle. To Auden’s mind this influence upon lifestyle is as detrimental as the carefree, ‘debauched’ existence of modern-day personalities who are celebrated as heroes for the wrong reasons, the person he imagines Byron’s Don Juan would be in the ‘thirties:

I see his face in every magazine. ‘Don Juan at lunch with one of Cochran’s ladies.’ ‘Don Juan with his red setter May MacQueen.’ ‘Don Juan, who’s just been wintering in Cadiz, Caught at the wheel of his maroon Mercedes.’ ‘Don Juan at Croydon Aerodrome.’ ‘Don Juan Snapped in the paddock with the Agha Khan.’ (LFI, p.54)

Don Juan is here associated with all of the characteristics of the modern hero which, as indicated in MacNeice’s ‘Eclogue from Iceland’, are antithetic to those considered truly heroic by MacNeice and Auden. Auden therefore endows Don Juan with sexual prowess, reflected in his companions as ‘Cochran’s ladies’ and referring to the fashionable leading ladies in theatre productions by Charles B. Cochran (1872-1951) including Jessie Matthews, Alice Delysia, Gertrude Lawrence and Evelyn Laye.454 He possesses both an Irish setter dog and racehorse, both of which are associated with streamlined physiques and speed, while he is also associated twice with red (‘red setter’, ‘maroon’), a prominent colour in the Art Deco palette bearing connotations of desirability and danger. Don Juan is likely healthy and tanned in the modern fashion, achieving year-round exposure to the sun through travel to ‘[winter] at Cadiz’, and has attained wealth, movement and speed, symbolised by his ownership of a prestigious motorcar and presence both at the aerodrome and in the paddock. Don Juan thereby embodies the Art Deco lifestyle by achieving intrinsic elements promoted in interwar visual art: sexual prowess, travel, the sun, transport, streamlining, personal movement and, most importantly, speed. In terms of Art Deco characteristics, the most important Part of ‘Lord Byron’ is the second. In its commentary on contemporary British life, Auden references every significant element of Art Deco in Britain’s unique adoption of the style. As previously identified, this chapter alone includes Egyptology, geometric shapes, Cubism and Picasso, transport, the sun,

454

Steven Suskin, Show Tunes: The Songs, Shows, and Careers of Broadway’s Major Composers (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), p.119, p.120, p.122.

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sports, the Ballets Russes, fashion, World War I, and jazz music. However remaining elements are also discussed by Auden. The garçonne, for example, is present in the girls who ‘travel pillion’ (LFI, p.50) and the ‘hostesses’ who ‘ask […] out’ a man, overturning tradition in their behaviour which includes physical risk in riding pillion in addition to close physical proximity to a (supposedly male) driver, and assuming the male role in sexual negotiation. Sexual freedom is also indicated in a reference to the popular pastime of the cinema and its ‘perfect taste in seating’ (LFI, p.51), suggestive of the opportunities for intimacy which the dark auditoriums allowed. However, several characteristics of the Art Deco lifestyle are disliked by Auden and the cinema here is listed under the aspects of society from which Auden begs to be ‘preserve[d]’ (LFI, p.51). Auden visited the cinema often and, elsewhere in Part II, refers to Disney and ‘little Mickey’ (LFI, p.55), and describes the popular comic actor Charlie Chaplin: There stands our hero in his threadbare seams; The bowler hat who straphangs in the tube, And kicks the tyrant only in his dreams, Trading on pathos, dreaming all extremes[.] (LFI, p.55)

These latter references to cinema do not suggest that Auden dislikes the pastime per se, which in turn indicates that his objection is based upon the appearance of the seating as inspired by Art Deco elements, questioning its modernist interpretation of ‘perfect taste’ such as the ‘artificial leopard-skin’ seats at the new 1937 Leicester Square Odeon (fig.9).455 In particular, Auden opposes the adoption of characteristics which he feels are incongruous with traditional Britain. His concern for architecture and the inclusion of new materials, for example, is evident: We’re entering now the Eotechnic Phase Thanks to the Grid and all those new alloys; That is, at least, what Lewis Mumford says. A world of Aertex underwear for boys, Huge plate-glass windows, walls absorbing noise, Where the smoke nuisance is utterly abated And all the furniture is chromium-plated. (LFI, p.50)

455

Glasgow Herald, ‘London’s Latest Cinema’, 4th November 1937, p.3.

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This passage refers to the interior of the Moderne house and its response to interwar concerns regarding health. Moderne houses facilitated a person’s exposure to sunlight in the use of glass walls, which became a ‘fundamental component of the new design aesthetic’ and created a more open, lighter environment and the sense of greater domestic space.456 In his analysis of modern architecture, the American sociologist, philosopher and critic of literature and architecture Lewis Mumford (1895-1990), referenced by Auden, called this a ‘fresh appreciation of sun and glass and structural lightness’, yet while Auden is clearly familiar with Mumford’s work it must also be noted that his identification of Mumford’s ‘Eotechnic Phase’ is in error.457 Three phases of technical advancement are identified by Mumford in his book Technics and Civilization (1934) – eotechnic, paleotechnic and neotechnic – and it is evident that Mumford places his contemporary culture at the beginning of the neotechnic, with the new phase’s noteworthy mechanical developments including the radio, the aeroplane, the alloy metals of a fountain-pen nib, aluminium, cameras and motion pictures in contrast to the eotechnic’s mechanical clock, blast furnace and rotary press.458 Auden correctly references electricity and ‘alloys’ as part of the new phase, in addition to Moderne architecture, thus his incorrect identification of the phase seems deliberate as there is no evidence to indicate a later correction. This suggests his natural affinity to earlier industrial machinery as identified in Mumford’s description of the eotechnic phase and found in Auden’s poetry, such as the general ‘pieces of machinery’ (LFI, p.51) in ‘Letter to Lord Byron’ and the ‘apparatus, the furnaces’ (MEA, p.291) of ‘Night Mail’. In particular, however, the eotechnic is associated by Mumford with the clock (see ‘Funeral Blues’), which he argues is the ‘machine [to] first take form in modern civilization’. 459 As a motif that recurs in Auden’s work, symbolic of his cyclical form of writing as discussed in Chapter One, the clock is a large underlying factor in Auden’s preference for the earlier phase. The use of chrome furniture, as discussed in Chapter One and identified by Mumford and Auden as a development of the current phase, was also based upon health, cleanliness and hygiene which Auden clearly recognises in his association of the home with the hygiene properties of that material:

456

Duncan, Art Deco Complete, p.178. Mumford, Technics and Civilization, p.207. Mumford is also referenced in Auden’s ‘Funeral Blues’, discussed in Chapter Two, p.140. 458 Mumford, Technics and Civilization, p.139, p.253, p.110, p.230, p.243, p.131, p.139. 459 Mumford, Technics and Civilization, p.12. 457

205 Hail to the New World! Hail to those who’ll love Its antiseptic objects, feel at home. (LFI, p.51)

Auden, however, dislikes these aspects of modern life and feels that the aesthetics of the Moderne in a domestic context are inappropriate for Britain and her typically rainy climate. Again indicating Auden’s awareness of the Art Deco and Moderne style, he states that:

The cult of salads and the swimming pool Comes from a climate sunnier than ours, And lands which never heard of licensed hours. The south of England before very long Will look no different from the Continong. (LFI, p.52)

Auden clearly associates the Moderne style with the south of England, specifically ‘Surrey’ and the ‘well to do’ (LFI, p.50), and argues that life in poorer northern counties such as ‘Warrington or Wigan’ (LFI, p.50) is very different. However, Auden underestimates the spread of this style, with the streamlined Moderne style influencing domestic architecture much further north, for example in Nottingham. Nevertheless this clearly indicates that Auden recognises architecture, the sun cult, new materials and fabrics in interior design and aspects of the new interwar lifestyle such as health, sport, pastimes, mass-produced consumer items (‘Lovers will gaze at an electric stove’, LFI, p.51) and clothing (‘A passion for […] shorts’, LFI, p.52) as being connected elements of a bigger, cohesive phenomenon influenced by wider Europe: in effect, Art Deco, or as Auden terms it, ‘the influence of Art on Industry’ (LFI, p.51). This phrase in Auden’s work is particularly significant in terms of Art Deco, as it seems that Auden correctly feels the cohesive whole is indeed this influence, while the term ‘Art on Industry’ could be another name for Art Deco, itself a derivative of the 1925 Paris Exposition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts. This crucially indicates the high level of Auden’s understanding of the style, its origins, motivations and manifestations. ‘Letter to Lord Byron Part II’ therefore appears to demonstrate Auden’s knowledge of Art Deco and its influence on the lifestyles of the British people, and seemingly disapproves of much of the style, repeatedly expostulating against its effect:

Preserve me from the Shape of Things to Be; The high-grade posters at the public meeting,

206 The influence of Art on Industry, The cinemas with perfect taste in seating; Preserve me, above all, from central heating. (LFI, p.51)

Yet while Auden consciously and vehemently rejects certain aspects of Art Deco, his relationship with the style is more complicated and suggests that his conscious and unconscious feelings differ regarding the style. Being familiar with Mumford’s work he deliberately denies the current technic phase its correct title, for example, yet refers without negative connotation to his ‘father’s fountain-pen’ (LFI, p.49), an item described by Mumford as a ‘typical Neotechnic product’ in its use of alloys.460 This indicates that the Neotechnic phase began in a similar timeframe as the Art Deco style but also that Auden has no dislike of the new materials in this context. In addition, critics of Mumford’s work suggest parallels between the three phases identified by Mumford and Marx’s phases of sociological progression – pre-capitalist, capitalist and communist – yet Auden, who sympathised greatly with communist sensibilities associated by Shuxue Li with the neotechnic phase, is drawn instead to the cyclical nature of the clock in the pre-capitalist eotechnic phase due to that machine’s presence in his own stable of imagery and its affinity with his cyclical writing style.461 This choice suggests duality between his conscious rejection of aspects of modern life influenced by ‘Art on Industry’ and his unconscious betrayal of his political viewpoint through his tendency to create the Cubist-like geometric pattern of a circle in his work. Reference to ‘high-grade posters’ also indicates duality when contrasted with the previous stanza and an aspect of life from which Auden does not wish to be ‘preserve[d]’:

But give me still, to stir imagination The chiaroscuro of the railway station. (LFI, p.51)

An art term denoting only the use of light and shade rather than colour in a visual piece, the use of ‘chiaroscuro’ may primarily relate to the Victorian Gothic architecture of many stations, yet it also associates the railway station with visual art. As discussed in Chapter One, during the interwar period railways commissioned work by artists such as Austin Cooper and Edward McKnight Kauffer, who similarly inspired MacNeice to associate visual art with the 460 461

Mumford, Technics and Civilization, p.110. Shuxue Li, Lewis Mumford: Critic of Culture and Civilization (Bern, Switzerland: Peter Lang, 2009), p.129.

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railway station in a 1933 plan to present a ‘Greek Chorus of posters on the railway hoardings.’ (LLM, p.234) in a novel. Significantly, the use of the term ‘chiaroscuro’ and its associated lack of colour do not exclude Art Deco posters from the space of the railway station. In 1928, for example, the majority of A.M. Cassandre’s London Midlands and Scottish Railway poster was composed from light and shade with only a splash of red, while Maurice Beck produced a monochrome poster to advertise the cocktail lounge of the Flying Scotsman in the 1930s, depicting a mixologist, cocktail shaker and bar utensils in shadow and using sans serif font and chevrons suggestive of speedlines (fig.20). Thus Auden dislikes ‘high-grade art’ in one public space (a meeting) but approves of it and even finds it stimulating to his ‘imagination’ when encountered at a different location. This suggests that the context in which the art and its elements are encountered is crucial to Auden’s acceptance of it, informed by his own perception of such elements. The dichotomy of this last example is perhaps facilitated by the ambiguity of the term ‘movement’ and its association with the Art Deco style. Auden feels that the style is inappropriate for use in conjunction with political movements (suggested by the ‘public meeting’), yet he approves of the style when juxtaposed with physical, geographical and mechanical movement as symbolised by the transport at the railway station. This is further supported by his reference to the streamlined Moderne style and its influence on mass-produced domestic goods:

Lovers will gaze at an electric stove, Another poésie de départ come Centred round bus-stops or the aerodrome. (LFI, p.51)

Here Auden recognises that the streamlined and aerodynamic characteristics of modern transport such as the airplane, translated into speed-lines and smooth facades, have been applied unnecessarily to the aesthetics of static household items and, correctly, that this is also connected to the ‘cohesive whole’, and consciously states his dislike of the style in this context. Yet again it must be noted that although Auden consciously abhors many aspects of Art Deco, he approves greatly of Picasso and T.S. Eliot (both of whom are linked to Cubism and whose methods he, however intentionally, emulates), he enjoys travel, the ballet and the cinema, and Art Deco motifs and influences from both the early Jazz and later Moderne expressions abound in his work. Indeed, in both recognising and criticising the style, its elements and its effect on Britain an entire Part of ‘Letter to Lord Byron’ focuses on and

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expresses in a word-picture the minutiae of the Art Deco style, thereby transforming the poem into an Art Deco piece in its own right.

Copyrighted image

Figure 20: Chiaroscuro in Maurice Beck's poster for LNER © National Railway Museum / Science & Society Picture Library Discussed on p.207.

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‘Letter to Lord Byron Part II’ demonstrates that Auden has fully attended the Art Deco style. He is aware of its elements and influence on interwar life and his own conscious feelings on the subject. However the poem also reveals his struggle with the inability to divorce himself completely from the style due to its pervasive effect on society. In 1936 Auden states that ‘Consciousness is filled with outside impressions and could not exist without them’, yet while he accepts that external impressions intrinsically form an individual’s perception of the world he simultaneously consciously rejects the impressions of his society and unconsciously reflects them in his work as a truth of the world in which he lives.462 He also seems unaware that his own conscious choices of inspiration (‘The Test’ and preoccupation with growing up fatherless during World War I, machinery, T.S. Eliot’s Cubism, gesamtkunstwerk and the Ballets Russes through Rupert Doone, an interest through friends in Egyptology, constant travel, Picasso, the cinema) are sources shared by Art Deco, choices perhaps even influenced by the style as it developed from Auden’s childhood. Thus Auden’s relationship with the style is complex, often contradictory, and indicative of the level to which Art Deco has influenced his worldview.

Letters as Bricolage In ‘Letter To Lord Byron, Part I’, the opening chapter of the travelogue written by Auden, the reader is told what to expect in the coming work. In addition to the letter form of much of the writing there will be:

a bunch of photographs, Some out of focus, some with wrong expressions, Press cuttings, gossip, maps, statistics, graphs (LFI, p.21)

which Auden states will create a ‘collage’ (LFI, p.21), referencing a Cubist technique in which a work is created from an assemblage of different medias or materials. In less artistic terms, MacNeice considered the book more as ‘a hodge-podge, thrown together in gaiety’.463 While Auden is correct in that the various written elements of the book can be considered a Cubist-inspired collage (‘It is a collage that you’re going to read’, LFI, p.21), the inclusion of Auden’s photographic images and reproductions of artistic prints introduces an element that cannot be read and must be attended differently as a piece of visual art. This ‘hodge-podge’ 462 463

W.H. Auden., ‘Psychology and Criticism’, New Verse, 20 (April-May 1936), 22-24 (p.24). Stallworthy, Louis MacNeice, p.198.

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of sources suggests that Letters From Iceland is in fact more than collage and is instead an example of another type of artistic method related to Cubism, a bricolage. Bricolage is defined as a work created ‘from a diverse range of materials or sources’ or from tools ‘picked along the way, wherever and whenever they may come in handy’.464 This is certainly true of the composition of Letters From Iceland. Auden and MacNeice are tourists and as such their book is composed using the few items a tourist might have to hand on their journey (such as guidebooks, maps and a camera) or forms of written communication associated with tourism (such as letters home and diaries). The content of the book is also diverse and ‘picked up along the way’, including not only accounts of a tourist’s visual impressions of their immediate environment but also snippets of popular songs (including ‘Land of Hope and Glory’ (LFI, p.233), and the 1929 tunes ‘I Want To Be Bad’, a jazz song by The Ben Bernie Orchestra, and Helen Kane’s ‘Button Up Your Overcoat’ (LFI, pp.149-150); a selection of proverbs; Icelandic nursery songs (LFI, p.145); and real-life conversations (LFI, p.138). In the 1960s, Jacques Derrida entered into a discussion of the construction of a society and language, centred around the beliefs of Claude Levi-Strauss who considered that the world consisted of ‘engineers’ and ‘bricoleurs’. The engineer, he believed, was able to devise, adapt and construct new tools and methods while the bricoleur would choose materials and tools at hand from a finite selection already in existence.465 Derrida, however, argued that engineers must also be bricoleurs if their role is to create something new from materials already present in order to ‘destroy the old machinery to which they belong and of which they themselves are pieces’.466 It is in this way that Derrida states the language of social sciences self-criticizes. In Of Grammatology he comments that:

one must know that all bricolages are not equally worthwhile. Bricolage criticizes itself[,]467

and both Auden and Letters From Iceland can often be described as self-critical. In ‘Letter to Kristian Andreirsson, Esq.’ Auden calls into question the validity of a tourist’s impressions of their environment and suggests that what a visitor has perceived is not a true and accurate 464

OED, ‘Bricolage, n.’ (2013) [Online. Accessed 24/09/2013]; Floyd Merrell, Deconstruction Reframed (Indiana, USA: Purdue Research Foundation, 2000), p.139. 465 Merrell, Deconstruction Reframed, pp.138-139. 466 Jacques Derrida, ‘Structure, Sign and Play’ in Postmodernism: Critical Concepts (ed. by Victor E. Taylor & Charles E. Winquist. London: Routledge, 2002), p.510. 467 Jacques Derrida, Of Grammatology (Baltimore, MD: The John Hopkins University Press, 1997), p.139.

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representation:

I question whether the reactions of the tourist are of much value; without employment in the country he visits, his knowledge of its economic and social relations is confined to the study of official statistics and the gossip of tea-tables; ignorant of the language his judgment of character and culture is limited to the superficial; and the length of his visit, in my case only three months, precludes him from any real intimacy with his material. (LFI, p.213)

This is a clear self-criticism of the work and Auden’s own role in producing it, presented in the work itself and encouraging readers to evaluate the general usefulness of guides, travelogues and, in particular, a travelogue held together by a five-part poem which he openly admits has intentionally ‘very little to do with Iceland’ (LFI, p.141). This admission is in keeping with Claude Lévi-Strauss’s assertion that a characteristic of bricolage is that ‘what it contains bears no relation to the current project’.468 Thus Auden provides a self-conscious work, including deliberately unrelated material in addition to impressions which he himself regards as inaccurate and without value, in order to self-criticise in the manner of the bricoleur and declare the work ‘not equally worthwhile’ in comparison to the function of other travelogues. Self-criticism is also found elsewhere in the work as the title of the photograph ‘What the Tourist does not see’ (LFI, p.218), a shot of two Icelandic children on the shore. Auden contends that ‘the tourist sees nothing important’ (LFI, p.215), thus the title of the photograph indicates that the shot is important, its subject significant for understanding and learning the simple way of life of Icelandic villagers. Yet the title is contradictory: Auden is a tourist and has obviously ‘seen’ this scene in order to photograph it, but ambiguously suggests that the import of the scene is lost to him in his role of tourist. The criticism here is therefore aimed at a tourist’s ability to see a scene but not attend it, to be aware of an aspect of the environment but not to engage with it fully, and thereby prevent themselves from obtaining a valuable knowledge of or ‘real intimacy’ with a culture or people. This therefore criticises the travelogue genre in general in addition to his own contribution. Auden himself can be regarded as a bricoleur due to his writing method and creative style bearing resemblance to the creative processes of Pablo Picasso, which Floyd Merrell considers a form of bricolage self-criticism. Picasso stated that: 468

Quoted in Merrell, Deconstruction Reframed, p.139.

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With me, a picture is a sum of destructions. I make a picture and proceed to destroy it. But in the end nothing is lost; the red I have removed from one part shows up in another.469

This process bears striking similarity to the way in which Auden composed much of his work according to Christopher Isherwood, who recalled that: If […] I had praised a line in a poem otherwise condemned, then that line would reappear in a new poem. And if I didn’t like this poem, either, but admired a second line, then both the lines would appear in a third poem, and so on[.]470

This destructive approach was also accompanied by Auden’s continual impulse to revise his work (see discussion of ‘Funeral Blues’ in Chapter Two), espousing the concepts that a work of art is ‘never finished, only abandoned’ and that the process of creation for a bricoleur often ‘entails (re)organization of what there is’.471 Many critics suggest that this impulse was developed in later years, for example after the 1945 publication of The Collected Poetry, yet Humphrey Carpenter indicates that the unrelenting urge to revise or rewrite his work was evident following the publication of Auden’s first book, Poems, in 1929.472 Thus the constant self-criticism and consequent destruction of his work through re-placement, revision and rewriting supports the idea of Auden as an early user of bricolage techniques. This relates to Art Deco through the element of Cubism which is highlighted by the similarity of creative processes used by both Auden and Picasso, a significant artist in the development of early Art Deco through Cubist-inspired abstraction. Another characteristic identified by Lévi-Strauss is the perception of the bricoleur as ‘Jack of all trades’.473 In Letters From Iceland, Auden presents himself in the roles of art critic, comedic sketch writer (‘I’ve finished that sketch with the goose for Thérèse’, LFI, p.146), poet, travel writer, historian, correspondent, photographer, and film-maker. His

469

Merrell, Deconstruction Reframed, p.140. Isherwood, Lions and Shadows, p.118. 471 Nicholas Brasch, Leonardo da Vinci: The Greatest Inventor (New York: Rosen, 2014), p.22; Merrell, Deconstruction Reframed, p.140. 472 Claude Rawson (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to English Poets (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), p.519; Joseph Black, Leonard Conolly and others, The Broadview Anthology of British Literature: Concise Edition, Volume B (Plymouth: Broadview, 2008), p.3186; Firchow, W.H. Auden, p.240; Carpenter, W.H. Auden, p.83. 473 Quoted in Derrida, Of Grammatology, p.xix. 470

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experience with the Film Unit of the GPO, with whom he worked on the documentary film Night Mail (1936), translate into the chapter titled ‘Letter to William Coldstream, Esq.’, addressed to his painter friend and colleague at the Film Unit: Let me pretend that I’m the impersonal eye of the camera Sent out by God to shoot on location And we’ll look at the rushes together. (LFI, p.223)

This statement is followed by a cinema-style montage of momentary impressions, interspersed with movie-making jargon such as ‘pan’, ‘cut’, ‘dissolve’, ‘close-up’ and ‘midshot’ (LFI, p.223) appropriate to a discussion about film editing and indicating Auden’s knowledge of the topic. Photographs in the book also indicate Auden’s awareness of visual photographic art, displaying Auden’s experiments with camera angles, framing and subject. In the ‘closed system’ presented by Letters From Iceland Auden does indeed appear as a ‘Jack of all trades’, showcasing his ability to write in a variety of literary styles and genres in the same work and demonstrating his knowledge of visual art sources.474 Thus there is evidence to support the notion that Letters From Iceland is, as a whole, a Cubist-inspired work composed in the same manner as a collage or bricolage, with Auden’s creative techniques comparing directly to those of avant-garde visual artists significant to the development of the Art Deco style. Crucially, it uses Cubist methods to achieve a form of art which is not Cubist in appearance but which, on closer analysis of its structure and both text and photographic content, is considered by Marsha Bryant as ‘more jarring than […] many High Modernist fragmented texts’ including T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land.475 Therefore in its content and composition Letters can be considered an Art Deco piece, referencing visual motifs, elements of the Art Deco lifestyle and techniques used by prominent artists associated with the Art Deco style. James Wilson stated that Letters From Iceland ‘is referred to more frequently as a representative period piece than as an achieved work of art’.476 This chapter, however, argues that, as an expression of a period characterised by its relationship to visual art, it is unequivocally and intrinsically both. Every element that informs and composes the Art Deco

474 475 476

Merrell, Deconstruction Reframed, p.140. Bryant (ed.), Photo-textualities, p.109. Wilson, ‘Explaining the Modernist Joke’ [Online].

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style is present in ‘Letter to Lord Byron’, ‘Eclogue from Iceland’ and in the prose of Letters From Iceland. Therefore the book as a whole and these two poems individually may all be classed as Art Deco pieces, not only in their inclusion of visual motifs but also their personal influences, composition and association with techniques used by contemporary visual artists.

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AFTERWORD: ART DECO POETS

When planning for this thesis began, it was originally intended to discuss works by four 1930s writers. In 1946, Roy Campbell coined the term ‘MacSpaunday’ to refer to the four poets MacNeice, Spender, Auden and Day Lewis which, while leading to misconceptions of the writers as a ‘group’ or movement, identified the four as the most prominent British poets of the interwar period.477 Day Lewis refuted the notion of a ‘group’, asserting that:

Though Auden, Spender, MacNeice and I have all known each other personally since the mid-Thirties, each of us had not even met all three others till after the publication of New Signatures in 1932, while it was only in 1947 that Auden, Spender and I found ourselves together for the first time in one room.478

Nevertheless, similarities were identified in their work. Critics contend that Day Lewis in particular emulated Auden’s style and content, and this may explain similar motifs or approaches.479 However, Auden argued that, inevitably:

Four poets of more or less the same age, from more or less the same social background, confronted by the same historical events, will exhibit certain responses in common[.]480

MacNeice identified that such commonalities included the insertion of modern machinery – an Art Deco identifier - into a landscape, stating that:

Auden, Spender, and their fellow poets, especially Day Lewis, draw many images from the modern industrial world, its trappings and machinery[,]481

477

Roy Campbell, Talking Bronco (London: Faber, 1946) p.79. Cecil Day Lewis, The Buried Day (London: Chatto & Windus, 1960), pp.216-217. 479 David Garrett Izzo, Christopher Isherwood: His Era, His Gang, and the Legacy of the Truly Strong Man (South Carolina: University of South Carolina Press, 2001), p.79; Albert Gelpi, Living in Time: The Poetry of C Day Lewis (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), p.29; Samuel Hynes, The Auden Generation: Literature and Politics in England in the 1930s (London: Bodley Head, 1976), p.73. 480 Quoted in Whitehead, A commentary, p.1. 481 Louis MacNeice, Modern Poetry: A Personal Essay (1938. New York: Haskell House, 1969), p.147. 478

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but also recognised that Day Lewis applied such imagery in a “formula[ic]” manner rather than as a ‘sympathy […] with the popular world’.482 These statements indicate areas warranting further study. The four writers were exposed to similar environments and events, all within the lifetime of the Art Deco style of which they are contemporaries, yet experienced them separately in different geographical locations. Their worldviews were clearly formed independently of each other regardless of later mutually-influential contact. Further study could therefore extend the theories in this thesis to all four poets, and investigate how far similarities in their work result from inspirations drawn from their unique moment in time and place, as with Auden and MacNeice; how far from emulation; and how far from their own involvement with visual art. As detailed in the Introduction, Stephen Spender was greatly aware of developments in modern art, confessing a ‘taste for modern painting’ at an early age and decorating his apartments in the Moderne style.483 In contrast, Day Lewis’s involvement with visual art is decidedly more opaque, yet the most cursory glance at Day Lewis’s early work indicates that he uses many similar motifs to Auden and MacNeice, particularly those which have already been examined in this thesis and identified as relating to visual art. Thus a wider study of ‘MacSpaunday’, informed by this thesis, could apply revealing new perspectives to their work, as well as demonstrating the often-overlooked inter-relationship between literature and visual art during the era of Art Deco's prominence. While studies such as Christopher Butler's Early Modernism have made clear the intertwining of aesthetic practices characteristic of the avant-garde at the beginning of the twentieth century, much remains to be said about the ways in which these relationships developed after movements such as Cubism, Vorticism and Futurism had reached their peak. Art Deco was exceptionally popular across a broad social scale, incorporating aspects of various movements beyond their original, individual lifespans, and invaded almost every aspect of contemporary design. Its apparent neglect by literary critics and historians is therefore somewhat surprising. Another avenue of study includes female writers of the period and their relationship with Art Deco, which differs in nature and perspective to that of ‘MacSpaunday’ due to the widespread adoption of the garçonne look and its implications. Female writers of interest referenced within this thesis include Nancy Cunard and Virginia Woolf, for example. Both of these women were concerned with contemporary social and political issues and have strong links to visual art yet only Cunard, younger and more experimental than Woolf in terms of 482 483

MacNeice, Modern Poetry, p.147, p.192. Spender, World Within World, p.10, p.204.

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her attitude and appearance, fully adopted the garçonne style. What, then, were the literary implications of this 'look' and its associated (im)moral attitudes? Was the garçonne simply a convenient motif ready-made for writers of both sexes attempting to depict the ‘fast’ modern woman as in Waugh’s A Handful of Dust, or did she offer something more significant in her break with the past? In what other ways did elements of the Art Deco aesthetic infiltrate and shape women’s writing?

With regard to Louis MacNeice and W.H. Auden, however, it is evident that there is a strong relationship forged between their work and visual art. Art Deco, MacNeice and Auden all display the same decorative motifs, eclecticism and experimentation, while the essential Deco element of Cubism is also prevalent. The inclusion of Cubist elements in works identified in this thesis are undeniable and informed not only by the influence of T.S. Eliot, whom both men revered, but also visual art and artists, particularly their favourite painters Matisse and Picasso. Visual art practices are evident by the demarcation of back- and foregrounds in word-pictures and the identification of vanishing points, while the writers are inspired by both individual Cubist paintings and specific methods of composition. There is overwhelming evidence of this particular artistic movement in Auden and MacNeice’s work, which indicates a knowledge and utilisation well beyond mere emulation of Eliot. No critic has yet identified Auden or MacNeice as Cubist writers in their own rights, but I believe this is a notable aspect of their work and that they are at least as Cubist as Eliot, if not more so. The reason why this has tended to go unnoticed is perhaps that Art Deco incorporated and domesticated Cubism's avant-garde aesthetics, seemingly breaking from it and moving into a more obvious decorative schema. MacNeice in particular knew a great deal more about contemporary art than did Eliot, whose intellectual and aesthetic networks were primarily literary and philosophical. Deco's very popularity prevented it from being seen as belonging to the 'difficult' or 'elitist' associations of modernism, though I would argue that it represents a continuity with the experiments of the art world pre-1914 rather than a wholesale departure from them. Auden’s similarity to Picasso in the employment of bricolage to compose Letters From Iceland is especially remarkable. Neither Auden nor MacNeice have, to my knowledge, ever been linked to visual art in this way. However, Cubism is not portrayed in isolation, which supports the theory that the writers are not merely Cubist, but specifically Art Deco. The writers and the style share common sources of inspiration, have forged similar links with other artistic fields (e.g.with the Ballets Russes), correspond with developments within the style across its lifespan (e.g.

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the reduction of natural imagery, the increase of streamlinism) and share similar politics (ambivalence towards real-world politics, and aim to combine high art with popular appeal). They also strove to portray their unique time and place accurately, just as Art Deco, yet unlike earlier writers who presented their temporal location only through a lens of literary allusion, Auden and MacNeice see also through the filters of contemporary art and film. While consciously both writers prefer other styles of visual art, they have nevertheless absorbed all the pertinent elements of the Art Deco lifestyle and presented them in their poetry and prose, becoming in the process literary equivalents of Art Deco. The popularity of the Art Deco style waned after 1940, and accordingly, elements of it in work by Auden and MacNeice also gradually reduced. Both poets echoed the Art Deco drift from angular jazz to smooth swing, with MacNeice moving from the jazz ditty of ‘Eclogue from Iceland’ to ‘Swing-song’ (1944) and its boogie-woogie ‘chorus’, reflecting both popular music and the specialist military language of the Second World War: K for Kitty calling P for Prue… Bomb Doors Open… Over to You. (MCP, p.222)

Other aspects of Deco aesthetics, such as the juxtaposition of mythological and contemporary figures and scenes within the same text, continued up to MacNeice’s death in 1963, obviously influenced as much, if not more so, by his career as a lecturer in Classics as motifs in visual art. However, his last poem ‘Thalassa’ includes this element as well as allusions to a final odyssey, returning once more to the ‘thirties preoccupation with Homer’s text and ‘The Test’:

Run out the boat, my broken comrades; Let the old seaweed crack, the surge Burgeon oblivious of the last Embarkation of feckless men[.] (MCP, p.783]

However, elements gradually appear in isolation. This pattern, corresponding to the lifetime of Art Deco, is also true of Auden, whose Futurist-like ‘telegraphese’, for example, seems confined to his ‘early period’ of writing and is rare beyond 1940.484 This suggests that Auden

484

Haffenden, W.H. Auden, p.261, Caesar, Dividing Lines, p.54; Bergonzi, Reading the Thirties, p.48.

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and MacNeice’s interwar work specifically is characterised by its intrinsic relationship to Art Deco, further supporting the notion that these writers could be redefined as ‘Art Deco poets’. Returning to the definitions of ‘style’ at the beginning of this analysis, it has been argued that there was in truth a particular ‘manner of expression characteristic of [the] period’ in the ‘twenties and ‘thirties, which influenced a ‘particular manner of life or behaviour’, designs ‘distinguished by special characteristics of […] ornamentation’ and which was ‘regarded as characteristic of the individual artist, or of his time and place’. This style was Art Deco, a defining characteristic of British interwar life and, ostensibly, the writing of two of the period’s most influential poets.

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FULL BIBLIOGRAPHY Primary Texts Works by W.H. Auden Auden, W. H., Collected Shorter Poems 1927-1957 (London: Faber, 1969) Auden, W. H., The English Auden: Poems, Essays and Dramatic Writings 1927-1939 (ed. Edward Mendelson. London: Faber, 1977) Auden, W.H., Juvenilia: Poems 1922-1928 (ed. Katherine Bucknell. London: Faber, 1994) Auden, W.H., ‘The Map of All My Youth’: Early works, friends and influences (ed. Katherine Bucknell &Nicholas Jenkins. Oxford: Clarendon /Oxford University Press, 1990) Auden, W.H., Prose and Travel Books in Prose and Verse: Volume I 1926-1938 (ed. Edward Mendelson. London: Faber, 1996) Auden, W. H., & Christopher Isherwood, Journey to a War (New York: Random House, 1939) Auden, W.H. & Louis MacNeice, Letters From Iceland (1st ed. London: Faber,1937) Spears, Monroe K. (ed), Auden: A Collection of Critical Essays (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: PrenticeHall, 1964) Spears, Monroe K. (ed.), The Poetry of W.H. Auden: The Disenchanted Island (New York: Oxford University Press, 1963)

Works by Louis MacNeice MacNeice, Louis, Collected Poems (ed. Peter McDonald. London: Faber, 2007) MacNeice, Louis, I Crossed the Minch (1938. Edinburgh: Polygon, 2007) MacNeice, Louis, Letters of Louis MacNeice (ed. Jonathan Allison. London: Faber, 2010) MacNeice, Louis, Modern Poetry: A Personal Essay (1938. New York: Haskell House, 1969) MacNeice, Louis, Selected Literary Criticism of Louis MacNeice (ed. Alan Heuser. Oxford: Clarendon, 1987) MacNeice, Louis, Selected Poems (ed. Michael Longley. London: Faber, 1988) MacNeice, Louis, Selected Prose of Louis MacNeice (ed. Alan Heuser. Oxford: Clarendon, 1990) MacNeice, Louis, The Strings are False (1965. London: Faber, 2007) MacNeice, Louis, Zoo (1938. London: Faber, 2013)

Works by Stephen Spender and Cecil Day Lewis Day Lewis, Cecil, The Buried Day (London: Chatto & Windus, 1960) Spender, Stephen, The Destructive Element: A study of modern writers and beliefs (London: Jonathan Cape, 1935) Spender, Stephen, The Thirties and After: Poetry, Politics, People (1933-75) (London: Macmillan, 1978) Spender, Stephen, World Within World (London: Faber, 1977)

221 Other primary texts Bergson, Henri, An Introduction to Metaphysics (1912. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett,1999) Bergson, Henri, Creative Evolution (1911. New York: Dover, 1998) Byron, Baron George Gordon, The Poetical Works of Lord Byron: Vol. II (Boston: James R. Osgood, 1871) Campbell, Roy, Talking Bronco (London: Faber, 1946) Dumas, Alexandre, Le Comte de Monte-Cristo (Paris: Au Bureau de l’Echo des Feuilletons, 1849) T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land, Prufrock and Other Poems (ed. by Paul Negri. Mineola, NY: Dover, 1998) Fitzgerald, F. Scott, Novels and Stories 1920-1922 (New York: Literary Classics of the United States, 2000) Graves, Robert, Poems: 1926-1930 (London: William Heinemann, 1931) Homer, The Odyssey (ed.by Adam Roberts. Ware, Herts: Wordsworth, 2002) Homer, The Odyssey (ed. by T.E. Shaw. Ware, Herts: Wordsworth, 1992) Isherwood, Christopher, Christopher and His Kind (1976. London: Vintage, 2012) Isherwood, Christopher, Lions and Shadows: An Education in the Twenties (1938. London: New English Library, 1974) Kipling, Rudyard, A Sussex Kipling: An Anthology of Poetry and Prose (ed. by David Arscott. Sussex: Pomegranate, 2007) Mumford, Lewis, Technics and Civilization (1934. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010) Owen, Wilfred, The Poems of Wilfred Owen(ed. by Jon Stallworthy. London: Chatto &Windus, 1997) Stevens, Wallace, Letters of Wallace Stevens (ed. by Holly Stevens. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1981) Waugh, Evelyn, A Handful of Dust (ed. by Robert Murray Davis. 1934. London: Penguin, 1997) Woolf, Virginia, Mr. Bennett and Mrs. Brown (London: Hogarth, 1924)

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The Ballets Russes Fokine, Michel, Fokine: memoirs of a ballet master (Boston: Little Brown, 1961) Garafola, Lynn, Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes (New York: Da Capo, 1998) Scheijen, Sjeng, Diaghilev: A life (London: Profile, 2010)

Cinema Anthony, Scott, Night Mail (London: British Film Institute, 2007) Barsam, Richard M., Nonfiction Film; A Critical History (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1992) Burgfelder, Tim, Sue Harris & Sarah Street, Film Architecture and the Transnational Imagination: Set Design in 1930s European Cinema (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2007) Burton, Alan, & Steve Chibnall, Historical Dictionary of British Cinema (Plymouth: Scarecrow, 2013) Guy, R., The Moviegoer’s Companion (London: Robson, 2004) Hardy, Forsyth, Scotland In Film (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1990) McLane, Betsy A., A New History of Documentary Film (London; A&C Black, 2012) Nicholas, Joe & John Price, Advanced Studies in Media (Cheltenham: Thomas Nelson, 1998) Spence, Louise & Vinicius Navarro, Crafting Truth: Documentary Form and Meaning (New Jersey: Library of Congress, 2011)

229 Travel, Transport and Speed Berghaus, Günter (ed.), International Futurism in Arts and Literature (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2000) Butler, Daniel Allen, The Age of Cunard: A Transatlantic History 1839-2003 (Annapolis: Lighthouse, 2003) Cresswell, Tim, On the Move: Mobility in the Modern Western World (New York: Routledge, 2006) Culshaw, David & Peter Horrobin, The Complete Catalogue of British Cars 1895-1975 (Dorchester: Veloce, 2013) Duffy, Enda, The Speed Handbook: Velocity, Pleasure, Modernism (Durham: Duke University Press, 2009) Fussell, Paul, Abroad: British Literary Traveling Between The Wars (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980) Gibbs, Commander C R V., British Passenger Liners of the Five Oceans: A Record of the British Passenger Lines and their Liners from 1838 to the Present Day (London: Putnam, 1963) Hálfdanarson, Guđmundur, The A to Z of Iceland (Maryland, USA: Scarecrow, 2008) Head, Jeremy, Frommer’s Seville Day by Day: 17 Smart Ways to See the City (Chichester: John Wiley, 2008) Rainey, Lawrence S., Christine Poggi & Laura Wittman (eds.), Futurism: an anthology (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009) Rosa, Hartmut & William E. Scheuerman (eds.), High-Speed Society: Social Acceleration, Power, and Modernity (University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2009) Thorold, Peter, The Motoring Age: The Automobile and Britain 1896-1939 (London: Profile, 2003) Wollen, Peter & Joe Kerr, Autopia: cars and culture (London: Reaktion, 2002) Psychology Acland, Charles R., Swift Viewing: The Popular Life of Subliminal Influence (Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press, 2011) Cox, Brian David & Cynthia Lightfoot, Sociogenetic Perspectives on Internalization (New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1997) Feez, Susan, Montessori and Early Childhood: A Guide for Students (London: Sage, 2010) Fromm, Erich, Beyond the Chains of Illusion: My Encounter with Marx and Freud (1962. New York: Continuum, 1990) Funk, Rainer, Erich Fromm: His Life and Ideas: an illustrated biography (New York: Continuum, 2000) Kellogg, Ronald Thomas, Cognitive Psychology (California: Sage, 2003) Kikoski, Catherine Kano, & John F. Kikoski, The Inquiring Organization: Tacit Knowledge, Conversation and Knowledge Creation: Skills for 21st-Century Organizations (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2004) Knapp, Mark & Judith Hall, Nonverbal Communication in Human Interaction (Boston, MA: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2010) Krishnamurti, Jiddu, Life Ahead: On Learning and the Search for Meaning (Novato, CA: New World Library, 1963) Montessori, Maria, The Absorbent Mind (New York: Dell, 1967)

230 Moore, Simon & Mike Oaksford (eds.), Emotional Cognition (Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2002) Myers, Charles S., Shell Shock In France 1914-1918 (1940. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011) Naugle, David K., Worldview: The History of a Concept (Cambridge: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2002) Noll, Richard, The Encyclopedia of Schizophrenia and Other Psychotic Disorders (New York: Facts on File, 2007) Northridge, W.L., Modern Theories of the Unconscious (1924. London: Routledge, 2001) Sire, James W., Naming the Elephant: Worldview as a Concept (Illinois, USA: InterVarsity, 2004) Stein, George & Greg Wilkinson (eds.), Seminars in General Adult Psychiatry (Wiltshire: The Royal College of Psychiatrists, 2007) Velmans, Max (ed.), The Science of Consciousness: Psychological, Neuropsychological and Clinical Reviews (London: Routledge, 1996) Vygotsky, L.S., The Collected Works of L.S. Vygotsky : Volume 1: Problems of General Psychology (ed. by Robert W. Rieber & Aaron S. Carton. London: Springer London, 1987)

Interwar History Blythe, Ronald, The Age of Illusion: England in the Twenties and Thirties 1919-1940 (London: Phoenix, 2001) Dorpalen, Andreas, Europe in the 20th Century: A History (New York: Macmillan,1968) Horseman, G., Growing Up in the Thirties (Devon: Cottage, 1994) Lichtheim, George, Europe in the Twentieth Century (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1972) Martel, Gordon (ed.), A Companion to Europe 1900-1945 (Oxford: Blackwell, 2006) Mowat, C. L., Britain Between the Wars 1918-1940 (London: Methuen, 1968) Pugh, Martin, ‘We Danced All Night’: A social history of Britain between the Wars (London: Bodley Head, 2008) Stamp, Gavin (ed.), Britain in the Thirties (London: Architectural Design, 1980) Symons, Julian, The Thirties: A Dream Revolved (Westport: Greenwood, 1960) Other secondary texts Aldrich, Richard and Gary Wotherspoon (eds.), Who’s Who in Gay and Lesbian History: From Antiquity to World War II (London: Routledge, 2001) Anderson, Norman, Ferris Wheels: An Illustrated History (Ohio, USA: Bowling Green State University Popular Press, 1992) Bassnett, Susan, Reflections on Translation (Bristol: Multilingual Matters, 2011) Bolton, Roy (ed.), Views of Russia and Russian Works on Paper (London: Sphinx, 2010) Conway, Henry & Gail Downey, Weardowney Knit Couture: 20 Hand-knit Designs from Runway to Reality (London: Collins & Brown, 2007) Cook, Matt, London and the Culture of Homosexuality 1885-1914 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003) Czekanowska, Anna, Ursula Hemetek, Gerda Lechleitner & Inna Naroditskaya (eds.), Manifold Identities: Studies on Music and Minorities (Amersham: Cambridge Scholars, 2004)

231 Daly, Kathleen N., Norse Mythology A to Z (New York: Chelsea House, 2010) Derrida, Jacques, Of Grammatology (Baltimore, MD: The John Hopkins University Press, 1997) Doyle, Laura, & Laura Winkiel (eds.), Geomodernisms: Race, Modernism, Modernity (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2005) Dregni, Michael, Django: the life and music of a Gypsy legend (New York: Oxford University Press USA, 2006) Ellis, Bill, Lucifer Ascending: The Occult in Folklore and Popular Culture (Kentucky, USA: The University Press of Kentucky, 2004) Falby, Alison, Between the Pigeonholes: Gerald Heard, 1889-1971 (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars, 2008) Frisch, Walter & Kevin C. Karnes (eds.), Brahms and His World (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2009) Gilbert, Adrian (ed.), Encyclopedia of Warfare: From The Earliest Times to the Present Day (London: Fitzroy Dearborn, 2000) Gommers, Peter H., Europe: What’s In A Name (Belgium: Leuven University Press, 2001) Hoare, Philip, Oscar Wilde’s Last Stand: Decadence, Conspiracy, and the Most Outrageous Trial of the Century (New York: Arcade, 1998) Houlbrook, Matt, Queer London: perils and pleasures in the sexual metropolis 1918-1957 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006) Humm, Maggie, Snapshots of Bloomsbury: The Private Lives of Virginia Woolf and Vanessa Bell (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2006 ) Kinchin, Perilla, Taking Tea With Mackintosh: The Story of Miss Cranston’s Tea Rooms (California: Pomegranate, 1998), Kinchin, Perilla, Tea and Taste: The Glasgow Tea Rooms (Dorchester: White Cockade, 1991) Lehmkuhl, Josef, Der Kunst-Messias: Richard Wagners Vermächtnis in seinen Schriften (Würzburg: Verlag Königshausen & Neumann GmbH, 2009) Li, Shuxue, Lewis Mumford: Critic of Culture and Civilization (Bern, Switzerland: Peter Lang, 2009) Lancaster, Marie-Jacqueline, Brian Howard: Portrait of a Failure (London: Timewell, 2005) Latham, Alison, The Oxford Dictionary of Musical Works (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004) Merrell, Floyd, Deconstruction Reframed (Indiana, USA: Purdue Research Foundation, 2000) Montefiore, Janet, Arguments of Heart and Mind: Selected Essays, 1977-2000 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2002) Pinch, Geraldine, Egyptian Mythology: A Guide to the Gods, Goddesses, and Traditions of Ancient Egypt (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002) Rabinovitz, Lauren, Electric Dreamland: Amusement Parks, Movies and American Modernity (New York: Columbia University Press, 2012) Riley, Matthew (ed.) British Music and Modernism, 1985-1960 (Farnham: Ashgate, 2010) Short, William R., Icelanders in the Viking Age: The people of the sagas (North Carolina: McFarland, 2010) Suskin, Steven, Show Tunes: The Songs, Shows, and Careers of Broadway’s Major Composers (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010)

232 Taylor, Victor E. & Charles E. Winquist (eds.), Postmodernism: Critical Concepts (London: Routledge, 2002) van Wesemael, Pieter, Architecture of Instruction and Delight: A Socio-historical Analysis of World Exhibitions as a Didactic Phenomenon (Rotterdam: 010 Publishers, 2001) Watterson, Barbara, Gods of Ancient Egypt (Stroud: Sutton, 1996) Wilkinson, Alan G., Henry Moore: Writings and conversations (California: University of California Press, 2002)

Journals Auden, W.H., ‘Psychology and Criticism’, New Verse, 20 (April-May 1936), 22-24 Arkins, Brian, ‘Athens No Longer Dies: Greek and Roman Themes in MacNeice’, Classics Ireland, 7 (2000), 1-24 Bluestone, Max, ‘The Iconographic Sources of Auden’s “Musee des Beaux Arts”’, Modern Language Notes, 76.4 (Apr 1961) 331-336 Bradford, Richard, ‘Poetry and Painting: An Essay on Visual Form in Modern Verse’, Writing Ulster, 1 (1990-1991), 48-66 Bragaglia, Anton Guilio, ‘Futurist Photodynamism (1911)’, Modernism/Modernity, 15.2.(2008), 363379 Burness, Donald B., ‘Pieter Bruegel: Painter for poets’, Art Journal, 32.2 (Winter 1972-1973), 157162 Danson Brown, Richard, ‘’Your Thoughts Make Shape Like Snow’: Louis MacNeice on Stephen Spender’, Twentieth Century Literature, 48.3 (Autumn 2002), 292-323 Day Lewis, Cecil, ‘Surrealists Get The Bird’, New Verse, 19 (February-March 1936), 20-21 D.E.G., ‘On Spontaneity’, New Verse, 18 (December 1935), 19 Firth, Katharine, ‘Five Adolescent Paintings by F. Louis MacNeice’, Notes and Queries, 55.4 (Dec 2008), 514-515 Foster, Hal, ‘Prosthetic Gods’, Modernism/Modernity, 4.2 (1997) 5-38 Foucault, Michel, "Des Espace Autres", Architecture, Mouvement, Continuité 5 (October 1984), 46– 49 Grigson, Geoffrey (ed.), New Verse, 19 (February-March 1936), 23. Grigson, Geoffrey, ‘Poets and the Theatre’, New Verse, 18 (Dec 1935), 2-3 Grigson, Geoffrey, ‘Remarks’, New Verse, 28 (Jan 1938), 14-15 Heaney, Seamus, ‘Eclogues “In Extremis”: On the Staying Power of Pastoral’, Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. Section C: Archaeology, Celtic Studies,History, Linguistics, Literature, 103C.1 (2003), 1-12 Hixson, Scott, ‘An Explication of a Poem: W. H. Auden's "Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone”’, ESSAI, 7 (2009) Available at: http://dc.cod.edu/essai/vol7/iss1/22. Hunter, Penelope, ‘Art Déco: The Last Hurrah’, The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, New Ser., 30.6 (Jun-Jul 1972), 257-267 Irwin, John T., ‘MacNeice, Auden and the Art Ballad’, Contemporary Literature, 11.1 (Winter 1970), 58-79 Isaak, Jo-Anna, ‘James Joyce and the Cubist Esthetic’, Mosaic, 14 (1981), 61-90

233 Kinney, Arthur F., ‘Auden, Bruegel, and “Musée des Beaux Arts”’, College English, 24.7 (Apr 1963), 529-531 Lipke, William C., ‘Vorticism and Abstract Art in the First Machine Age by Richard Cork’, Art Journal, 38.1 (Autumn 1978), 74-78 Madge, C. H., ‘Surrealism for the English’, December 1933, New Verse, 14-18 Manteiga, Robert C., ‘Politics and Poetics: England’s Thirties Poets and the Spanish Civil War ‘, Modern Language Studies, 19 (1989), 3-14 McDonald, Peter, ‘Ireland’s MacNeice: A Caveat’, The Irish Review, 2 (1987), 64-69 McDiarmid, Lucy S., ‘W.H. Auden’s ‘In the Year of My Youth...’’, The Review of English Studies, New Ser., 29.115 (Aug., 1978), 267-312 Miskowiec, Jay, ‘Of Other Spaces’, Diacritics, 16 (1) (Spring 1986), 22–27 Squire, J.C. (ed.), The London Mercury, 11th vol., 64 (February 1925) Striner, Richard, ‘Art Deco: Polemics and Synthesis’, Winterthur Portfolio, 25.1 (Spring 1990), 21-34 Sykes Davies, Hugh, ‘Sympathies with Surrealism’, New Verse, 20 (April-May 1936), 15-21 Symons, Julian, ‘Louis MacNeice: The Artist as Everyman’, Poetry, 56.2 (May 1940), 86-94 Tomlinson, David, ‘T.S. Eliot and the Cubists’, Twentieth Century Literature, 26.1 (Spring 1980), 64-81 Walker, Tom, ‘‘Even a still life is alive’: Visual Art and Bloomsbury Aesthetics in the Early Poetry of Louis MacNeice’, Cambridge Quarterly, 38.8 (2009), 196-213 Wilde, Alan, ‘Language and Surface: Isherwood and the Thirties’, Contemporary Literature, 16.4 (Autumn 1975), 478-491

Newspapers Bertram, Anthony, ‘Surrealist Verse’, Times Literary Supplement, 17 December 1938, p.804 Buchanan, George Henry Perrott, ‘A Dramatic Experiment’, Times Literary Supplement, 11 July 1935, p.444 Buchanan, George Henry Perrott, ‘Mr. Stephen Spender’s Poems’, Times Literary Supplement, 6 July 1933, p.463 Buchanan, George Henry Perrott, ‘New Poetic Drama’, Times Literary Supplement, 24 Jan 1935, p.37 Buchanan, George Henry Perrott, ‘Some Recent Poetry’, Times Literary Supplement, 15 March 1934, p.190 Clutton-Brock, Prof. Alan Francis, ‘Leonardo and the High Renaissance’, Times Literary Supplement, 11 July 1935, pp.437-8 Clutton-Brock, Prof. Alan Francis, ‘The Arts To-day’, Times Literary Supplement, 26 Sept 1935, p.592 Clutton-Brock, Prof. Alan Francis, ‘The Orators by Auden’, Times Literary Supplement, 9 June 1932, p.424 Daily Mail, ‘Bottles In A Car’, 26 November 1931, p.5 Daily Mail, ‘Necessities and Luxuries’, 17 October 1899, p.3 Daily Mail, ‘Priest on Drink Charge’, 22 February 1938, p.9 Eyles, Leonora, ‘The Lost Queen of Egypt’, Times Literary Supplement, 12 November 1938, p.723

234 Fausset, Hugh I’Anson, ‘Poetry and Disintegration’, Times Literary Supplement, 19 March 1932, p.221 Gardner, E.D., ‘Internees’ Release: British Next Time’, Sydney Morning Herald, 10 October 1943, p.6 Gates, S. Barrington, ‘Auden and Isherwood in China’, Times Literary Supplement, 18 March 1939, p.158 Gates, S. Barrington, ‘Cooling Waters’, Times Literary Supplement, 7 Aug 1937, p.572 Glasgow Herald, ‘London’s Latest Cinema’, 4 November 1937, p.3 Gleadowe, R.M.Y., ‘Art and Understanding’, Times Literary Supplement, 7 Aug 1937, p.570 Hussey, Dyneley, ‘Ballets-Russes’, Times Literary Supplement, 20 June 1936, p.515 MacNeice, Louis, ‘Departure Platform’, Times Literary Supplement, 9 July 1938, p.464 Marett, Dr Robert Ranulph, ‘Primitive Customs in Africa’, Times Literary Supplement, 12 November 1938, p.728 Marriott, Charles, ‘Art in the Air’, Times Literary Supplement, 24 July 1937, p.539 Marriott, Charles, ‘Art in the Twentieth Century’, Times Literary Supplement, 30 Nov 1933, pp.845-6 Marriott, Charles, ‘English Medieval Houses’, Times Literary Supplement, 7 Aug 1937, p.573 New York Times, ‘Projection Jottings’, 2 November 1930 Propert, Walter Archibald, ‘Modern French Art’, Times Literary Supplement, 27 Aug 1931, p.643 Roberts, Mrs Michael, ‘Trips in the Hebrides’, Times Literary Supplement, 9 April 1938, p.247 The Times, ‘Christmas Wines’,29 November 1921, p.12 The Times, ‘Clergyman Fined’, 26 November 1931, p.16 The Times, ‘The Russian Ballet, 21 June 1927, p.9 The Times, ‘Russian Ballet’, 28 June 1927, p.14 The Times, ‘The Russian Ballet’, 5 July 1927, p.14 The Times, ‘The Russian Ballet’, 12 July 1927, p.12 Times Literary Supplement, 26 May 1932 Times Literary Supplement, 9 November 1933 Times Literary Supplement, 20 June 1935 Times Literary Supplement, 3 October 1936 Times Literary Supplement, 7 May 1938 Times Literary Supplement, 12 November 1938

Audio and Visual Sources The Addictions of Sin: W.H. Auden in his Own Words, [no dir.] (BBC Four, 2009) Art Deco Icons: London Transport, dir. by Angus Cameron (BBC Four, 2009) The Artist dir. by Michel Hazanavicius (Studio 37, 2011) Champagne dir. by Alfred Hitchcock (British International Pictures, 1928) Evergreen dir. by Victor Saville (Gaumont British Picture Corporation, 1934) The Firebird/Les Noces, dir. by Ross MacGibbon (BBC Opus Arte, 2002)

235 The King’s Speech dir. by Tom Hooper (UK Film Council, 2010) First A Girl dir. by Victor Saville (Gaumont British Picture Corporation,1935) Picasso and Braque Go to the Movies, dir. by Arne Glimcher (2008. Sky Arts 1, 2012) ‘Britain’. Sex and Sensibility: The Allure of Art Nouveau, dir. by Mary Downes (BBC Four, 2012) ‘Vienna’. Sex and Sensibility: The Allure of Art Nouveau, dir. by John Maclaverty (BBC Four, 2012) Tell Me The Truth About Love, [no dir.] (BBC Four, 2009) Time Shift: Between the Lines – Railways in Fiction and Film (BBC Four, 2008) Time Shift: The Men Who Built the Liners, dir. by Jeremy Bristow (BBC Four, 2009)

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237 Seidler, David, ‘How the “naughty word” cured the King’s stutter (and mine’, Daily Mail (20/12/2010) < http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1339509/The-Kings-SpeechHow-naughty-word-cured-King-George-VIs-stutter.html> [accessed 23/05/2013] Speedace, ‘Absolute World Land Speed Records’ (2010) [accessed 26/11/2010] Tate Archive Showcase, ‘Exhibition Catalogue ‘Second Post-Impressionist Exhibition’, Grafton Galleries, London’ (n.d.) [accessed 12/02/2012] Tate Collection, ‘Cubism’ (n.d.) [accessed 20/09/2010] Tate Collection, ‘Futurism’ (n.d.) [accessed 20/09/2010] Tate Collection, ‘Sir William Coldstream’ (n.d.) [accessed 12/02/2014] Tate Collection, ‘The Three Dancers’ (2004) < http://www.tate.org.uk/servlet/ViewWork?workid=11866&tabview=work> [accessed 03/03/2012] Tay, Michelle, ‘Canvases on the Catwalk: Milan Fashion Week Fall 2014’, Blouinartinfo.com (24/02/2014) < http://www.blouinartinfo.com/news/story/1010968/canvases-on-the-catwalkmilan-fashion-week-fall-2014> [accessed 23/06/2014] The Numbers, ‘The Artist’ (2014) < http://www.the-numbers.com/movie/Artist-The#tab=box-office> [accessed 20/07/2014] The Numbers, ‘The Great Gatsby’ (2014) < http://www.the-numbers.com/movie/Great-Gatsby-The(2011)#tab=summary> [accessed 20/07/2014] The Numbers, ‘The King’s Speech’ (2014) < http://www.the-numbers.com/movie/Kings-SpeechThe#tab=more> [accessed 20/07/2014] Tiffany & Co., ‘Tiffany & Co Celebrates Jazz Age Glamour’ (2013) [accessed 02/08/2013] Time, ‘Foreign News: Stateliest Ship 08/06/1936’ (2010) [accessed 14/05/2010] University of Miami, ‘Landspeed History’ (2010) [accessed 10/06/2010] Victoria and Albert Museum, ‘Ekstrom Collection: Diaghilev and Stravinsky Foundation Catalogue of records in the Theatre Museum’ (n.d) [accessed 01/08/2010] Willow Tea Rooms, ‘Mackintosh & Kate Cranston’ (n.d.) [accessed 04/09/2014] Wilson, James Matthew, ‘Explaining the Modernist Joke: W.H. Auden, Louis MacNeice and Letters From Iceland’, Contemporary Poetry Review (01/10/2007) < http://www.cprw.com/explaining-the-modernist-joke-w-h-auden-louis-macneice-and-lettersfrom-iceland> [accessed 09/10/2014] Youtube.com, ‘Benjamin Britten: Funeral Blues (from Cabaret Songs) – Della Jones’ (08/01/2012) [accessed 06/04/2014]

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Visual pluralism in ‘Grece’ by A.M. Cassandre, (1933). Poster at < https://c2.staticflickr.com/8/7007/6542701337_39989b779c_z.jpg > [accessed 27/06/2013]

9. Interior of Leicester Square Odeon (1937) © John Maltby / RIBA Library Photographs Collection. Photo at [accessed 26/08/2013] 10. Edgar Brandt’s ‘Les Cigognes d’Alsace’, 1922-1928 © V&A Museum (2012). Photo at < http://media.vam.ac.uk/media/thira/collection_images/2006AM/2006AM5999.jpg> [accessed 18/11/2011] 11. World War I silk postcard © Imperial War Museum, image at < http://static.awm.gov.au/images/collection/items/ACCNUM_LARGE/RC05827.JPG> [accesed 06/06/2013] 12. Theatre programme from Auden's The Dance of Death. Copyright-free image at [accessed 13/05/2014] 13. Speedlines in Peugeot poster by Paul Colin, 1935 ©2014 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris at

239 [accessed 18/11/2011] 14. Henri Matisse, Le parebrise, sur la route de Villacoublay. (1917) Image at < http://www.henrimatisse.net/paintings/gl.jpg> [accessed 03/09/2014] 15. Pavilion du Tourisme interior at the 1925 Paris Exposition © RIBA Library Books and Periodicals Collection. Photo at < http://previewriba.contensis.com/Images/RIBATrust/RIBALibrary/OnlineExhibitions/ArtDecoTriumphant/Briti shreactions/9B-Interior-RIBA80198-530x400px.jpg> [accessed 10/03/2014] 16. Nancy Cunard, 1926 © 2007 Man Ray Trust/Artists Rights Society. Photo at < http://1.bp.blogspot.com/ATSWkrmd7mI/TZtLh8wAzTI/AAAAAAAAES4/OLxco0bVU3g/s1600/Nancycunard.jpg> [accessed 23/08/2010] 17. A.M. Cassandre, Le Verre Triplex poster, 1930. Photocopy of print owned by Z.E. WoodcockSquires. 18. ‘Funeral Blues’, text by W.H. Auden, music by Benjamin Britten © Faber Music, 1980. Image at [accessed 16/04/2014] 19. The Ballets Russes' Le Train Bleu (1924) © Bibliothèque nationale de France. Photo at < http://lachanelphile.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/letrainbleu2.jpg> [accessed 15/10/2014] 20. Maurice Beck, The Flying Scotsman’s Cocktail Bar for LNER © National Railway Museum / Science & Society Picture Library. Poster at < http://www.scienceandsociety.co.uk/results.asp?image=10176029> [accessed 23/08/2010]