No middle ground: Baxter's writing of the self

Wilson, J. M. (2017) No middle ground: Baxter's writing of the self. In: Whiteford, P. and Miles, G. (eds.) Quarrels with Himself: Essays on James K. Baxter as Prose Writer. Wellington, New Zealand: Victoria University Press. pp. 31-52.

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Item Type:	Book Section
Abstract:	This essay will examine some of Baxter’s autobiographical prose to consider how he constructed images of himself by exploring his subjectivity through memory, symbol, dream and language. It will refer to early sketches and prose poems, such as ‘Before Sunrise’ (1942-43), to examine the moulding of his personality, social values and artistic orientation. Drawing on current theories of autobiography as a form of imaginative art, constructed through memory’s selectedness and the artful manipulation of facts, it will examine Baxter’s multiple, contradictory self images, including the monolithic ‘exemplary’ self that underpins his pronouncements on the role of the writer (e.g. as prophet, as ‘a cell of good living in a corrupt society’ (Weir, 4, p. 40). The article’s main focus will be on the autobiographical pieces, ’Beginnings’ and ‘Notes on the Education of a New Zealand Poet’ (from Man on a Horse, 1967), and the semi-autobiographical, Horse: a novel (written in 1958-9, resumed in 1962 and published posthumously in 1985), with its overlapping discourses of life-writing, verse and fiction. The autobiographical component covers Baxter’s life after he dropped out of university in January 1945 (Weir, 4, p. 23), and his painful struggle with sexual betrayal and alcoholism then, as documented in his letters to Noel Ginn, which is melodramatically rendered (literary echoes come from Dylan Thomas’s Adventures in the Skin Trade (Weir, 4, p. 291)). His use of an anarchic alter ego in Horse, ‘incorrigible, uneducable, unemployable’, to represent this inner turbulence and social rebellion, will be examined with reference to his interest in Jungian psychotherapy. I will also identify in these autobiographical writings, symbols and images suggestive of unity and reconciliation for these also contributed to interpretations of his vocation in broadly social terms (e.g. his view of the artist as a ‘natural delinquent’ (Weir, 4, p. 41) as he registered the impact of his creative forces. This section of the article will develop the arguments of my earlier study, ‘Archie, Millicent and James: The Baxter Autobiographies’, published in the Journal of New Zealand Literature, 13 (1995). It has been claimed that all of Baxter’s poetry springs from the autobiographical urge to mythologise himself. With reference to his use of symbolism, mythology, narrative voice and other literary techniques the essay will assess the contribution that his autobiographical writing makes to the creation of his personal and poetic personae as he charted the psychological and emotional territory of the poems, his perceptions of society, the well-springs of creativity and the role of the poet.
Uncontrolled Keywords:	James K. Baxter, autobiography, life narrative, narrative fragments, Horse
Subjects:	P Language and Literature > PR English literature > PR8309 English literature: Provincial, local, etc. > PR9639.3 New Zealand literature
Creators:	Wilson, Janet M
Editors:	Whiteford, Peter and Miles, Geoffrey
Publisher:	Victoria University Press
Faculties, Divisions and Institutes:	University Faculties, Divisions and Research Centres - OLD > Faculty of Education & Humanities > English and Creative Writing University Faculties, Divisions and Research Centres - OLD > Research Centre > Centre for Critical and Creative Writing Faculties > Faculty of Education & Humanities > English and Creative Writing Research Centres > Centre for Critical and Creative Writing
Date:	12 October 2017
Date Type:	Publication
Page Range:	pp. 31-52
Title of Book:	Quarrels with Himself: Essays on James K. Baxter as Prose Writer
Place of Publication:	Wellington, New Zealand
Number of Pages:	319
Language:	English
ISBN:	9781776561711
Media of Output:	Print
Status:	Published / Disseminated
Refereed:	Yes
Related URLs:	Publisher
References:	Allen, Jason. ‘The Underworld as Mythical Decor of Modernity in Aimé Césaire's And the Dogs Were Silent.’ Journal of Postcolonial Writing 53.4 (2017). Ang, Ien. On Not Speaking Chinese: Living Between Asia and the West. London and New York: Routledge, 2001. Derrida, Jacques. Of Grammatology. Trans. by Gayatri Chakravorti Spivak. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, [1975] 1997. Folkenflik, Robert. ‘The Self as Other.’ In: The Culture of Autobiography: Constructions of Self-Representation. Ed. Robert Folkenflik. Stanford CA: Sanford University Press, 1993. Genette, Gerard. ‘Boundaries of Narrative.’ New Literary History 8.1 (Autumn 1976). 1–13. Howarth, William L. ‘Some Principles of Autobiography.’ In: Autobiography: Essays Theoretical and Critical. Ed. James Olney. Princeton N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1982. Jung, Carl. Modern Man in Search of a Soul. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner and Co. Ltd., 1934. Newton, John. ‘“By Writing and Example”: the Baxter Effect.’ Ka mate ka ora: A new zealand journal of poetry and poetics 1 (2005). http://www.nzepc.auckland.ac.nz/kmko/01/ka_mate01_newton.asp. Accessed 27 December 2015. Olney, James, ed. Autobiography: Essays Theoretical and Critical. Princeton N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1982. ———. Memory and Narrative; The Weave of Life Writing. Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1998. Ricoeur, Paul. ‘Life in Quest of Narrative.’ In: On Paul Ricoeur: Narrative and Interpretation. Ed. David Wood. London and New York: Routledge 1991. 20–33. Rushdie, Salman, ‘Outside the Whale.’ In: Salman Rushdie, Imaginary Homelands: Essays and Criticism 1981–1991. London: Granta/Penguin, [1984] 1991. 83–101. Schwalm, Helga. ‘Autobiography.’ 2014. In: The Living Handbook of Narratology. Ed. Peter Hühn, et al. Hamburg: Hamburg University Press. hup.sub.uni-hamburg.de/lhn. Accessed 3 January 2017. Slaughter, Joseph R. ‘Life, Story, Violence: What Narrative Doesn’t Say.’ In: The Social Work of Narrative: Human Rights and the Cultural Imaginary. Ed. Gareth Griffiths and Philip Meade. Hanover: Ibidem-Verlag, 2017 [forthcoming]. Smith, Sidonie and Julia Watson. Reading Autobiography: A Guide for Interpreting Life Narratives. 2001. 2nd ed. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2010. Spender, Stephen. ‘Confessions and Autobiography.’ In: Autobiography: Essays Theoretical and Critical. Ed. James Olney. Princeton N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1982. 115-22. Thomas, Dylan, Adventures in the Skin Trade. London: Putnam, 1955. White, Hayden. ’The Value of Narrativity in the Representation of Reality.’ Critical Enquiry 7 (Fall 1980): 5-27.
URI:	http://nectar.northampton.ac.uk/id/eprint/10046

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