King Arthur in America by Alan Lupack , Barbara Tepa Lupack (review)

Abstract

analysisof Larkin'syouthful,unpublishedpoems and stories,which he wrote under the pseudonym of'Brunette Coleman'. Rowe focuses on two stories, one set in a girls'public school, the other in a women's college. He arguesthat these stories,in which spankingsof the girlsplay a large part, enabled Larkinto fantasize a power over women. But Rowe also suggests that Larkin's 'Brunette Coleman' writings helped him release 'the feminine aspect' of his personalitythat complemented the masculine one. This emphasis on the two sides of Larkin'snature is paralleled in John Carey's 'The Two Philip Larkins'.Carey views the female voice as 'sensitive and tender, as against the coarse, crude, abrasivemale voice'. He is aware of the dangers of gender stereotyping or of elevating one voice over the other: for him, Larkin's'poetic mode emergesfromthe collisionbetween them'. Larkin'spreoccupation with the 'endless'is subtlyexplored by Ian Almond who argues, however, that 'for Larkin there is no transcendentalMystery, simply the mystical of the here-and-now'. Elsewhere in the book Larkin'sunlocated sense of place is usefullyestablishedthrough a contrastwith Heaney in an essay by James Booth. In some of the essayswe hear echoes of the debatesthat have ragedover English Literatureof late. Thus BarbaraEverettin the courseof an illuminatingand inward reading of Larkin's'Money' refersto 'our currentpoliticizing or simplifyingcritical schools' and James Booth writes that 'poetry is demeaned by being used as an illustrationof historyor a tool of politics'. Butthe underlyingnote of NewLarkinsfor Oldis one of stimulating critical pluralism and the book adds significantlyto the ongoing re-examinationof Larkin'swork. UNIVERSITY OF READING DAVIDG. WILLIAMS KingArthurin America. By ALANLUPACKand BARBARA TEPA LUPACK. (Arthurian Studies,4I) Cambridge:Brewer. 1999. xiii + 382 pp. p45; $75. Of the two termsyoked in the title of Alan and BarbaraTepa Lupack'sKing Arthur in America, 'King Arthur'is treatedconsiderablymore adequatelythan 'America'.The Lupacks set out to identify, describe, and classify the entire corpus of American Arthuriana, and surely they come close to achieving their goals. Well over three hundred literaryworksare consideredin the book, many of course mentioned only in passing, but a number given detailed analysis.James Russell Lowell'sinfluential (andmuch-ridiculed)TheVision ofSirLaunfal (1848)is given pride of place in the first chapter, 'ArthurianLiteratureBefore Twain', which also includes accounts of such items fromthe remote-storagesectionsof librariesasJ. Dunbar Hylton's epic poem Arteloise (publishedat the author'sown expense in 1887)and Sallie Bridges'sMarble Isle, Legends of theRoundTable,and Other Poems(which found a publisher but few readers in I864). Chapter 2, 'Reaction to Tennyson: Parody', naturallyhighlights Mark Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in KingArthur's Court (1889), which the Lupacks regardas 'inmanywaysthe centraltext inAmericanArthuriana'(p. 35). Chapter3, 'Reaction to Tennyson:Visions of CourageousAchievement', focuses on the many Arthurianboys' clubsthatflourishedin Americabetween about 1900 and 1930 and thejuvenile Arthurianliteratureof moral uplift that they inspired, notably Sidney Lanier's TheBoy'sKing Arthur (i 880; reissuedin 19I7 with new illustrationsby N. C. Wyeth) and the writer and illustrator Howard Pyle's four Arthurian children's books, including TheStoryof KingArthur andHis Knights (1903). Chapter 4, 'From Twain to the Twenties', includesa studyof Eliot's TheWaste Land,in many waysthe pivotal text of the book. If American versions of King Arthurup to 1922 could be called 'responsesto Tennyson', many after 1922 could be called 'responsesto Eliot'. analysisof Larkin'syouthful,unpublishedpoems and stories,which he wrote under the pseudonym of'Brunette Coleman'. Rowe focuses on two stories, one set in a girls'public school, the other in a women's college. He arguesthat these stories,in which spankingsof the girlsplay a large part, enabled Larkinto fantasize a power over women. But Rowe also suggests that Larkin's 'Brunette Coleman' writings helped him release 'the feminine aspect' of his personalitythat complemented the masculine one. This emphasis on the two sides of Larkin'snature is paralleled in John Carey's 'The Two Philip Larkins'.Carey views the female voice as 'sensitive and tender, as against the coarse, crude, abrasivemale voice'. He is aware of the dangers of gender stereotyping or of elevating one voice over the other: for him, Larkin's'poetic mode emergesfromthe collisionbetween them'. Larkin'spreoccupation with the 'endless'is subtlyexplored by Ian Almond who argues, however, that 'for Larkin there is no transcendentalMystery...