"the unassuming things that hold a silent station in this beauteous world." I believe that the purposes of certain courses are to change or enhance an

Transcription

1 Bibliographic Codes: "the unassuming things that hold a silent station in this beauteous world." Introduction: I believe that the purposes of certain courses are to change or enhance an individual s life, either academically or personally. The course Material Modernism taught by Professor Jeff Drouin at Brooklyn College reached this purpose. Since this course I fell in love with the concept of bibliographic codes. I have become enthralled with this theory that as I read a text, I am not just reading it for a literal meaning, but rather, analyzing the physical aspect of the text as well. The ideas about textuality have shaped my perception on text. Is this close to the authentic? I wonder how many words were omitted or changed. As a teacher, I think that it is important for students to know how the physicality of text influences their interpretation and author s meaning. One is usually taught to interpret a piece of writing or literature by its semantic arrangement. However, there are other factors to consider when one is interpreting writing. The ever so powerful concept of a bibliographic code is one not to be ignored. It is a component of literary interpretation. Bornstein defines bibliographic code as features of page layout, book or periodical design, or aspects of the book giving physical information about itself- as offering important supplements to the linguistic code. The study of bibliographic codes is very intriguing and mysterious. It is indeed like cracking a code and when one studies a text s bibliography or textuality, one is like a detective. One needs to delve deeper and find the answers about a text like why a special font was chosen, question the dedications, and the selected layout. Bornstein made

2 excellent points when he considered Emma Lazarus poem. We were able to see how this poem took many different roles according to its placement, omissions and original authorial intent. Another question to ponder on this paper would be do the bibliographic or textual changes affect authorial intent or reception from its readers. We can definitely value the importance of bibliographic codes when studying modernist writers. Bornstein felt that modernist texts are more responsive to this kind of textual interpretation. During the modernist period, writers would display their work in little magazines or periodicals. These little magazines such as the Little Review, the Dial, Poetry, the Egoist and Wheels offered prominent and outspoken writers such as Yeats, Pound, Eliot, Moore and Joyce to display their semantic powers. These magazines also featured the works of other short lived yet great writers such as war poet, Wilfred Owen, Osbert Sitwell, and Edith Sitwell. Interestingly, these magazines became a platform for these writers to test out their new styles and break away from tradition. We can also assume that the bibliographic codes of their works in the little magazines are different than when appeared in other places. For instance, when looking at bibliographic coding, we must also look at the book or periodical in which the work appears as well as prefaces, notes or dedications all which affect interpretation. In this paper, I will briefly examine the works of Marianne Moore and war poet Wilfred Owen. We will see how their work s bibliography or textuality changes according to different publications. The bibliographic code in Mooore s writing for instance affects the way her poetry is perceived. In this paper I will briefly examine the work of Marianne Moore who is known for butchering her work with an ax before republishing it in other editions. Moore was a

3 highly esteemed poet who is known for her precise and multifaceted style. She was outspoken and considered herself and Emily Dickinson to be true poets. Her works often offered a variety of ideas Moore s poetry was considered highly intellectual and often times difficult, but appreciated by the male modernists such as Eliot, Pound, Williams and Stevens. Her expression is notable for deftness and sharpness of detail, linguistic experimentation, and integration of fresh observation and obscure reading (Oswald and Gale). She was often associated with William Carlos Williams and Wallace Stevens. Her work was not appreciated as much by the female audience and was not considered emotional enough. Despite this criticism, William Carlos Williams and Yeats came to her defense through praises of her work in the little magazines such as the Dial. T.S. Eliot also contributed to the reception of her work SELECTED POEMS (1935). Part of the textuality that helped shape the value of this work was Eliot s introduction which read: "My conviction, for what it is worth, had remained unchanged for the last fourteen years: that Miss Moore's poems form part of the small body of durable poetry written in our time." According to Peter Shillingsburg (1996) the aims of textual scholarship are to find and analyze all the evidence of authorship, editing, copying printing and distribution for a textual work in order to discover the agency, authenticity and purpose of textual variation and the significance of variant material forms of textual conveyance. This is depicted in the published poetry of Marianne Moore, particularly her famous one, Poetry. Marianne Moore is known for her many revisions and editions of her work. In exploring the historical bibliography of Moore s famous poem, Poetry is intriguing.. This poem has been altered many times. We could see this poem taking many different

4 shapes the first one beginning with thirty-eight lines in that appeared in the Selected Poems of 1935 and the Collected Poems of This longer version, in turn, grew out of the original thirteen lines printed in Observations. The last version was then axed to a mere four lines. The bibliographic code was intentionally controlled by Moore and of her critics. Poetry was first introduced to readers in Moore s book Complete Poems (36, 1935). This paradoxical thirty eight line poem sparked a lot of questions and commentary. The poem was well known and well liked, in all its subversive playfulness (Gregory, 1996). The original beginning with "I, too, dislike it," later goes on to distinguish what poetry should do. The poem then states that poets reach a mark when they are literalists of the imagination and when they can create in their work "'imaginary gardens with real toads in them. " Both of the aforementioned quotes which appear in this 1935 version of Poetry are borrowed from Yeats and an unknown author respectively. Consequently, discovering this piece of information will already contribute to the way this poem may be perceived. Fascinatingly, though there are many versions that do not credit Yeats or the unknown for these lines while there are others that do. Poetry was republished in her 1967 edition of COMPLETE POEMS. The poem Poetry was greatly reduced to a 3 line poem changing the entire meaning of the poem. She however includes in her notes at the end of this text the original poem with al 38 lines. Moore was criticized of this omission practice which she then became notorious for. It is significant that she purposely introduces this text with the saying: "Omissions are not accidents. This is a preview of what one can expect to find in this anthology. Moore s drastic revision to this famous poem had a reason.

5 I, too, dislike it: Reading it, however, with a perfect contempt for it, one discovers in it after all, a place for the genuine. Here Moore controls the bibliographic coding of her poem altering the entire meaning of Poetry. The original poem, being thirty-eight lines long goes on to explain what authentic poetry should be. Due to criticism Moore does add the original version of this poem in her notes at the end of COMPLETE POEMS (1967). Moore continued to transform her poems by the usages of quotations, punctuations, lineation, omissions of words and renaming poems. In her final revision of Poetry this is what Moore desired sparking criticism of the drastic change. However, today, in numerous publications there are about 11 different revisions of Poetry to consider. Currently the New Oxford Book of American Verse has published the original version without acknowledgment of the last revision. When conducting an electronic research this same poem appears in its 36 line state. The bibliography of this poem is not consistent with its intent or final authorial purpose. Instead the interpretation of this work, the argument that Moore poses about poetry is left up to the reader. The word genuine appears twice in the first poem and then only once in the latest revision. Will the reader be intrigued enough to find out that Moore intentions was perhaps for the reader to interpret both meanings of Poetry? Wilfred Owen a short lived soldier in World War I who died at the age of 25 was considered a great war poet. As a soldier of World War I, he was engrossed with the fatalities and horrors of the war He is best known for his poems Anthem for Doomed Youth and Strange Meeting all which describe the conflicts of war and ego.

6 He was a great friend of the Sitwell family where his work is featured in the fourth issue of the periodical Wheels. He was also friends with the famous war poet Siegfried Sasoon who inspired him to write about war. Owen s poetry dealt with a realism that dealt with the horrific results that war causes humanity. I chose to study the bibliographical codes of Owen s work because although his work has appeared in various publications, each publication was introduced differently The editors Sitwell, Sassoon and Edmund Blunden all had different agendas when introducing his work. Their introductions all shaped the perception of Owen s poetry. Edith Sitwell s fourth edition of Wheels an anthology was dedicated to Owen in 1919 and was published after his death. Sitwell s whole issue was then dedicated to a war theme in honor of Wilfred Owen. However, the Sitwells having included Owen s poems in their literary anthology did not just portray him as a war poet. On the contrary the purpose and bibliographic coding of Sasoon s and Blunden s publication of Owen s work allowed critics to only regard Owen as solely a war poet. As a result, Sasoon not only encouraged Owen to write about the war, but he also encouraged him to be blunter. Therefore we could see that Owen writes Anthem for the Doomed Youth in Sassoon s style. Which possibly explains the reason Owen eight different drafts to the aforementioned poem. The materiality surrounding a text is highly significant in the way a text is perceived. Unfortunately, the bibliographic coding of Owen s poetry has made it that he is primarily regarded as.a war poet. This has in essence excluded him from receiving acknowledgment from the wider literary world. Yeats harshly criticized Wilfred Owen s poetry and even refused to print them in his anthology. Yeats went on to mention that passive suffering is not a theme for poetry. Interestingly, his poems were

7 originally to be featured in Yeats 1937 edition of The Oxford Book of Modern Verse, but were omitted entirely due to the content of Owen s poetry. To conclude this paper, the studies of bibliographic codes play a significant role in the interpretation of texts. Thanks to theorists such as McGann, Schillingsburg, Bronstein and Morrison, analysis of a text s physicality are equally important in shaping author s intent and readers reception. It is a way to look at a text through another lens providing readers with multiple perspectives. It is necessary to look at a text in multiple forms as this is relevant in providing us with the clues needed to get an accurate vision of its meaning. As Bornstein states, Further, studying texts only in our contemporary reprinting erases the original historicized meanings of the poems and renders even reading that aspire toward the historic or political. The studies of bibliographic codes are important when one needs to interpret a selected text. We can see this through Moore s Poetry and the way it shaped Owen s perception to the world.

8 Bibliography Bornstein, George. Material Modernism: The Poetics of the Page Cambridge University Press, 2001 Ellman, Richard. The New Oxford Book of American Verse:. Oxford University Press, Gregory, Elizabeth. Quotation and Modern American Poetry: "Imaginary Gardens with Real Toads." Copyright 1996 by the University of Michigan Press. Moore, Marianne. Complete Poems of Marianne Moore. Macmillan Moore, Marianne,. Becoming Marianne Moore. University of California Press Schulman, Grace. "Conversation with Marianne Moore." Quarterly Review of Literature, Vol. 16, Nos. 1-2 (1969): Shillingsburg, Peter. Textual Scholarship A Brief Introduction Center for Textual Scholarship http: // Siegfried Sassoon Collected Poems Faber and Faber, 1984