The Treasures of Little Egypt: New Research from the Special Collections at Morris Library, Southern Illinois Univ. Carbondale

Session Organizer: Kevin J. H. Dettmar
Southern Illinois Univ. Carbondale

The Self-Censorship of Lady Gregory’s Translations

Though many critics have praised Lady Gregory’s rhythmic translations that capture both the sound and sense of original Gaelic folktales, few have considered the role of censorship in these translations. Gregory greatly influenced her translation of many Irish folktales, specifically Cuchulain of Muirthemne, by adopting the idiomatic language of the peasants of Kiltartan. In addition, Gregory brought a sense of continuity to the tales by adding her own transitional phrases and sentences. Finally, and most importantly, her goal of translating the tales revolved around removing any material that would be offensive to readers, particularly children. This paper details the censorship through omissions and euphemisms Lady Gregory imposed upon herself in translating Cuchulain and her reasons for doing so. By comparing her version of Cuchulain with those of Thomas Kinsella, Joseph Dunn, Winifred Farady, and Cecile O’Rahilly as well as collected versions given through oral tradition (Field Day Anthology), and by considering Gregory’s collected and uncollected letters, interviews, and journals (in Special Collections of the Morris Library, Southern Illinois University), some of her motives for this self-censorship have been revealed.

Karen B. Golightly
Southern Illinois Univ. Carbondale

"Imperfections in a Perfect Day”: The Status of Book and Text in Ulysses

In this essay I explore the existence of Ulysses as a piece of cultural capital. Using original source material from Morris Library and information gathered from sources such as Ellmann’s biography, I try to differentiate between Joyce the writer, a private figure manipulating language to create a text, and Joyce the author, a public figure manipulating external factors to create a book. Both of these Joyces want to challenge readers and make them question the processes involved in reading a text and in purchasing and owning a book. Joyce was extremely concerned with and fascinated by elements regarding the printing, the publication, and the reception of his books. The story of Ulysses’ journey from text to book has been told before, but I hope to approach this information from a unique angle, focusing primarily on the actions Joyce takes and what those actions say about how he understands the relationship between reader and text, between consumer and book. In short, I will attempt to show how Joyce wrote the cultural field into which Ulysses was published just as carefully as he wrote the text being presented within it.

Matthew W. Paproth
Southern Illinois Univ. Carbondale

Black Sun and Red Eisenglass: The Literary Correspondence of Harry Crosby and Kay Boyle

While they knew each other for less than two years, Harry Crosby and Kay Boyle developed an important friendship. Despite Boyle’s attractiveness, Harry refrained from referring to her in his typical pseudo-mythical fashion, but instead demonstrated his consideration of her as an important writer. Conversely, Boyle seemed to use a more flirtatious air; after Crosby’s suicide in 1929, Boyle published a “valentine” to Crosby and later used him as a basis for characters in her later novels. Moreover, after his death, Harry became a symbol of the past, romanticized and abstract. Caresse, in turn, seemed to provide both an anchor to the past, and an “other” to Harry’s influence. In short, Caresse became a mechanism whereby the past could be revisited and, perhaps, used to advantage. In this paper I will examine the correspondence between the Crosbys and Kay Boyle, as well as their poetry and prose, in order to understand the relationships among the three and how those relationships influenced their writing. Ultimately, I hope to provide answers as to why Harry referred to Kay differently than other women, how and why the relationship with Boyle differed between Harry and Caresse, and what it was that “drove” the relationships.

Robert Pratte
Southern Illinois Univ. Carbondale

"Inside": The Prison Poetry of Edwin J. Becker

How do we evaluate a writer of pulp fiction who attempts serious poetry? Why would a con artist want to become a literary artist? What is the relationship of published poetry to its unpublished cousins? Are they part of the same ideological framework? Is working-class poetry, which might aspire to high literature, experimental or traditional? The unpublished manuscripts of the self-taught writer Edwin J. Becker offer insights into these problems. Letters, a play and a manuscript of long poems (Chains of Shadow), written while Becker was incarcerated in the New Jersey State Prison in Trenton from 1944 to 1948 for deceptive practice, show the development from criminal to struggling writer. He published at least one story in Caresse Crosby’s magazine Portfolio, a number of freelance magazine articles, and two pulp fiction novels. Although he claimed not to have literary aspirations, he strove mightily to have his poetry published.

David Leitner
Southern Illinois Univ. Carbondale