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 the cambridge companion to twentieth-century
british and irish women’s poetry

This Companion provides new ways of reading a wide range of influential

women’s poetry. Leading international scholars offer insights on a century of
writers, drawing out the special function of poetry. They illuminate the poets’
use of language, whether it is concerned with the relationship between verbal
and visual art, experimental poetics, war, landscape, history, cultural identity or
‘confessional’ lyrics. Collectively, the chapters cover well established and less
familiar poets, from Edith Sitwell and Mina Loy, through Stevie Smith, Sylvia
Plath and Elizabeth Jennings to Anne Stevenson, Eavan Boland and Jo Shapcott.
They also include poets at the forefront of poetry trends, such as Liz Lochhead,
Jackie Kay, Patience Agbabi, Caroline Bergvall, Medbh McGuckian and Carol
Ann Duffy. With a chronology and guide to further reading, this book is aimed
at students and poetry enthusiasts wanting to deepen their knowledge of some
of the finest modern poets.

jane dowson is Reader in Twentieth-Century Literature at De Montfort

University, Leicester.
 THE CAMBRIDGE
C O M PA N I O N T O

TWENTIETH-CENTURY
BRITISH AND IRISH
WOMEN’S POETRY

EDITED BY
JANE DOWSON
 cambridge university press
Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore,
São Paulo, Delhi, Dubai, Tokyo, Mexico City
Cambridge University Press
The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge cb2 8ru, UK

Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York

www.cambridge.org
Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521120210

# Cambridge University Press 2011

This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception

and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements,
no reproduction of any part may take place without
the written permission of Cambridge University Press.

First published 2011

Printed in the United Kingdom at the University Press, Cambridge

A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

The Cambridge companion to twentieth-century British and

Irish women’s poetry / edited by Jane Dowson.
p. cm. – (Cambridge companions to literature)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
isbn 978-0-521-19785-4 (Hardback) – isbn 978-0-521-12021-0 (pbk)
1. English poetry–Women authors–History and criticism. 2. English poetry–Irish
authors–History and criticism. 3. English poetry–20th century–History and criticism.
I. Dowson, Jane, 1955– II. Title. III. Series.
pr605.w6c36 2011
8210 .91099287–dc22
2010037665

isbn 978-0-521-19785-4 Hardback

isbn 978-0-521-12021-0 Paperback

Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or

accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to
in this publication, and does not guarantee that any content on such
websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.
 For
Isabel and Monica
 CONTENTS

List of illustrations page ix

List of contributors x
Preface xiii
Acknowledgements xiv
Chronology xviii

1 Introduction 1
JANE DOWSON

2 Post/Modernist rhythms and voices: Edith Sitwell and Stevie Smith

to Jo Shapcott and Selima Hill 9
IAN GREGSON

3 Reframing women’s war poetry 24

CLAIRE BUCK

4 Verbal and visual art in twentieth-century British women’s poetry 42

W I L L I A M M AY

5 Towards a new confessionalism: Elizabeth Jennings and Sylvia Plath 62

JANE DOWSON

6 The mid-Atlantic imagination: Mina Loy, Ruth Fainlight,

Anne Stevenson, Anne Rouse and Eva Salzman 82
MELANIE PETCH

7 The Irish history wars and Irish women’s poetry: Eiléan

Nı́ Chuilleanáin and Eavan Boland 97
C AT R I O N A C L U T T E R B U C K

vii
 contents

8 Interculturalism: Imtiaz Dharker, Patience Agbabi, Jackie Kay

and contemporary Irish poets 119
LEE M. JENKINS

9 Post-pastoral perspectives on landscape and culture 136

ALICE ENTWISTLE

10 Feminism’s experimental ‘work at the language-face’ 154

LINDA A. KINNAHAN

11 Carol Ann Duffy, Medbh McGuckian and ruptures in the lines

of communication 179
BRIAN CARAHER

Selected reading 196

Index 201

viii
 I L L U S T R AT I O N S

Fig. 4.1. Stevie Smith, ‘Not Waving but Drowning’ (1957). Published in
Stevie Smith, Collected Poems, ed. James MacGibbon (London:
Penguin, 1978). Used by permission of the estate of James
MacGibbon and New Directions. page 51
Fig. 4.2. Stevie Smith, ‘Not Waving but Drowning’ (undated draft illustration
c.1957). From a typed proof of the poem. Stevie Smith papers,
1927–70. Col. No. 1976.012. McFarlin Library, Department of
Special Collections and University Archives, University of Tulsa. 52
Fig. 4.3. Stevie Smith, ‘Si peu séduisante’ (undated draft illustration, c.1966).
From a typed proof of the poem. Stevie Smith papers, 1927–70.
Col. No. 1976.012. McFarlin Library, Department of Special
Collections and University Archives, University of Tulsa. 53
Fig. 4.4. Stevie Smith, ‘Si peu séduisante’ (1966). Published in Stevie Smith,
Collected Poems, ed. James MacGibbon (London: Penguin, 1978).
Used by permission of the estate of James MacGibbon and
New Directions. 53

ix
 CONTRIBUTORS

c l a i r e b u c k is Professor of English at Wheaton College in Massachusetts. Her

publications include: H. D. and Freud: Bisexuality and a Feminine Discourse
(1991); The Bloomsbury Guide to Women’s Literature (1992); and many articles
on women’s writing. She is currently writing a study of British nationalism, travel
writing and the First World War.
b r i a n c a r a h e r is Chair of English Literature in the School of English at Queen’s
University Belfast. He has published widely on topics in aesthetics, poetics,
theories of literary reading, literary pragmatics, genre theory and cultural
politics. He has written on issues in modern and contemporary poetry in ELH,
JJQ, MLQ, The Irish Review, Philosophy and Rhetoric, Textual Practice, Works
and Days and other journals and numerous book collections that include Intimate
Conflicts, Ireland and Transatlantic Poetics, Wordsworth’s ‘Slumber’ and the
Problematics of Reading, Trespassing Tragedy (forthcoming) and The Joyce of
Reading: Literary Pragmatics and Cultural Politics (in preparation).
c a t r i o n a c l u t t e r b u c k lectures in the School of English, Drama and Film at
University College Dublin, where her research interests centre on contemporary
Irish poetry and gender in Irish writing. She has published essays on the Irish poets
Derek Mahon, Eavan Boland, Thomas Kinsella, Eiléan Nı́ Chuilleanáin and
Medbh McGuckian as well as on the critical and cultural contexts of Irish
poetry. She has further published on the playwrights Lady Gregory, Brian Friel
and Anne Devlin, and on the novelist Charles J. Kickham. Work is forthcoming on
Vona Groarke.
j a n e d o w s o n is Reader in Twentieth-Century Literature at De Montfort University,
Leicester. Her publications on women’s poetry include: A History of Twentieth-
Century British Women’s Poetry (co-authored with Alice Entwistle, Cambridge
University Press 2005); Women, Modernism and British Poetry 1910–39 (2002);
and Women’s Poetry of the 1930s (1996). Her chapter ‘Time and Tide and The
Bermondsey Book: Interventions in the Public Sphere’ is part of The Critical and
Cultural History of Modernist Magazines, Vol. 1: Britain and Ireland 1880–1945,
ed. Peter Brooker and Andrew Thacker (2009). She is working on an electronic archive
of Elizabeth Jennings.

x
 list of contributors

a l i c e e n t w i s t l e is Principal Lecturer in English at the University of Glamorgan.

The co-author, with Jane Dowson, of A History of Twentieth-Century British
Women’s Poetry (Cambridge University Press, 2005), she is currently completing
several projects exploring the complex relationship between women, poetry
and place, including a critical monograph on women’s poetry in contemporary
Wales, and preparing a single-author study of the bilingual Welsh poet Gwyneth
Lewis.
i a n g r e g s o n is Professor of English at the University of Bangor. His critical books
are Contemporary Poetry and Postmodernism (1996); The Male Image:
Representations of Masculinity in Postwar Poetry (1999); Postmodern Literature
(2004); and The New Poetry in Wales (2007). He has published poems and reviews
in the London Review of Books, the TLS and Poetry Review, amongst others.
His latest book of poems is How We Met (2008). Call Centre Love Song (2006),
a selection of his poems, was shortlisted for the Forward Prize.
l e e m a r g a r e t j e n k i n s is Senior Lecturer in Modern English at University
College Cork. She is the author of The Language of Caribbean Poetry (2004), and
is the co-editor (with Alex Davis) of Locations of Literary Modernism (Cambridge
University Press, 2000) and The Cambridge Companion to Modernist Poetry
(2007). She is currently completing a monograph on D. H. Lawrence and
American modernism.

l i n d a a . k i n n a h a n is Professor of English at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh,

Pennsylvania, USA. She has published articles on twentieth-century North
American and British poets such as Carol Ann Duffy, Wendy Mulford, Denise
Riley and Geraldine Monk, and on North American experimental poetics in the
work of Kathleen Fraser, M. Norbese Philip, Erica Hunt and Barbara Guest. Her
books include Poetics of the Feminine: Literary Tradition and Authority in William
Carlos Williams, Mina Loy, Denise Levertov, and Kathleen Fraser (Cambridge
University Press, 1994) and Lyric Interventions: Feminism, Experimental Poetry,
and Contemporary Discourse (2004). Currently, she is completing a study of
women Modernist poets and economics, focusing especially on Mina Loy and
Marianne Moore.

w i l l i a m m a y is Lecturer in English at the University of Southampton. Previously,

he was a lecturer in English at St Anne’s College, Oxford and tutor at Bath Spa
University. He is the author of Stevie Smith and Authorship (2010) and Postwar
Literature: 1950–1990 (2010). He is currently working on text-setting and the
libretto in contemporary British literature.

m e l a n i e p e t c h teaches at De Montfort University, Leicester, where she completed

her Ph.D. on twentieth-century Anglo-American Women Poets. Previously, she has
written on Mina Loy, pursuing her interest in the so-called polarity between
American experimentalism and British formalism. She has undertaken interviews
with Ruth Fainlight and Anne Rouse.

xi
 P R E FA C E

I write this as Carol Ann Duffy makes history as the first woman poet
laureate in Britain. Her appointment to a controversial post ignites conver-
sations about the role of poetry in public life and the significance of a poet’s
sex and sexuality in relation to literary conventions and creativity.
The essays in this Companion absorb yet see beyond the ‘identity politics’
that occupied criticism in the second half of the previous century. They
dynamically interpret poetry with a more mobile and holistic vision of
gender and art. None of the chapters are confined to a single author: instead,
they make connections across historical moments, literary movements and
nationalities. We take both familiar and innovative concepts to look at how
women participate in such narratives as war, Irish history, postcolonialism or
the ‘post-pastoral’; we approach the diverse range of writers covered here
in ways that illuminate the gender-specific aspects of, say, ‘Anglo-American’,
‘confessional’, ekphrastic or experimental poetry, yet also revise and expand
these categories. Thus, we set up paradigms for reading streams of poetry that
ran through the last century and spill over into the present.
This volume is foremost a companion to poetry and will accompany
readers in their engagement with known and unfamiliar poets. It is also a
companion to The Cambridge History of Twentieth-Century Women’s
Poetry, (Dowson and Entwistle, 2005) which can be consulted for a comple-
mentary list of published works by the century’s hundred-plus important
poets, a linear account of poets in their contexts and essays on major poets
and trends. Here, as there, we respond to a consensus of poets, editors and
scholars as voiced by the Irish-born Colette Bryce (b. 1970): ‘While publish-
ing has opened up, criticism has not, and the work of some of our best women
poets continues to be neglected or ignored in the current critical climate’.1

Note
1
Colette Bryce, Modern Women Poets, ed. Deryn Rees-Jones (Tarset: Bloodaxe,
2005), p. 402.

xiii
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This book was completed with the invaluable help of a Small Research
Grant from the British Academy, along with teaching relief granted by
De Montfort University. I thank all contributors for the privilege and
enjoyment of working with them. Sadly, due to illness Vicki Bertram had
to withdraw from the project but her generous spirit and influence are here
invisibly and visibly through our citations of her work. The Contemporary
Women’s Writing Network has been a serious yet good-humoured fellowship
of like minds. My heartfelt gratitude goes to my special companions through
the time of writing, Ruth, Maria, Gerry, Jan and the Still Waters group. Andy
Mousley has been the best office companion and patiently given feedback on
chapter drafts. Many thanks to Pete Gilbert for the index and to Damir
Arsenijevic for his enthusiasm and reminding me to say it how it is. Tim Jana
furnished me with food and taught me to live a day at a time; the book is
dedicated to his daughters, who represent the future generation of readers.
Every effort has been made to clear rights on poetry extracts. Permission has
been granted as follows:
Patience Agbabi: for extracts from Bloodshot Monochrome (2008) and
Transformatrix (2000), by permission of Canongate Books.
Caroline Bergvall: for extracts from Goan Atom (Krupskaya, 2001) and
from ‘Les jets de la poupée’, published in the Oxford Anthology of Twentieth-
Century British & Irish Poetry (Oxford University Press, 2001).
Eavan Boland: for ‘At the Glass Factory in Cavan Town’, ‘The Black-Lace
Fan My Mother Gave Me’, ‘Watching Old Movies When They Were
New’, ‘Formal Feeling’, ‘The Dolls Museum in Dublin’, ‘Love’ ‘The Muse
Mother’, ‘Anorexic’, ‘The War Horse’, ‘The Achill Woman’, ‘Beautiful
Speech’, ‘Bright-Cut Irish Silver’, ‘The Glass King’, ‘Degas’s Laundresses’,
‘Anna Liffey’ and ‘Home’, copyright # 2005, 1990, 1982, from New
Collected Poems by Eavan Boland, by permission of W. W. Norton &
Company, Inc. and Carcanet Press Ltd; for the extract from Object

xiv
 acknowledgements

Lessons: The Life of the Woman and the Poet in our Time (1995), by
permission of Carcanet Press Ltd.
Moya Cannon: for extracts from ‘West’ and ‘Scrı́ob’, from Carrying the
Songs (2007), by permission of Carcanet Press Ltd.
Gillian Clarke: for extract from ‘Letter from a Far Country’, from Collected
Poems (1997), by permission of Carcanet Press Ltd.
Anne Cluysenaar: for ‘Landfall’, from Timeslips: New and Selected Poems
(1997), by permission of Carcanet Press Ltd.
Imtiaz Dharker: for ‘Outline’, ‘Battle-line’ and ‘Minority’, from Postcards
from god (1997); ‘Honour Killing’, ‘They’ll Say, “She must be from
another country” ’, ‘Stitched’ and ‘Front Door’ from I Speak for the Devil
(2001); ‘Still’, ‘Rickshaw Rider’ and ‘Halfway’, from The Terrorist at
My Table (2006), all by permission of Bloodaxe Books.
Carol Ann Duffy: for ‘Standing Female Nude’, copyright # 1985, 2005,
from New Collected Poems (1984–2004), by permission of Pan Macmil-
lan; for ‘Away and See’ and ‘Prayer’, from Mean Time (1993) and
‘Warming Her Pearls’ from Selling Manhattan (1987), by permission of
Anvil Press.
Ruth Fainlight: for extracts from Ruth Fainlight, New and Collected Poems
(2010), by permission of Bloodaxe Books.
Kerry Hardie: lines from ‘We Change the Map’, from A Furious Place
(1996) by kind permission of the author and The Gallery Press, Lough-
crew, Oldcastle, County Meath, Ireland. www.gallerypress.com.
Rita Ann Higgins: for ‘Donna Laura’, from Throw in the Vowels: New &
Selected Poems (2005), by permission of Bloodaxe Books.
Selima Hill: for ‘Gloria’, from Selected Poems (2008), by permission of
Bloodaxe Books.
Kathleen Jamie: for ‘The Well at the Broch of Gurness’, from Jizzen (1999)
and ‘Reliquary’, from The Tree House (2004), by kind permission of the
author and Picador.
Elizabeth Jennings: for extracts from ‘The Instruments’, ‘After a Time’,
‘Family Affairs’, ‘The Interrogator’, ‘To a Friend with Religious Voca-
tion’, ‘About These Things’ and ‘Sequence from Hospital’, from New
Collected Poems, published by Carcanet Press Ltd (2002), by permission
of Bruce Hunter for David Higham Associates; David Higham Associates
and Georgetown University Library for permission to quote from the
Elizabeth Jennings Papers; British Library, Department of Manuscripts,
London, for extracts from letters by Philip Larkin and Vita Sackville-West
in Elizabeth Jennings Papers MSS 52599.
Jackie Kay: for ‘Old Tongue’ and ‘In my Country’, from Darling: New &
Selected Poems (2007), by permission of Bloodaxe Books.

xv
 acknowledgements

Liz Lochhead: for ‘Furies’, ‘Object’ and ‘Notes on the Inadequacy of a

Sketch’, copyright # 1984, from Dreaming Frankenstein & Collected
Poems; ‘Warpaint and Womenflesh’, copyright # 2005, from The Colour
of Black & White 1984–2003, all by permission of Birlinn Ltd.
Mina Loy: by kind permission of Roger Conover and the Estate of Mina
Loy for ‘Anglo-Mongrels and the Rose’, ‘Notes on Childhood’ and
‘America a Miracle’ from The Last Lunar Baedecker (1982), and for
‘The Effectual Marriage’ and ‘Virgins Plus Curtains Minus Dots’ from
The Lost Lunar Baedecker (1996).
Medbh McGuckian: by kind permission of the author and to Gallery Press,
Loughcrew, Oldcastle, County Meath, Ireland, for ‘Pulsus Paradoxus’
from Shelmalier (1998) and ‘Drawing Ballerinas’ from Drawing Baller-
inas (2001).
Wendy Mulford: for ‘How Do You Live’, from Late Spring Next Year:
Poems, 1979–1985 (Bristol: Loxwood Stoneleigh, 1987); extracts from
‘Alltud’ (Scintilla 11, 2007), and from The East Anglia Sequence (Paul
Green/Spectacular Diseases, 1998), repr. And Suddenly, Supposing:
Selected Poems (Etruscan Press, 2002).
Maggie O’Sullivan: for extracts from In the House of the Shaman (1993),
by permission of Reality Street.
Eiléan Nı́ Chuilleanáin: for ‘Site of Ambush’, from Site of Ambush (1975);
‘The Rose Geranium’ 5, 11, 13 and ‘Cork’ 3, 8, 11, from The Rose
Geranium (1981); ‘History’ and ‘Pygmalion’s Image’, from The Magda-
len Sermon (1989); ‘Gloss/Clós/Glas’, from The Girl Who Married the
Reindeer (2001), by permission of the Gallery Press; ‘Daniel Grosse’ and
‘The Real Thing’, from The Brazen Serpent (1995), by kind permission of
Wake Forest University Press.
Sylvia Plath: for extracts from ‘Zoo Keeper’s Wife’ and ‘Fever 103’, by
permission of Faber & Faber.
Frances Presley: for ‘Minehead’, from Paravane: New and Selected Poems
1996–2003 (2004), by permission of Salt, and Myne: New and Selected
Poems and Prose 1976–2005 (2006), by permission of Shearsman.
Denise Riley: for extracts from Dry Air (1985), by permission of Virago
Press.
Lynette Roberts: ‘Rainshiver’, copyright # 2008, from Diaries, Letters and
Recollections, by permission of Angharad Rhys and Carcanet Press Ltd.
Anne Rouse: for ‘England Nil’ and ‘The Passage’, from The Upshot: New &
Selected Poems (2008), by permission of the author and Bloodaxe Books.
Eva Salzman: for ‘Ending Up in Kent’, from Double Crossing: New &
Selected Poems (2004), by permission of Bloodaxe Books.

xvi
 acknowledgements

Zoë Skoulding: for ‘Preselis with Brussels Street Map’, from Remains of a
Future City (2008), by kind permission and copyright of the author and
Seren Books.
Stevie Smith: for ‘Not Waving but Drowning’, and ‘Si peu séduisante’, plus
illustrations, copyright # 1978, from Collected Poems, by permission of
the estate of James MacGibbon and New Directions.
Anne Stevenson: for ‘Green Mountain, Black Mountain’, ‘In Middle Eng-
land’, ‘England’, ‘Travelling Behind Glass’, ‘The Women’, ‘Night
Thoughts and False Confessions’ and ‘Skills’ (first published in Poetry
Wales 27.1 [1991], reproduced here by kind permission of the author)
from Poems 1955–2005 (2005), by permission of Bloodaxe Books.

xvii
 CHRONOLOGY

YEAR HISTORICAL EVENTS C U LT U R A L / L I T E R A RY E V E N T S

1901 Death of Queen Victoria. Rudyard Kipling, Kim.

1903 Marie Curie wins Nobel Prize. George Bernard Shaw, Man
and Superman.
Founding of the Women’s Social
and Political Union by Emmeline
Pankhurst.
1904 Anton Chekhov, The Cherry Orchard.
1905 Founding of Sinn Fein, Irish
nationalist party.
1907 Cubist exhibition in Paris.
J. M. Synge, Playboy of the Western
World.
1908 Herbert Asquith becomes Liberal Gertrude Stein, Three Lives.
Prime Minister.
Women Writers Suffrage League
founded by Cicely Hamilton and
Bessie Hatton.
1909 Ezra Pound, Personae.
Poetry Review founded.
Cicely Hamilton, Marriage as a Trade.
1910 Death of Edward VII. Post-impressionist exhibition in
London.
General election: Liberals returned. E. M. Forster, Howard’s End.
Suffragette march in Hyde Park.
1911 Coronation of George V. The Freewoman: a weekly feminist
review, ed. Dora Marsden
(November); runs until October
1912.

xviii
 chronology

YEAR HISTORICAL EVENTS C U LT U R A L / L I T E R A RY E V E N T S

1912 Sinking of the Titanic. Carl Jung (1875–1961), The Theory

of Psychoanalysis.
Poetry Society formed; Lady Margaret
Sackville made first President.
1913 Royal Commission on Divorce. Sigmund Freud (1856–1939),
Interpretation of Dreams (1900)
translated into English.
Suffragette demonstrations in London.
‘Cat and Mouse’ Act to deal with D. H. Lawrence, Sons and Lovers.
suffragettes’ self-starvation. The New Freewoman founded,
ed. Dora Marsden.
1914 First World War starts. James Joyce, Dubliners.
Blast magazine founded.
The Egoist (formerly The New
Freewoman), ed. Harriet Shaw
Weaver, assisted by Richard
Aldington and Dora Marsden;
runs until 1918.
May Sinclair, Feminist Manifesto.
1916 Carl Jung, Psychology of the
Unconscious.
James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist
as a Young Man.
1917 Russian Revolution starts. T. S. Eliot, Prufrock and Other
Observations.
1918 First World War ends.
Women over thirty get the vote.
Countess Marckiewicz elected to
Parliament.
1919 Sex Disqualification Removal Act – all The Egoist becomes Egoist Press,
professions open to women except London.
the church.
Inauguration of Vogue magazine
in Britain.
Nancy Astor is first woman MP to
take her seat in the House of
Commons.
1920 American women achieve the vote. Time and Tide (1920–76) started by
Lady Margaret Rhondda.
D. H. Lawrence, Women in Love.
Katherine Mansfield, Bliss and
Other Stories.

xix
 chronology

YEAR HISTORICAL EVENTS C U LT U R A L / L I T E R A RY E V E N T S

1921 Mary Stopes opens first birth control Charlie Chaplin, The Kid (film).
clinic in London.
1922 Founding of the British Broadcasting T. S. Eliot, The Waste Land.
Company (BBC).
James Joyce, Ulysses.
Virginia Woolf, Jacob’s Room.
Criterion magazine founded by
T. S. Eliot.
Good Housekeeping magazine
launched.
1923 BBC launches Woman’s Hour. Carl Jung, Psychological Types.
1924 Workers’ Birth Control Group. E. M. Forster, A Passage to India.
First Surrealist manifesto.
1925 Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf. Virginia Woolf, Mrs Dalloway.
Gertrude Stein, The Making of
Americans.
Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby.
1926 General Strike. Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also
Rises.
1927 Virginia Woolf, To The Lighthouse.
Close-Up magazine founded by
Winifred Bryher.
1928 Women over twenty-one get the vote. W. B. Yeats, The Tower.
D. H. Lawrence, Lady Chatterley’s
Lover.
Ray Strachey, The Cause.
Nancy Cunard starts The Hours Press,
Paris (1928–31).
1929 General election (52.7 per cent Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s
electorate female). Own.
Second Surrealist manifesto.
Collapse of the New York stock Museum of Modern Art, New York,
market. opened.
1930 W. H. Auden, Poems. Freud, Civilisation and its
Discontents.
1932 Aldous Huxley, Brave New World.
1936 Spanish Civil War starts. Penguin Books launched.
Death of George V.
Coronation of George VI. Ray Strachey, Our Freedom and Its
Results.
1937 The Matrimonial Causes Act. Woman magazine launched.
1938 Inheritance Act.

xx
 chronology

YEAR HISTORICAL EVENTS C U LT U R A L / L I T E R A RY E V E N T S

1939 Second World War starts. James Joyce, Finnegan’s Wake.

1942 Beveridge Report published.
1944 Education Act. Outposts magazine launched.
1945 Bombing of Hiroshima; Second World
War ends.
Introduction of Family Allowance,
state payment to mothers.
BBC launches Home Service and Light
Programmes.
1946 Royal Commission on Equality Vita Sackville-West’s ‘The Garden’
recommends equal pay for women wins Heinemann Prize.
teachers and civil servants.
1947 India and Pakistan granted
independence.
Princess Elizabeth marries Lt. Philip
Mountbatten.
1948 National Health Service established.
SS Empire Windrush arrives at
Tilbury Docks, bringing the first
generation of Jamaicans (nearly
500) to London.
John Newsom report, The Education
of Girls.
1951 Festival of Britain, May–September. National Poetry Competition flops.
1952 Death of George VI; accession of
Elizabeth II.
1953 Coronation of Elizabeth II. Kinsey
report, Sexual Behaviour in the
Human Female.
1954 Rationing ends.
1955 National Council of Women, Ruth Pitter awarded The Queen’s
conference on single women. Medal for Poetry.
Elizabeth Jennings wins Somerset
Maugham Award.
1956 The Morton Commission, Report on Outposts Press evolves from
Marriage and Divorce. magazine. Elizabeth Jennings
appears in Robert Conquest’s
Movement anthology New Lines.
1957 Claudia Jones founds The West Indian
Gazette.

xxi
 chronology

YEAR HISTORICAL EVENTS C U LT U R A L / L I T E R A RY E V E N T S

1958 First Aldermaston march.

Notting Hill race riots.
National Council of Women,
conference on working mothers.
1959 Obscene Publications Act. Michael Horovitz founds New
Departures.
Frances Cornford awarded The
Queen’s Medal for Poetry.
1960 R. D. Laing, The Divided Self.
Jenny Joseph wins Eric Gregory
Award.
1961 Contraceptive pill introduced in UK. Penguin Books cleared of obscenity in
Lady Chatterley trial.
Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex,
published in Britain.
1962 Marilyn Monroe dies. Doris Lessing, The Golden Notebook.
National Housewives Register
founded.
1963 Profumo scandal breaks. Stevie Smith, ‘Poet of the Year’,
Stratford upon Avon Festival.
Sylvia Plath dies.
Betty Friedan, The Feminine
Mystique.
1965 Mary Quant opens Bazaar. Approximately 7,000 people attend
Albert Hall poetry reading featuring
over forty poets.
1966 Juliet Mitchell, ‘The longest
revolution’, in New Left Review.
1967 Abortion Law Reform. Writers’ Workshop formed.
Family Planning Act.
1968 Martin Luther King assassinated. Northern Poetry Library founded.
Enoch Powell’s ‘rivers of blood’ Kathleen Raine fails to get Oxford
speech. Chair of Poetry.
Anti-Vietnam war demonstrations.
1969 First landing on the moon. Enitharmon Press founded.
Divorce Reform Act. Poetry Society’s Poetry Gala, Royal
Festival Hall.
Stevie Smith awarded The Queen’s
Medal for Poetry.
Shrew magazine launched.
Kate Millett, Sexual Politics.
Sheila Rowbotham, Women’s
Liberation and the New Politics.

xxii
 chronology

YEAR HISTORICAL EVENTS C U LT U R A L / L I T E R A RY E V E N T S

1970 First Conference of Women’s Germaine Greer, The Female Eunuch.

Liberation Movement, Ruskin
College, Oxford (February).
Equal Pay Act. Kathleen Raine wins Cholmondeley
Award.
1971 First International Women’s Day Stevie Smith dies.
(March); women march in London
and Liverpool.
Phoebe Hesketh elected Fellow,
Royal Society of Literature.
The Arvon Foundation Centre
founded.
1972 First Women’s Refuge set up in Spare Rib launched.
Chiswick, London.
PN Review launched.
Wendy Mulford founds Street
Editions.
Kathleen Raine receives W. H. Smith
Literary Award.
Molly Holden wins Cholmondeley
Award.
Liz Lochhead wins Scottish Arts
Council Award.
Jenny Joseph wins Cholmondeley
Award.
Penelope Shuttle wins Eric Gregory
Award.
1975 Sex Discrimination Act. Equal Virago Press launched.
Opportunities Commission set up.
National Abortion Campaign International Cambridge Poetry
launched. Festival inaugurated.
Employment Protection Act
introduces statutory maternity
rights.
1976 Domestic Violence Act. Onlywomen Press founded.
First Rape Crisis centre opens Gillian Clarke edits Anglo-Welsh
in North London. Review.
Fleur Adcock wins Cholmondeley
Award.
Mairead Maguire founds Northern
Ireland Peace People and is awarded
the Nobel Prize.

xxiii
 chronology

YEAR HISTORICAL EVENTS C U LT U R A L / L I T E R A RY E V E N T S

1977 Elaine Showalter, A Literature of their

Own: British Women Novelists
from Brontë to Lessing.
1978 Hite report on female sexuality. The Women’s Press launched.
Organisation of Women of Asian and Anne Stevenson elected Fellow of the
African Descent (OWAAD) formed. Royal Society of Literature.
1979 Margaret Thatcher becomes first Medbh McGuckian wins The
woman Prime Minister. National Poetry Competition.
Lowest number of women MPs Pamela Gillilan wins Cheltenham
(nineteen) returned in twenty years. Literature Festival/Sunday
Telegraph poetry competition.
Anne Stevenson co-founds The Poetry
Bookshop, Hay on Wye.
Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar,
The Madwoman in the Attic: The
Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-
Century Imagination.
Denise Levertov elected to American
Academy of Arts and Letters.
Elaine Feinstein made Fellow of Royal
Society of Literature.
Medbh McGuckian wins Eric Gregory
Award.
Dale Spender, Man Made Language.
1981 Charles, Prince of Wales, marries Lady
Diana Spencer.
Brixton riots.
1982 First Greenham Common peace camp. April: evening of international poetry at
the First International Fair of Radical
Black and Third World Books.
Channel Four television launched.
1983 Grace Nichols’ i is a long-memoried
woman wins Commonwealth
Poetry Prize.
Carol Ann Duffy wins National Poetry
Competition.
Medbh McGuckian wins Alice Hunt
Bartlett Award.
1984 Miners’ strike prompts formation Patricia Oxley edits the new Acumen
of Women against Pit Closures. poetry magazine.
Alison Fell wins Alice Hunt Bartlett
Award.

xxiv
 chronology

YEAR HISTORICAL EVENTS C U LT U R A L / L I T E R A RY E V E N T S

1985 Women’s Review launched.

Denise Levertov receives Shelley
Memorial Award from Poetry
Society of America.
Jo Shapcott wins The National Poetry
Competition (joint award).
1986 Carole Satyamurti wins The National
Poetry Competition.
Jenny Joseph wins James Tait
Memorial Prize.
Helen Dunmore wins Alice Hunt
Bartlett Prize.
Poems on the Underground.
1987 Elizabeth Jennings wins W. H. Smith
Literary Award.
Wendy Cope wins Cholmondeley
Award.
U. A. Fanthorpe elected Fellow,
Royal Society of Literature.
1988 Berlin Wall comes down (November). The Poetry Library moves to the
South Bank.
Siân Edwards first woman conductor Carol Ann Duffy wins Somerset
at Royal Opera House, Covent Maugham Prize.
Garden.
Selima Hill wins Arvon/Observer
International Poetry Competition.
Gwyneth Lewis wins Gregory Award.
1989 Carol Ann Duffy wins Dylan Thomas
Award.
E. J. Scovell wins Cholmondeley
Award.
1990 Nelson Mandela released from Nicky Rice wins The National Poetry
imprisonment on Rabbins Island. Competition.
Mary Robinson elected President Elaine Feinstein wins Cholmondeley
of Ireland. Award.
Poll Tax riots (March); Mrs Thatcher Helen Dunmore wins first prize in
resigns (November). Cardiff International Poetry
Competition.
Tracy Edwards captains first all-
women crew to complete
Whitbread Round the World
Yacht Race.

xxv
 chronology

YEAR HISTORICAL EVENTS C U LT U R A L / L I T E R A RY E V E N T S

1991 Helen Sharman first Briton in space. Judith Wright awarded The Queen’s
Medal for Poetry.
Jo Shapcott’s ‘Phrase Book’ is joint
winner of The National Poetry
Competition.
Jackie Kay’s The Adoption Papers
wins a Scottish Arts Council Book
Award, Saltire First Book Award.
1992 Ordination of women priests in the Forward Poetry Prize set up. Jackie
Church of England. Kay wins the Forward Prize for best
single poem.
Betty Boothroyd becomes first female Kathleen Raine awarded The Queen’s
Speaker of the House of Commons. Medal for Poetry.
Elizabeth Jennings receives CBE.
1993 Carol Ann Duffy wins Whitbread
Poetry Prize.
1994 First National Poetry Day.
‘New Generation’ Poets launched.
Ruth Fainlight wins Cholmondeley
Award.
Alice Oswald wins Gregory Award.
1995 Carol Ann Duffy awarded OBE.
Wendy Cope wins American Academy
of Letters Award.
Kathleen Jamie wins Somerset
Maugham Award.
1996 Prince and Princess of Wales divorce. Orange Prize for Women’s Fiction
launched.
Ruth Padel wins The National Poetry
Competition.
Fleur Adcock awarded OBE.
1997 General election: Labour elected. Jenny Joseph’s ‘When I Am Old
Tony Blair becomes Prime Minister; I Shall Wear Purple’ chosen as the
120 women MPs (‘Blair’s Babes’) Nation’s Favourite Poem on
win seats. Death of Diana, Princess National Poetry Day.
of Wales.
1998 Devolution in Scotland and Wales. Poetry on the Buses.
High numbers of women elected to
Welsh National Assembly and
Scottish Parliament.

xxvi
 chronology

YEAR HISTORICAL EVENTS C U LT U R A L / L I T E R A RY E V E N T S

1999 Devolution in Northern Ireland. Carol Ann Duffy made Fellow of

Royal Society of Literature and
nominated for Laureateship.
Minimum wage introduced. Oxford University Press closes its
poetry list.
2000 Kathleen Raine awarded CBE.

xxvii
 Cambridge Companions to . . .
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 1
JANE DOWSON

Introduction

The best women’s poetry may be still unrecognised if, as I suspect, we have not
yet understood how to read it.
(Germaine Greer, 2001)1

During the last two decades of the twentieth century, three inter-dependent
questions evolved: who are the women poets? What is the persona of the
woman poet? What is the aesthetic, that is, the distinctive ‘voice’, of
women’s poetry? In this Introduction, I briefly summarise where these
concepts have taken scholars, critics and readers; I then attend to Greer’s
above challenge that Alice Entwistle and I cited in the Afterword to
A History of Twentieth-Century British Women’s Poetry (2005) and that
stimulates this volume: how do we talk meaningfully about poetry by
women? In other words, how do we find a vocabulary that can distinguish
and evaluate, that frames illuminating connections between poets and that
neither ignores gender not reduces a poem to merely a gendered artefact?
How do we conserve the century’s canons of poets, not simply by a roll-call
of names but by identifiable practices that do not just keep pace with but
also set the pace for critical and literary studies? The approaches that follow
pertain to the selected poets in each chapter and are transferable to their
predecessors, contemporaries and successors across national boundaries.
Since around 1980, revisionary scholarship and publishing have
unearthed the forgotten, reread the neglected and reclassified the misrepre-
sented writers of previous centuries. There is now a firm sense of a line of
women poets stretching from Sappho to the end of the nineteenth century.2
With lists of over one hundred female British and Irish poets, the emerging
narratives of the twentieth century are beginning to crystallise through
poetry collections and critical overviews. Fleur Adcock’s The Faber Book
of 20th Century Women’s Poetry (1987) whet readers’ appetites for the
British and American writers she introduced, and has been followed by
Deryn Rees-Jones’ extensive and refreshing selection in Modern Women
Poets (2005). As listed under ‘Selected Reading’ at the end of this Compan-
ion, other anthologies have a broader or narrower timespan
(‘Contemporary’, ‘New’, ‘the 1930s’ or ‘War’), or are confined by sexual/
biological identity (such as lesbian or motherhood) or nationality (Indian,

1
 jane dowson

African, Scottish, Welsh, Irish, black) and women have been well repre-
sented in the anthologies of the century that were published around the
millennium.
One consensus finds the distinctive ‘voice’ inextricably wrought from
the cultural ideologies of gender with which the poet negotiated. Thus, as
in Contemporary Scottish Women Writers, edited by Christianson and
Lumsden (2000), or DeCaires Narain’s Contemporary Caribbean Women’s
Poetry (2001), the aesthetic is primarily conceived through a writer’s spe-
cifically female experience of her national/racial identity. The other branch
of criticism foregrounds writers’ circumventions of the devaluing epithets
‘poetess’ at the start and ‘woman poet’ at the end of the century. As
I concluded in Women, Modernism and British Poetry: Resisting Femininity
(1992), ‘the cohering aesthetic is in women’s problematic relationship with
both male and female traditions’.3 The necessary cultural empowerment
and imaginative liberation achieved by claiming ground both in and out of
male-dominant traditions inform the essays in Vicki Bertram’s influential
Kicking Daffodils: Twentieth-Century Women Poets (1997) that scrutinize
poets’ reconfigurations of literary conventions. In A History of Twentieth-
Century British Women’s Poetry, we mine the best practices that are often
discernible by a gender-conscious avoidance of the ‘personal’, namely
androgyny, modernist impersonality, disruptive lyrics and the ventriloquis-
ing of social voices. We also draw attention to where poets write boldly in
politically creative ways, such as public commentary, linguistically innova-
tive consciousness-raising or combining science with myth. The woman
poet’s imperative to shrug off cultural idealisations of femininity is taken
up by Rees-Jones in Consorting with Angels (2005). With reference to
Virginia Woolf’s famous injunction to ‘kill the Angel in the house’ and
Judith Butler’s treatise on gender as a performance of difference,4 Rees-
Jones showcases how women poets, from Edith Sitwell to Jo Shapcott, mask
or meddle with reductive essentialising assumptions about the poet as
subject, through such performative strategies as the dramatic monologue,
multivocality, surrealism and intertextuality. In Poetry off the Page:
Twentieth-century British Women Poets in Performance (2004), Laura
Severin traces theatrical devices that unsettle a page/stage divide and that
contiguously deconstruct gender prescriptions, by pairing Charlotte
Mew with Anna Wickham, Sitwell with Stevie Smith, and Liz Lochhead
with Jackie Kay. In Gendering Poetry: Contemporary Women and Men
Poets (2004) Bertram’s interrogation of masculinity alongside femininity
and men along with women poets signals what Susan Stanford Friedman
coins as the shift from ‘binarist ways of thinking’ to a unifying

2
 Introduction

‘geopolitics of identity’ that allows for differences to be multivalent,

global and contextually specific.5
As the millennium recedes, we view the previous century with increasing
distance and clarity, through the lenses of accelerating globalisation, the
collapsing distinction between private and public spheres and the confused
terminology of ‘post everything’. With the twenty-first century’s drive for
both innovation and recycling, the labels post-feminism, postcolonisalism,
postmodernism and post-nationalism are neither dispensed with nor simply
preserved as fixed entities, moments or movements. We maintain their
usefulness for rebranding concepts in order to destabilise binary polarities
of gender, culture and race. The following chapters were written in a zone
where the materiality of libraries, hardcopy books, desks, chairs and com-
puters merge with the virtual reality of the World Wide Web. Not surpris-
ingly, they exhibit contemporary discourses about borderlands that
maintain and cross boundaries. Thus we revive or hyphenate existing cat-
egories and propose new ones, such as ‘interculturalism’, ‘mid-Atlantic
imagination’, ‘new confessionalism’ or ‘post-pastoral’.
Recognising that contextual signification is crucial to poets’ literary prac-
tice and reception, the chapters are loosely arranged in order of the century’s
major poetic categories: Modernism, the world wars, the Movement and
multiculturalism. We show that women poets are not ‘also-ran’ to these
dominant trends but participants who establish and pioneers who change
literary terrains. Within the chapters, however, we link political impulses
and stylistic features across strict historical periods in order to consolidate
alternative models of poetic practice that run through the decades. Similarly,
while respecting the delineations of national identity (most obviously British
and Irish), the contributors foreground poets’ self-conscious textual activ-
ities that extend and sometimes unsettle critical orthodoxies. Collectively,
the chapters converse about lyric, narrative and dramatic representations in
terms that frequently centre female poetic expression yet dislodge binary
conceptions of male and female creativity. Friedman charts this ‘both/and’
dialogue of differences as ‘beyond gender’, meaning beyond ‘fundamentalist
identity politics and absolutist poststructuralist theories as they pose essen-
tialist notions of identity on the one hand and refuse all cultural traffic with
identity on the other’.6 The frames of interpretation that follow correspond-
ingly set up discursive spaces that overlay and dissolve such oppositional
binaries as the verbal and visual, seriousness and play, nature and culture,
war and peace, the local and global.
Whereas in Kicking Daffodils critics notice how women use their position
outside the tradition to kick at the male prerogative in a metaphor that

3
 jane dowson

indicates restriction, anger, playfulness and freedom, the emphasis in these

chapters is on women’s flexible strategies that weave the established with
the radical. They frequently write about the tradition as if it is theirs to
manoeuvre. William May moves towards paradigms of women’s ekphras-
tic poetry that not only deal with the painterly tradition of men objectify-
ing and fixing their female subjects but also with the poets who control
the artistic practice itself, as illustrated in Alexander Pope’s ‘Epistle to a
Lady’ or Shelley’s ‘On the Medusa of Leonardo Da Vinci’. Stevie Smith,
Lynette Roberts and Liz Lochhead, all artists as well as poets, boldly
manipulate and tease the similarities and differences between ‘this sketch’
and ‘a simile’. In Alice Entwistle’s discussion of ‘Post-pastoral
perspectives’, poets as various as Anne Stevenson, Gillian Clarke and
Eavan Boland evoke and bypass the conventions of pastoral and anti-
pastoral in ways that also disrupt the binary opposition of a feminised
nature and a plundering masculine culture. Poets across the British Isles,
such as Kerry Hardie, Moya Cannon, Alice Oswald, Kathleen Jamie and
Zoë Skoulding, respond to the political devolution of the United King-
dom. The boundaries between landscape and culture are supplanted by
what Terry Gifford calls a more holistic ‘vision of the natural world that
includes the human’.7
Friedman’s ‘geopolitics of identity’ accounts for the multicultural,
international and transnational configurations of race and gender that
Lee M. Jenkins explores. Whereas postcolonial theories, along the con-
tinuum between ‘writing back’ and transnationalism, have embedded
race-based critical approaches, ‘interculturalism’ opens up a border zone
where, as Gloria Anzaldúa suggests, everyone lives.8 We find Imtiaz
Dharker, Patience Agbabi, Jackie Kay and contemporary Irish poets
engaging with differences within and connections across cultures; collect-
ively, they indicate that feelings of displacement are a shared condition.
Agbabi’s sonnet about meeting with Wordsworth on the London Eye
exemplifies their skilful manipulations of literary traditions that explode
monolithic notions of canonical heritage. As demonstrated here, poets
who are born or settled in Britain and Ireland are included in our canon
of writers.
Extending Homi Bhabha’s yearning for a ‘third space of enunciation’,9
Anglo-American women poets also traverse rigid demarcations of nation-
ality and the attendant polarities of formal traditionalism and experimen-
talism. In their ‘mid-Atlantic imagination’ poets who migrated between
Britain and the United States harmonised the preoccupying disjunctions of
being somewhere and nowhere; such a psychological liminality can
describe the itinerant lives of poets and readers through and beyond the

4
 Introduction

century. Combining the feminist poststructuralism of Julia Kristeva with

the Marxist philosophy and sociology of Henri Lefebvre, Melanie Petch
examines how the poem is an imaginative sphere with a contingent materi-
ality that fosters community; thus it offers the potential to appropriate and
change the social spaces in which writers and readers find themselves. In
chapter 5, ‘Towards a new confessionalism’, connections between Sylvia
Plath and Elizabeth Jennings bridge American enthusiasm and British
disdain regarding the ‘confessional’. As Isobel Armstrong observes in The
Radical Aesthetic, psychoanalysis had become the ‘primary discourse of
emotions this [the twentieth] century’ and is the obvious discourse for the
poets’ reworkings of mental illness.10 I prefer Jung’s insistence on reading
symbols as signs of a poetic consciousness to Freudian assumptions about
the authors’ psychological neuroses. Moving from the benchmark of
‘authenticity’ presumed and demanded by social practices of confession,
I stress how the poetic act self-consciously marks and compensates for
what cannot be fully spoken.
When it comes to history, women are agents against reductive orthodox-
ies: they intervene in the record-making that has too easily been biased by
male and/or nationalist agendas. In an invigorating rebuttal of imperial
narratives about the two world wars as mere punctuation marks in twen-
tieth-century British history, Claire Buck favours Paul Virilio’s theory that
the threat of violence infiltrates the consciousness of daily life at all times.
With an instructive overview of publications and their critical reception,
she details how women’s poems present the integration and interaction of
peace and war, of the domestic space and war zones. Starting with Edith
Sitwell’s The Song of the Cold (1948) about atomic bombing and Sylvia
Townsend Warner’s Opus 7 (1931) (modelled on George Crabbe’s anti-
pastoral), she assembles a huge number of poets who include Denise
Levertov, Heather Buck, Smith, Plath, Nancy Cunard, Ada Jackson,
Roberts, Sheila Wingfield, H.D. and Mina Loy. In common, they often
recast the elegy and other conventional forms to make personal experience
a public matter. Tackling the Irish history wars, Catriona Clutterbuck
argues that women face how history is mediated; furthermore, they are
instrumental in hinging the crude and inflammatory polarisations between
revisionism and counter-revisionism. Her probing readings of Eavan
Boland and Eiléan Nı́ Chuilleanáin can apply to the many other poets they
represent who ‘challenge[s] the categorisation of women’s history and
national history as automatically at odds’.
The emanating power and pleasure of poetic language keep the reader
and critic alert to what poetry can offer that other artistic forms do not. The
French feminists’ theory of ‘écriture féminine’, the semiotic ruptures of

5
 jane dowson

symbolic language, is problematic for essentialising female writing but

enlightens the innate function of poetic expression:

It is impossible to define a feminine [poetic] practice of writing, and this is an

impossibility that will remain, for this practice can never be theorized,
enclosed, coded – which doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist. But it will always
surpass the discourse that regulates the phallocentric system.11

As indicated in my parenthesis, we could substitute ‘feminine’ with ‘poetic’.

Thus it makes sense to suppose that in writing poetry women especially
address and transgress available means of expression. So we look for
shifting pronouns, customised metaphors and defamiliarisng syntax that
configure not one ‘voice’ but the self-reflexive processes of speaking. In
chapter 2, ‘Post/Modernist rhythms and voices’, Ian Gregson foregrounds
sound effects that ‘evoke a self-consciously problematic sense of a speaking
voice’ and disrupt routine patterns of meaning, with reference to Kristeva’s
emphasis on the interplay between semiotic rhythms within language that
approximate to pre-linguistic sound effects: ‘Indifferent to language, enig-
matic and feminine, this space underlying the written is rhythmic, unfet-
tered, irreducible to its intelligible verbal translation, it is musical, anterior
to judgement.’12 The feminine self-parodying of Sitwell and Smith, manifest
in deceptive ingenuousness and confrontational satire, mocks masculine
assumptions about its own rational authority and prepares the ground for
the frolicking carnivalesque ironies of Jo Shapcott and Selima Hill at the end
of the century. Read thus, the poets link to the caricatural methods of
painters such as Hogarth and writers from Dryden to Dickens; they also
dialogue with each other as identifiably postmodern practices. With a
glance at earlier models of experimentalism, by Warner, Mew or Laura
Riding, Linda A. Kinnahan celebrates the feminist politics of language
innovation in the 1970s, arguing for women’s influence on all British experi-
mental poetry in that period and after. Wendy Mulford’s deconstructive
lyrics, explicitly influenced by the theories of Lacan, Cixous, Irigaray,
Derrida and Foucault, were accompanied by Veronica Forrest-Thomson
and Denise Riley and then followed by Caroline Bergvall.
Several chapters step into the twenty-first century where the zeitgeist and
poetic birth pangs at the end of the twentieth are more visible. Brian
Caraher finishes the Companion with an account of how Carol Ann Duffy
and Medbh McGuckian rupture the poetic line, meaning literally the
metres, metaphors and idioms of poetic orthodoxies as well as the geneal-
ogy of poetic traditions. These poets’ literary revisions and transgressions,
such as Duffy’s appropriations of Shakespeare’s dramatic verse or
McGuckian’s regendering of war’s ‘front line’, refresh received poetic

6
 Introduction

expression to comment on the states of contemporary Britain and Ireland

and set up new linguistic moulds for posterity to recast.
As Caraher’s detailed readings demonstrate, one prevalent poetic device
that women favour is the conversational construction and examination of
dialogue. Dialogue, mostly internal, avoids the fixed lyric subject, negoti-
ates between private and public spaces and allows for a sense of self-in-
relation through what Mikhail Bakhtin calls ‘hidden dialogicality’: ‘The
second speaker is present invisibly, his [sic] words are not there, but deep
traces left by these words have a determining influence on all the present
and visible words of the first speaker.’13 Two or more voices reinforce,
counter or expose social and personal power relations, as Duffy, renowned
for her ‘thrown voices’, provocatively constructs in ‘The Dummy’, where a
stooge answers back to his/her ventriloquist: ‘Just teach me / the right
words.’14
All the chapters remind us that every poem is arguably in dialogue with
literary tradition and implicitly with the reader. Duffy is also an exponent of
the way in which poetry semiotically carves a distinct world of its own –
love is ‘not there, except in a poem’ – yet poetry also urges us to let it
transform how we live: ‘Away and see the things that words give a name
to.’15 Such maintenance of the distinction yet interaction between life and
art is emblematic of this Companion’s approach to poetry that does not
deny differences – whether stylistic, cultural or historical – but finds meeting
points, crossings and crossovers that launch new evaluative ways to talk
about them.

Notes
1 Germaine Greer, ‘To the reader’, in 101 Poems by 101 Women (London: Faber,
2001), p. ix.
2 See Robyn Boland (ed.), Eliza’s Babes: Four Centuries of Women’s Poetry in
English, c. 1500–1900 (Tarset: Bloodaxe, 2005) or R.E. Pritchard (ed.), Poetry
By English Women (Manchester: Carcanet, 1990).
3 Jane Dowson, Women, Modernism and British Poetry 1910–39: Resisting
Femininity (Farnham: Ashgate, 2002), p. viii.
4 Virginia Woolf, ‘Professions for women’, in The Death of the Moth and Other
Essays (London: Harcourt Inc., 1942) delivered as a lecture in 1931; Judith Butler,
Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (1990; London: Rout-
ledge, 1999).
5 Susan Stanford Friedman, Mappings: Feminism and the Cultural Geographies of
Encounter (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998), p. 4.
6 Ibid.
7 Terry Gifford, Pastoral (London: Routledge, 1999), p. 147.
8 Gloria Anzaldúa, Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza (1987; San Fran-
cisco: Aunt Lute Books, 1999).

7
 jane dowson

9 Homi Bhabha, The Location of Culture (New York: Routledge, 1994), p. 37.
10 Isobel Armstrong, The Radical Aesthetic (Oxford and Malden, MA: Blackwell,
2000), p. 18.
11 Hélène Cixous, ‘The laugh of the Medusa’, trans. Keith Cohen and Paula Cohen,
Signs 1. 4 (1976), 875–93.
12 Julia Kristeva, Revolution in Poetic Language, trans. Margaret Waller
(New York: Columbia University Press, 1984), p. 26.
13 Mikhail Bakhtin (1963), in Pam Morris (ed.), The Bakhtin Reader: Selected
Writings of Bakhtin, Medvedev, Voloshinov (London: Edward Arnold, 1994),
p. 108. For a full exposition, see Ian Gregson, Poetry and Postmodernism:
Dialogue and Estrangement (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1996).
14 Carol Ann Duffy, ‘The Dummy’, in Selected Poems (Harmondsworth: Penguin,
1994), p. 36.
15 Carol Ann Duffy, ‘Love Poem’, in Rapture (London: Picador, 2005), p. 59;
‘Away and See’, in Mean Time (London: Anvil Press Poetry, 1993), p. 23. For
discussion of Duffy’s line between the expression and deconstruction of meaning
see Stan Smith, ‘The things that words give a name to: the “New Generation”
poets and the politics of the hyperreal’, Critical Survey 8. 3 (1996), 306–22.

8
 2
IAN GREGSON

Post/Modernist rhythms and voices:

Edith Sitwell and Stevie Smith to
Jo Shapcott and Selima Hill

There is a strand of twentieth-century women’s poetry that foregrounds

sounds and rhythms and uses them to evoke a self-consciously problematic
sense of a speaking voice. Michael Schmidt emphasises the structural
importance of rhythm for both Edith Sitwell (1887–1964) and Stevie Smith
(1902–71),1 and quotes Sitwell as saying that rhythm is ‘one of the principal
translators between dream and reality’, and that the Facade poems are
‘patterns of sound’.2 He says that the ‘most striking characteristic’ of Stevie
Smith ’s work ‘is the rhythm, a speech rhythm slipping naturally into metre
and out again, a rhythm so strong that it overrides considerations of syntax
and punctuation and – in releasing language from its formal structures –
finds new forms, new tones’.3 Sitwell helped to initiate a female tradition in
which poetic sound and rhythm are privileged and so wielded as to disrupt
routine patterns of meaning. Smith continued in this vein and extended a
caricatural tendency already present in Sitwell but pushed further, in com-
bination with Smith’s discordant music and a deceptive ingenuousness, to
achieve a confrontational satire which at times is self-consciously childish.
The experimental heightening of poetic sound, in these earlier writers,
combined with their use of the playful yet angry and even contemptuous
imagery of caricature, has influenced more recent poets in the creation of an
identifiably feminine postmodernism. The silliness and shrillness of the
music of Sitwell and Smith – which turns feminine self-parody into satire
of masculine assumptions of its own rational authority, and derisive ques-
tioning of masculine dismissiveness towards what it regards as feminine
inchoateness – prepares the way for the dancing and demented cows of
Jo Shapcott (b. 1953) and Selima Hill (b. 1945), the uproarious sing-song
of their flaky carnival.
The best way to achieve a more general understanding of this strand of
women’s poetry is by reference to Julia Kristeva’s distinction between the
‘symbolic’ and the ‘semiotic’ and her emphasis on the importance of the
latter in poetic language, which is thereby infiltrated by the pre-linguistic.

9
 ian gregson

She illustrates it, in particular, by reference to avant-garde poets such as

Mallarmé and Lautréamont. Her linked idea of the ‘chora’ ‘precedes and
underlies figuration and thus specularization, and is analogous only to vocal
and kinetic rhythm’. So she refers to the ‘semiotic rhythm within language’:
Indifferent to language, enigmatic and feminine, this space underlying the
written is rhythmic, unfettered, irreducible to its intelligible verbal translation,
it is musical, anterior to judgement.4

The semiotic can never exist separately from the symbolic, but only in
interaction with it: it can never be fully retrieved, but its traces persist and
disrupt the patriarchal and legal order of the symbolic. Some feminists, such
as Jacqueline Rose,5 have complained that the theory is essentialist, but the
complaint arises from a false emphasis on the ‘priority’ of the semiotic when
the semiotic and the symbolic must above all be understood as in dialogue
with each other.6 It is this point which also suggests why the semiotic can be
usefully applied to modern British poetry. Kristeva’s theory already privil-
eges poetry as the key cultural site of the semiotic, but its emphasis on the
dialogic further indicates why it is an appropriate theoretical model for
explaining a recent tradition which is thoroughly polyphonic and novelised,
and whose devices include nursery and nonsense rhymes, deliberately pro-
saic and bathetically flat-footed rhythms, incongruously mingled registers,
faux-naı̈ve onomatopoeia and verbal/visual cartoon.

Edith Sitwell: the semiotic and the caricatural tradition

The paradox of the semiotic is that it describes a language that self-
consciously evokes the unselfconsciously pre-linguistic, which articulates
the inarticulate and the bodily. For this reason it constructs an expression
in which signifiers float free from the signified, in which the purely physical
nature of the sign is allowed a life of its own. Few poets, in their poetic
practice, have made sound effects as prominent as Edith Sitwell. In the
opening six lines of ‘Hornpipe’, for example, which are very short, she
rhymes ‘come’, ‘drum’, ‘dumb’ and ‘glum’, and then in the seventh, which is
the first long line, she rhymes internally on ‘courses’, ‘horses’ and ‘Glaucis’.7
And few poets, in their accounts of their writing, have focused as exten-
sively upon the free-floating signifier, and especially upon the sound of
poetry, as Sitwell, whose ‘Some notes on my poetry’ gives the impression
that rhythm, rhyme and assonance are the most shaping motive forces
behind her composition.8 This obsessiveness leads to her associating linguis-
tic sounds with emotional states, as when she analyses ‘The Bat’, from
Facade:

10
 Post/Modernist rhythms and voices

some of the ‘a’s and the ‘u’s have neither depth nor body, are flat and death-
rotten; yet at times the words in which they occur cast a small menacing
shadow because of the ‘ck’ endings, though frequently these shadows are
followed almost immediately by flatter, deader, more shadeless words ending
in ‘t’ or in ‘d’.9
Sitwell’s view of language is reminiscent of that propounded by Rimbaud,
who is quoted twice in her ‘Notes’, and whose ‘Voyelles’ assigns each vowel
a colour and then a set of images associated with that colour. Reprising the
idea in ‘Délires II’, he explains it as a kind of verbal alchemy in which the
form and movement of consonants could also be evoked, and which would
lead, in the future, to a poetic language that could thoroughly translate all
the senses. In this respect Rimbaud resembles the avant-garde poets who are
focused upon by Kristeva. His ‘alchemical’ project wants to transmogrify
the base matter of letters into imaginative gold and is shared by Sitwell, who
keeps referring to her texts as a body in which the senses interpenetrate each
other, and aspires to an expression which is transformative and synaesthetic.
In ‘Aubade’ she repeatedly refers to the light making an inarticulate noise,10
and in her ‘Notes’ explains that the line in which the ‘cold dawn light lies
whining’ was suggested to her by ‘the shivering movement’ of such light as
being like ‘a kind of high animal whining or whimpering, a half-frightened
and subservient urge to something outside our consciousness’.11 Synaes-
thetic imagery, in which a visual object is described as uttering a sound, is
associated for Sitwell with a pre-conscious, pre-linguistic striving towards
language and understanding: ‘Sometimes the poems speak of an
unawakened consciousness fumbling toward a higher state, and sometimes
of a purely animal consciousness – the beginning of all earthly things.’12
Sitwell’s attempt to evolve a poetic which enacts the emergence of
informed vision out of a primordial semiotic, to evoke ‘the cry of that
waiting, watching world’, shows the strain, in her early work, of its diffi-
culty, and it is not surprising that many readers have been alienated.13 Blake
Morrison describes Sitwell as ‘appallingly repetitive’ and notes that the
word ‘creaks’ occurs ‘six times in the first forty-six lines of her Selected
Poems, in images which are inappropriate or meaningless or which lose
whatever force they have had through dilution’.14 As Sitwell develops,
however, her poems grow more subtle and complex as they become less
preoccupied with semiotic purity and increasingly place the semiotic and the
symbolic in dialogue with each other. In her ‘Notes’ she has a habit of
describing her texts as bodies, and then insisting that those bodies are dead,
as in the death-rottenness in her prose passage about ‘The Bat’ quoted
above. The answer to this apparent contradictoriness lies, as Deryn Rees-
Jones points out, in the Kristevan relationship ‘between the maternal body

11
 ian gregson

and language’, but it also indicates that Sitwell’s mature poems indict a
deathliness in the symbolic, which she exposes by her adoption of satirical
modes in which the liveliness of the semiotic clashes with the rottenness of
the symbolic.15 The preoccupation with loss which lies behind that clash is
one which Sitwell shares with all the other Modernist poets; like them, she
writes poems which constantly verge upon an elegiac mode whose objects of
mourning are unspecific – except that they contain a mostly unnamed
relationship to the First World War, as recent criticism such as Vincent
Sherry’s The Great War and the Language of Modernism has demon-
strated.16 Sitwell’s habit of associating poetic dissonance with death and
rottenness is bound to make most poetry readers think of Wilfred Owen,
whom she admired, and whose pararhymes continue to reverberate in
English verse in the 1920s and after, in poems such as W. H. Auden ’s Paid
On Both Sides, where their authors want to mourn an early twentieth-
century sense of devastated pastoral.
Edith Sitwell’s best poems are a satirical response to that sense of loss, and
Facade is her greatest achievement because it is in that sequence that the
satirical mode is most successfully sustained. Debora Van Durme has
recently characterised Facade as ‘alienating’ and linked it therefore with
the search of other early twentieth-century performers for ‘dehumanized,
machine or puppet-like gestural and vocal expressions’ with which to
‘épater le bourgeois’. She quotes Sitwell using imagery of this kind when
the poet praises the way in which music hall dissects hypocrisy and ‘strips
off our flesh and shows us, marionettes that we are, clothed in our primal
lust’: this is imagery which is a stock motif of the caricatural tradition,
which, as I show later in relation to Stevie Smith, is repeatedly referred to in
the strand of women’s poetry I am describing in this chapter. The title of
Facade indicates that it is meant to emulate music hall in stripping away the
deceptive surfaces of ‘Royalty, gentry, religion, art and mores’, and its
childlike, primitive semiotic energy is directed against the deathlike, mech-
anistic oppressiveness of those symbolic structures.17 More obviously than
the Modernism of Sitwell’s major contemporaries such as T. S. Eliot, Ezra
Pound and Gertrude Stein (who was the most crucial influence on her),
Sitwell’s Modernism is a horrified, frustrated Romanticism which wants
poetry to be organic and natural, but finds that the twentieth century
imposes upon all art its own mechanistic constructedness, reflected in
Facade by reducing the humanity of its reciter by withdrawing them behind
a curtain and having them speak in level tones through a kind of mega-
phone, called a sengerphone.
The frustration of Sitwell’s Romanticism is enacted at length in ‘The
Sleeping Beauty’, in its depiction of a childhood stifled by a thoroughly

12
 Post/Modernist rhythms and voices

conventional upbringing, represented, as Jane Dowson has pointed out, ‘in

the recurring image of her stuffed parrot in a cage’.18 The transformation of
the living and natural into the dead and mechanical (in the parrot’s associ-
ations with meaningless repetition) perfectly represents the transformation
of the innocent spontaneity of Romantic childhood into the childish aggres-
sion of her caricatural Modernism. This is evident in ‘The Sleeping Beauty’
in its use of the child’s point of view as a satirical device which is scathing
about the deadening narrow-mindedness of adult authority. A similar tra-
jectory is followed in ‘Colonel Fantock’, where the children at first walk
‘like shy gazelles / Among the music of the thin flower-bells’, but are then
condemned to an education conducted by the military buffoon of the
poem’s title, who lies about military victories and is anti-heroically ‘blown
by the cold wind’, exercising authority only over unfortunate children as
‘the Napoleon of the schoolroom’.19 Sitwell’s caricatural sensibility is also
exercised in her prose work The English Eccentrics (1933), whose gallery
includes Captain Thicknesses, who bequeaths his severed right hand to his
son, and Lord Rokeby, who spends most of his time in his bath and has a
knee-length beard. Its most convincing expression, though, is in Facade,
where fictions like Captain Fracasse are joined by historical characters like
Tennyson and Queen Victoria.
The humanity of the characters in Facade is reduced by poetic effects
which clamour so loudly that the personages are overwhelmed by language
and thereby revealed as subject to its symbolic systems. This linguistic
belittling already caricatures them, but they are further reduced to cartoons
by being defined by merely surface characteristics and being compared to
objects and animals and machines. In ‘The Bat’, the ‘mountebank doctor’ is
compared both to a duck and a bat, but further removed from even animal
life because both animals are mere representations, the bat wearing a ‘furred
cloak’ and the duck being both a decoy and reduced to its characteristic
‘quack’ and then to dust.20 The bat is also self-consciously a satirical device
that treats the world with carnivalesque subversion by turning it upside
down – which is literal in bats, but is more widely representative of a poetic
in which the symbolic is challenged by the semiotic, the language of author-
ity by the rhythms and noises of nursery and counting rhymes in which
‘semi-nonsensical chains of words’ are linked ‘on the basis of sound and
rhythm rather than sense’.21

Stevie Smith: the semiotic and the faux-naı̈ve

Stevie Smith’s interest in the semiotic is evident in what Romana Huk calls
her ‘many repetitions and song-like riffs’, which Huk thinks may have been

13
 ian gregson

influenced by Edith Sitwell, ‘whose readings Smith was known to attend’.22

It is also evident in her fascination with noise, with onomatopoeia, with
hearts that ‘go tumptytum’, a little bird that sings ‘Pee-wee’, horses that go
‘Jingle-jog’, a river that says ‘Hi yih, yippity-yap’, a cat that says ‘Spit.
Spat.’, birds of a wood ‘piping screaming croaking clacking’, and the
‘bicker’ of a stream, a cock that cries ‘cock-a-doooo’, the ‘swoosh’ of an
angel’s wings as heard by a speaking cat that says ‘Ha ha ha ha, ho’.23 These
noises most often childishly represent the cries of animals: they are uttered
on the threshold of language, not shaped into the contours of the symbolic.
Linda Anderson is making a connected point when she refers to Smith’s
performances of her poems suggesting ‘pre-oedipal drives uncontained by
language’. She is accounting for an effect described by Norman Bryson, who
attended a reading by Smith in 1965 and found it unnervingly excessive, so
that ‘the meaning of the words was set aside in the performance’: Anderson
believes that Smith meant the performance ‘to exceed the text, to open up a
gap between the words and their orality’.24 When she links these points to
‘pre-oedipal drives’ she is very close – although she does not make it explicit –
to indicating the role of the Kristevan semiotic in Smith’s poems.
In her interviews Smith stressed the importance for her of the music of her
poems. She told Peter Orr that her sense of rhythm was ‘very, very strong’,
and that she regarded her poems as ‘sound vehicles’ which she often organ-
ised around well-known tunes in order to ensure ‘that other people will get
the right rhythm’.25 In her later interview with Jonathan Williams she
referred to the influence of Hymns Ancient and Modern as ‘tunes I often
sing to’ and of nursery rhymes like ‘Boys and Girls Come Out to Play’ and
‘Oranges and Lemons’.26 Smith’s critics have linked her rhythms to her
faux-naı̈veté. Where Ian Hamilton refers patronisingly to the ‘little-girl-lost
air to Smith’s verse persona’ and to her blasphemies as ‘a shade infantile’,27
Christopher Ricks agrees with Michael Schmidt that the tendency of her
critics to portray her as naive ‘reveals the success with which she projected
the mock-innocence of her public image’. Ricks shows how her use of ‘the
stone of bathos falling through the waters of pathos’ is deliberately childish,
and achieved through discordant metre and rhyme whose conspicuousness
waves its arms about but is actually about drowning, about death.28
‘A Father for a Fool’ is meant to be read ‘To the tune “Boys and Girls
Come out to Play”’ and so establishes nursery-rhyme expectations which
from the outset cause problems in reader-response, because the reader is
required to remember the tune and so focus on the poem’s sound. Those
problems are compounded, not just because the nursery rhyme has survived
in alternative versions, but because the poem veers sharply away from any
rhythm that a nursery rhyme could have as early as the third line, which,

14
 Post/Modernist rhythms and voices

although it rhymes with the first two, extends to thirteen syllables whose
lack of regular metre is exaggerated by aggressively prosaic content – ‘What
does it feel like to have a father for a fool?’ The flat-footed lack of music in
that line makes it read like an aside in a stanza which is otherwise quite
regular, but whose content is also confrontationally at odds with the
nursery-rhyme tune, so that its effect is like the favourite satirical device
of children of substituting mundane or scurrilous words for the official text
of a hymn or Christmas carol (‘As shepherds washed their socks. . .’). These
discordances all sharpen the reader’s discomfort; most uncomfortable of all,
however, is that the poem’s mostly jingling music contrasts so starkly with
its dismissively cruel authorial attitude. Because of the form, this cruelty
sounds like one child bullying another, taunting him that his father has lost
his money and blamed fate, ‘And shot himself through the head too late’.
The greatest shock, however, is that it is Smith herself who is that bully, and
she increases the feeling of cruelty by shifting, in the second stanza, to the
son’s bewildered free indirect thought – as he tries to understand his
changed circumstances and misses their seriousness, hoping there will still
be shrimps for tea – and then, in the third stanza, returning to her own
voice, to gloat that the boy’s mother is also ‘stone cold dead of a broken
heart, the fool’.29
The focus on death by Smith’s critics is not surprising, given how much
she dwells on the subject, but it distracts from an equally important feature
of her work which has received far too little attention – its satirical attitude.
Terry Eagleton states flatly that her poems are ‘about disintegration and
death’, and as a result he finds her forms, with their reference to nursery
rhyme, inappropriate, and the poems ultimately slight. Eagleton is unusual
in feeling that she contrives her bathos in order ‘to be honest to the facts at
the cost of the form – to show how formal predictability is devastated by
sheer truth’.30 While this appears to argue against the dominance of formal
effects in Smith’s poems, it confirms the key point, which is that their
distinctiveness arises from the unique quality of the interaction between
form and content, and that Smith is very unusual in the extent to which she
places the two in an explicit dialogue. It is out of the self-consciousness of
that interaction that Smith produces her tellingly off-key voice, whose
impact at readings has been most vividly evoked by Seamus Heaney. His
sensitivity to its ‘pitching between querulousness and keening’ is especially
acute because this sound is coloured by class and regional intonations which
are thoroughly exotic to his ears. He describes the ‘longueurs and acerbities,
the nuanced understatements and tactical intonations of educated middle-
class English speech’ and imagines (bizarrely) how wrong her poems would
sound if declaimed in Ian Paisley’s North Antrim accent.31

15
 ian gregson

For Heaney, the specificities of Smith’s voice are finally limiting, and his
strictures are similar to Eagleton’s – that the style is insufficient to the
gravity of the subject matter. His sense that they lack the required largeness
of ‘orchestration’, however, results from his failure to understand that
Smith’s voice is not a single instrument but multiple, that it acquires plural-
ity through her use of dramatic monologue and parody. Part of the reason
he misses this is that he takes the middle-class English speech in Smith’s
poems to be her own speech, when in fact she retained part at least of her
Hull accent, grew up in ‘relative austerity’, worked as an adult as a secretary
and ‘critiqued suburbia’s snobberies and contradictions from her liminal
perspective even as they worked to shape her, a child of the same world’.32
An understanding of that perspective is necessary if Smith’s political anger is
to be understood; the animus and feminist resentment that drives poems like
‘A Father for a Fool’ will be missed if the reader assumes that Smith speaks
as an insider in the aristocratic world it evokes, for the poem makes its
impact by parodying an upper-class idiom and undermining it with the
jauntiness of a nursery rhyme whose origins are in the working-class experi-
ence of a poverty-stricken childhood. What Heaney takes to be Smith’s
endorsement of a ruling-class idiom is actually part of her lampooning of it.
The dismissiveness of Heaney ’s comment that Smith allows ‘the spirit of
A. A. Milne’ to vie successfully with ‘the spirit of Emily Dickinson’ backfires
because it inadvertently pinpoints how Smith’s poems use such bathetic
‘vying’ to make their satirical impact. It represents for Heaney a ‘retreat
from resonance’ because he most wants to hear the single voice of masculine
authority, but his comparison of Smith’s poems to ‘the clerihew and the
caricature’ radically underestimates the political potential of such self-con-
sciously reductive modes of expression.33 Caricature needs to be taken
seriously as a satirical device which belongs to an ancient tradition includ-
ing Hogarth and Gillray in the visual arts, and Dryden, Pope, Swift and
Dickens in literature. As I have argued elsewhere, it is a constituent feature
of postmodern literature: its impact on novelistic characterisation has been
to draw attention away from the subjective interior, which preoccupied
Modernist literature, and to flatten characters in a process of ontological
reduction in which they are rendered static and mechanical.34 In postmod-
ern authors as diverse as Joseph Heller, Philip Roth, Joyce Carol Oates,
Ralph Ellison, Salman Rushdie and Angela Carter, the human is depicted as
reduced to the status of an object, an animal or a machine, or the human
body as dismembered to represent the fragmentation of the human spirit.
It is to the ‘magic realism’ of Angela Carter and Salman Rushdie that
Smith’s work can be most fruitfully compared; her use of nursery rhyme and
other simple forms amounts, like their references to fairy tale, to a form of

16
 Post/Modernist rhythms and voices

faux-naı̈veté which disrupts realism and satirically conflates the ingenuous

and the sophisticated. This is an art where childishness and cruelty meet, as
they do in caricature, which, as Ernst Kris says, ‘is not only an historical
phenomenon, it concerns a specific process and this process is repeatable
and describable, for here we are in the field of psychology’.35 Kris and E. H.
Gombrich, especially in collaboration with each other, have been best at
describing this process, drawing upon Freudian concepts to examine the
detail of the mechanisms at work. They focus upon the origins of caricature
in infantile life, and the wish to regain childhood freedoms which adults are
required to renounce:
Civilisation has taught us to renounce cruelty and aggression which once ran
riot in atrocious reality and magical practices. There was a time in all our lives
when we enjoyed being rude and naughty, but education has succeeded – or
should have succeeded – in turning this joy into abhorrence. We do not let
ourselves relapse into that state again, and if ever such impulses break loose
under the influence of passion, we feel embarrassed and ashamed. In
caricature, however, these forces find a well-guarded playground of their
own. The caricaturist knows how to give them scope without allowing them
to get out of control. His artistic mastery is, as it were, an assurance that all we
enjoy is but a game. In this sphere, the sphere of artistic freedom, we are
allowed to indulge our impulses free from fear. Willingly we may yield to the
caricaturist’s temptation to us to share his aggressive impulses, to see the
world with him, distorted.36

A key effect of caricature arises from the contrast between its often crude
and aggressively energetic materials, whose childlike content is exploited for
its simplistic vividness, and the way in which they are mastered by a
thoroughly knowing and mature technique. There is a stark contrast
between caricatural childishness and classic realist maturity, which suggests
a defamiliarising angle on postmodernist ‘play’, indicating (as with other
aspects of the caricatural) a much older provenance for those strategies in
postmodernist texts which have subversive fun with the aesthetic norms
which are dictated by traditionally sanctioned cultural hegemonies. Here,
too, these postmodernist writers can be seen to be drawing upon key aspects
of the caricatural tradition in order to rebel against earnestly imposed, or
unthinkingly followed, authoritarian values.
Smith’s interest in caricature as a visual art is evident from her repeated
references in her novel Over the Frontier (1938) to the German artist and
political satirist Georg Grosz, but also from her own practice in the draw-
ings she made to accompany many of her poems. These were dismissed by
her earliest critics, even by admirers like Philip Larkin, who thought ‘they
have an amateurishness reminiscent of Lear, Waugh and Thurber without

17
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
 d’une vigne, tout conforté par samblant d’attendre
[25] le poissance dou roy de France. Si tretost que li cardinaulz
fu venus, il descendi à piet et se traist devers
le prince qui moult benignement le recueilla. Et li
dist li cardinaulz, quant il l’eut saluet et enclinet:
5 «Certes, biaus filz, se vous aviés justement consideret
et imaginet le poissance dou roy de France, vous
me lairiés couvenir de vous acorder envers lui, se je
pooie.» Dont respondi li princes, qui estoit lors uns
jones homs, et dist: «Sire, l’onneur salve de moy
10 et de mes gens, je vorroie bien encheir en toutes
voies de raison.» Dont respondi li cardinaulz et dist:
«Biaus filz, vous dittes bien, et je vous acorderai,
se je puis; car ce seroit grans pités, se tant de bonnes
gens qui ci sont et que vous estes, d’un lés et d’aultre,
15 venoient ensamble par bataille, et trop y poroit
grans meschiés avenir.»
A ces mos se departi li cardinaulz dou prince,
sans plus riens dire, et s’en revint arrière devers le
roy de France; et commença à entamer trettiés d’acort
20 et à mettre pareçons avant et à dire au roy, pour li
mieulz attraire à se intention: «Sire, vous ne vous
avés que faire de trop haster pour yaus combatre,
car il sont tout vostre sans cop ferir, ne il ne vous
poeent fuir ne eslongier: si vous pri que hui tant
25 seulment et demain jusques soleil levant vous leur
acordés respit et souffrance.»
Adonc commença li rois de France à busiier un
petit, et ne volt mies ce respit acorder à le première
priière dou cardinal, ne à le seconde; car une partie
30 de chiaus de son conseil ne s’i assentoit point, et
par especial messires Eustasses de Ribeumont et messires
Jehans de Landas, qui estoient moult secret
[26] dou roy. Mès finablement li dis cardinaulz qui s’en
ensonnioit, en espesse de bien, pria tant et preeça le
 roy de France que li rois s’i assenti et donna et
acorda le respit à durer le dimence tout le jour et
5 l’endemain jusques soleil levant. Et le raporta ensi li
dis cardinaulz moult vistement au prince et à ses
gens, qui n’en furent mies courouciet, pour tant
que toutdis s’efforcoient il d’avis et d’ordenance.
Adonc fist li rois de France tendre sur les camps,
10 ens ou propre lieu où il avoit le respit acordé, un
pavillon de vermel samis moult cointe et moult rice,
et donna congiet à toutes gens de retraire cescun à
son logeis, excepté le bataille dou connestable et des
mareschaus. Si estoient dalés le roy si enfant et li
15 plus grant de son linage à qui il prendoit conseil de
ses besongnes.
Ensi ce dimence toute jour chevauça et travilla li
cardinaus de l’un à l’autre et les euist volentiers
acordés, se il peuist; mès il trouvoit le roy de France
20 et son conseil si froit que il ne voloient nullement
descendre à acord, se il n’avoient de cinq les quatre,
et que li princes et ses gens se rendesissent simplement,
ce que il n’euissent jamais fait. Si y eut offres
et pareçons pluiseurs et de divers pourpos mises
25 avant.
Et me fu dit jadis des gens le dit cardinal de Pieregorch,
qui là furent present et qui bien en cuidoient
sçavoir aucune cose, que li princes offroit à
rendre au roy de France tout ce que conquis avoit
30 en ce voiage, villes et chastiaus, et quitter tous prisonniers
que il ne ses gens avoient pris, et jurer à lui
non armer contre le royaume de France sept ans
[27] tous entiers. Mès li rois de France ne ses consaulz
n’en veurent riens faire, et furent longement sus cel
estat que li princes et cent chevaliers des siens se
venissent mettre en le prison dou roy de France.
 5 Aultrement on ne les voloit mies laissier passer:
lequel trettiet li princes de Galles ne ses consaulz
n’euissent jamais acordet.

§ 381. Endementrues que li cardinaus de Pieregorch

portoit les parolles et chevauçoit de l’un à
10 l’autre, en nom de bien, et que li respis duroit, estoient
aucun jone chevalier, bacelereus et amoureus,
tant de le partie des François comme des Englès, qui
chevaucièrent ce jour en costiant les batailles, li
François pour aviser et imaginer le couvenant des
15 Englès, et li chevalier d’Engleterre celi des François,
ensi que en telz besongnes telz coses aviennent.
Dont il avint que messires Jehans Chandos, qui
estoit preus chevaliers, gentilz et nobles de coer, et
de sens imaginatis, avoit ce jour chevauciet et costiiet
20 sus èle le bataille dou roy de France, et avoit
pris grant plaisance au regarder, pour tant que il y
veoit si grant fuison de noble chevalerie frichement
armet et apparilliet. Et disoit et devisoit en soi meismes:
«Ne place à Dieu que nous partons sans combatre,
25 car se nous sommes pris ne desconfi de si
belle gent d’armes et si grant fuison comme j’en
voi contre nous, nous n’i deverons avoir point de
blame; et se la journée est pour nous et que fortune
le voelle consentir, nous serons li plus honnourée
30 gent dou monde.»
Tout en tel manière que messires Jehans Chandos
[28] avoit chevauciet et consideret une partie dou couvenant
des François, en estoit avenu à l’un des mareschaus
de France, monsigneur Jehan de Clermont.
Et tant chevaucièrent cil doi chevalier qu’il se trouvèrent
5 et encontrèrent d’aventure; et là eut grosses
parolles et reproces moult felenesces entre yaus. Je
 vous dirai pourquoi. Cil doi chevalier, qui estoient
jone et amoureus, on le doit et poet entendre ensi,
portoient cescuns une meisme devise de une blewe
10 dame, ouvrée de broudure ou ray d’un soleil, sus le
senestre brach, et toutdis dessus leur deseurain vestement,
en quel estat qu’il fuissent. Si ne pleut mies
adonc à monsigneur Jehan de Clermont ce que il
vei porter sa devise à monsigneur Jehan Chandos, et
15 se arresta tous quois devant lui et li dist: «Chandos,
ossi vous desiroi je à encontrer. Depuis quant avés
vous empris à porter ma devise?»—«Et vous la
mienne, ce respondi messires Jehans Chandos, car
otant bien est elle mienne comme elle est vostre.»—«Je
20 le vous devée, dist messires Jehans de Clermont;
et se ne fust la souffrance qui est entre les vostres
et les nostres, je le vous moustrasse tantost que
vous n’avés nulle cause dou porter.»—«Ha! ce
respondi messires Jehans Chandos, demain [au matin[268]]
25 vous me trouverés tout apareillé dou deffendre et
de prouver par fait d’armes que otant bien est elle
mienne comme vostre.»
A ces parolles ils passèrent oultre; et dist encores
messires Jehans de Clermont, ensi en rampronnant
30 plus avant monsigneur Jehan Chandos: «Chandos,
[29] Chandos, ce sont bien des posnées de vos Englès qui
ne sèvent aviser riens de nouvel; mès quanqu’il
voient, leur est biel.» Il n’i eut adonc plus fait ne
plus dit: cescuns s’en retourna devers ses gens, et
5 demora la cose en cel estat.

§ 382. Vous avés bien oy compter chi dessus

comment li cardinaus de Piregorch se mist en
painne ce dimence, tout le jour, de chevaucier de
l’un à l’autre, pour acorder ces deux signeurs, le roy
10 de France et le prince de Galles; mès il n’en peut
 à cief venir, et fu tous bas vespres quant il se parti
et rentra en le cité de Poitiers. Che dimence se tinrent
li François tout le jour sus les camps, et au soir
il se retraisent en leurs logeis et se aisièrent de ce
15 qu’il eurent. Il avoient bien de quoi, vivres et pourveances
assés et largement; et li Englès en avoient
grant defaute. C’estoit la cause qui plus les esbahissoit;
car il ne savoient où ne quel part aler fourer,
si fort leur estoient li pas clos; ne il ne se pooient
20 partir de là sans le dangier des François. Au voir
dire, il ne ressongnoient point tant le bataille que il
faisoient ce que on ne les tenist en tel estat, ensi que
pour assegiés et affamés. Le dimence, tout le jour,
entendirent il parfaitement à leur besongne, et le
25 passèrent au plus biel qu’il peurent; et fisent fosser et
haiier leurs arciers autour d’yaus, pour estre plus fort.
Quant ce vint le lundi au matin, li princes et ses
gens furent tantost apparilliet et mis en ordenance,
ensi comme devant, sans yaus desroiier ne effraer;
30 et en tel manière fisent li François. Environ soleil
levant, ce lundi au matin, revint li cardinaus de
[30] Pieregorch arrière en l’une host et en l’autre, et les
cuida par son preecement acorder, mès il ne peut;
et li fu dit ireusement des François que il retournast
à Poitiers ou là où il li plaisoit, et que plus il ne
5 portast nulles parolles de trettiés ne d’acort, car il
l’en poroit bien mal prendre.
Li cardinaulz, qui s’en ensonnioit en espesse de
bien, ne se volt mies bouter ens ou peril, et prist
congiet au roy de France, car il vei bien que il travilloit
10 en vain; et s’en vint, au departir, vers le
prince et li dist: «Biaus filz, faites ce que vous poés:
il vous fault combatre; ne je ne puis nulle grasce
impetrer d’acort ne de pais devers le roy de France.»
Ceste daarrainne parolle enfelleni et encoraga grandement
 15 le coer dou prince, et respondi: «C’est bien
li intention de nous et des nostres; et Diex voelle
aidier le droit!» Ensi se parti li cardinaulz dou
prince et retourna à Poitiers.
En se compagnie avoit aucuns appers escuiers et
20 hommez d’armes qui estoient plus favourable au roy
de France que au prince. Quant il veirent que on se
combateroit, il s’emblèrent de leur mestre et se boutèrent
en le route des François; et fisent leur souverain
dou chastellain d’Amposte, qui estoit, pour le
25 temps, de l’ostel dou dit cardinal, et vaillans homs
d’armes durement. Et de ce ne se perçut point li cardinaulz
ne ne sceut riens, se fu revenus à Poitiers;
car, se il l’euist sceu, il ne l’euist nullement souffert,
pour tant que il avoit esté trettiières de apaisenter, se
30 il peuist, l’une partie et l’autre. Or parlerons un
petit de l’ordenance des Englès, otant bien que nous
avons fait de ceste des François.

[31] § 383. Li ordenance dou prince de Galles de ses

batailles estoit auques tèle comme li quatre chevalier
de France dessus nommet raportèrent en certainneté
au dit roy, fors tant que depuis il avoient ordonnés
5 aucuns appers bacelers pour demorer à cheval entre
les batailles et contre le bataille des mareschaus de
France. Et avoient encores, sus leur destre lés, sus
une montagne qui n’estoit point trop haute ne trop
roste à monter, ordonné trois cens hommes à chevaus
10 et otant d’arciers, tout à cheval, pour costiier à
le couverte ceste montagne, et venir autour sus èle
ferir en le bataille le duc de Normendie qui estoit en
se bataille à piet par desous celle montagne. Tout ce
estoit que il avoient fait de nouviel. Et se tenoit li
15 princes et se grosse bataille ou fons de ces vignes,
tout à piet, leurs chevaus assés priès d’yaus pour tantost
 monter, se il leur besongnast; et estoient fortefiiet
et enclos, au plus foible lés, de leur charoy et
de tout leur harnas: si ne les pooit on approcier de
20 ce costé.
Or vous voel je renommer aucuns des plus renommés
chevaliers d’Engleterre et de Gascongne, qui
estoient là adonc dalés [le[269]] prince de Galles:
premierement le conte de Warvich, le conte de Sufforch,
25 mareschaus de l’ost, le conte de Sallebrin et
le conte d’Askesufforch, monsigneur Jehan Chandos,
monsigneur Renault de Gobehen, monsigneur Richart
de Stanfort, monsigneur Edowart signeur Despensier,
monsigneur Jame d’Audelée et monsigneur Pière se
30 frère, le signeur de Bercler, le signeur de Basset,
[32] messire Guillaume Fil Warin, le signeur de le Ware, le
signeur de Maune, le signeur de Willebi, monsigneur
Bietremieu de Brues, le signeur de Felleton, monseigneur
Richard de Pennebruges, messire Estievene de
5 Cousenton, le signeur de Braseton, et pluiseurs aultres;
Gascons: le signeur de Labreth, le signeur de
Pumiers, messire Helye et messire Aymenion de Pumiers,
le signeur de Longuerem, monsigneur Jehan
de Graili, captal de Beus, monsigneur Jehan de
10 Chaumont, le signeur de l’Espare, le signeur de
Montchident, le signeur de Courton, le signeur de
Rosem, le signeur de Condon, le signeur de Montferrat,
le signeur de Landuras, monsigneur le soudich
de l’Estrade, et ossi des aultres que je ne puis mies
15 tous nommer; Haynuiers: messires Eustasces d’Aubrecicourt
et messires Jehans de Ghistelles; et deux
aultres [bons[270]] chevaliers estragniers: messires Daniel
Pasele et messires Denis de Morbeke. Si vous di pour
verité que li princes de Galles avoit là avoecques lui
20 droite fleur de chevalerie, comment que il ne fuissent
pas grant fuison, car il n’estoient, tout compté,
 non plus de huit mil hommes; et li François estoient
bien cinquante mil combatans, dont il y avoit
plus de trois mil chevaliers.

25 § 384. Quant cilz jones homs li princes de Galles vei

que combatre les couvenoit, et que li cardinaulz de
Pieregorch, sans riens esploitier, s’en raloit, et que li
rois de France ses adversaires moult petit les prisoit
et amiroit, si se conforta en soi meismes, et reconforta
[33] moult sagement ses gens et leur dist: «Biau signeur,
se nous sommes un petit contre le poissance
de nos ennemis, se ne nous esbahissons mies pour
ce, car la victoire ne gist mies ou grant peuple, mès
5 là où Diex le voelt envoiier. Se il avient ensi que la
journée soit pour nous, nous serons li plus honnouré
dou monde; se nous sommes mort, j’ai encores monsigneur
mon père et des biaus frères, et ossi vous
avés des bons amis qui nous contrevengeront: si vous
10 pri que vous voelliés hui entendre au bien combatre;
car se il plaist à Dieu et à saint Jorge, vous me
verés hui bon chevalier.»
De ces parolles et de pluiseurs aultres belles raisons
que li princes remoustra ce jour à ses gens et
15 fist remoustrer par ses mareschaus, estoient il tout
reconforté. Dalés le prince, pour lui garder et consillier,
estoit messires Jehans Chandos; ne onques le jour
ne s’en parti, pour cose que il li avenist. Ossi s’i estoit
tenus un grant temps messires James d’Audelée,
20 par lequel avis et conseil le dimence tout le jour li
plus grant partie de l’ordenance de leurs batailles
estoit faite; car il estoit sages et vaillans homs durement,
et bien le moustra ce jour que on se combati,
si com je vous dirai.
25 Messires James d’Audelée tenoit en veu, de grant
 temps avoit passé, que, se il se trouvoit jamais en besongne
là où li rois d’Engleterre ou li uns de ses enfans
fust, et bataille s’i adreçast, que ce seroit li premiers
assallans et li mieudres combatans de son
30 costé, ou il morroit en le painne. Dont, quant il vei
que on se combateroit et que li princes de Galles, li
ainsnés filz dou roy son signeur, estoit là, si en fu
[34] tous resjoïs, pour tant que il se voloit acquitter, à
son loyal pooir, de acomplir son veu. Et s’en vint
devers le prince, et li dist: «Monsigneur, j’ai servi
tousjours loyaument monsigneur vostre père et vous
5 ossi, et ferai tant com je vivrai. Chiers sires, je le
vous moustre, pour tant que jadis je voay que, à le
première besongne où li rois vos pères ou li uns de
ses filz seroit, je seroie li premiers assallans et combatans.
Si vous pri chierement, en guerredon que
10 je fis onques de servicez au roy vostre père et vous
ossi, que vous me donnés congiet que de vous, à me
honneur, je me puisse partir et mettre en estat de
acomplir mon veu.»
Li princes, qui considera le bonté dou chevalier et
15 le grant volonté que il avoit de requerre ses ennemis,
li acorda liement et li dist: «Messire Jame,
Diex vous doinst hui grasce et pooir de estre li mieudres
des aultres!» adonc li bailla il sa main. Et se
parti li dis chevaliers dou prince, et se mist ou premier
20 fronch de toutes leurs batailles, acompagniés
tant seulement de quatre moult vaillans escuiers que
il avoit priiés et retenus pour son corps garder et
conduire. Et s’en vint tout devant li dis chevaliers
combatre et envaïr le bataille des mareschaus de
25 France, et assambla à monsigneur Ernoul d’Audrehen
et à se route; et là y fist merveilles d’armes, si
com vous orés recorder en l’estat de le bataille.
D’autre part, ossi messires Eustasses d’Aubrecicourt,
 qui à ce jour estoit uns jones bacelers et en grant
30 desir d’acquerre pris et grasce en armes, mist et rendi
grant painne que il fust des premiers assallans: si le
fu ou auques priès, à l’eure que messires James d’Audelée
[35] s’avança premiers de requerre leurs ennemis;
mès il en chei à monsigneur Eustasse, ensi que je
vous dirai.
Vous avés chi dessus oy recorder, en l’ordenance
5 des batailles, que li Alemant qui costioient les mareschaus,
demorèrent tout à cheval. Messires Eustasses
d’Aubrecicourt, qui estoit à cheval, baissa son glave
et embraça sa targe, et feri cheval des esporons, et
vint entre les batailles. Uns chevaliers d’Alemagne,
10 qui s’appelloit messires Loeis de Recombes, et portoit
d’argent à cinq roses de geulez, et messires Eustasses
d’ermine à deux hamèdes de geulez, vei venir
messire Eustasse d’Aubrecicourt: si issi de son
conroi, de le route le conte Jehan de Nasço desous
15 qui il estoit, et baissa son glave et s’en vint adrecier
au dit messire Eustasse. Si se consievirent de plains
eslais et se portèrent par terre; et fu li chevaliers alemans
navrés en l’espaule: si ne se releva mies sitos
que messires Eustasses fist.
20 Quant messires Eustasses fu relevés, il prist son
glave et s’en vint sus le chevalier qui là gisoit, en grant
volenté de lui requerre et assallir; mès il n’en eut
mies le loisir, car il vinrent sus lui jusques à cinq
hommes d’armes alemant qui l’ensonniièrent et le
25 portèrent par terre. Là fu telement pressés et point
aidiés des leurs, que il fu pris et menés ent prisonniers
entre les gens le conte Jehan de Nasço, qui
n’en fisent adonc nul compte; et ne sçai se il li fisent
jurer prison, mais il le loiièrent sus un kar, avoecques
30 leur harnas.
 Assés tost apriès le prise de monsigneur Eustasse,
se commença li bataille de toutes pars, et jà estoit
[36] approcie et commencie li bataille des marescaus.
[Et chevauchèrent avant chil qui devoient rompre
le bataille des archiers, et entrèrent tout à cheval[271]]
dedens le chemin où li grosse haie et espesse estoit
5 de deux costés. Sitos que ces gens d’armes furent là
embatu, arcier commencièrent à traire à esploit, et à
mettre main à oevre à deux lés de le haie, et à berser
chevaus et à enfiller tout ens de ces longes saiettes barbues.
Cil cheval qui trait estoient et qui les fers de
10 ces longes saiettes sentoient, ressongnoient et ne voloient
avant aler. Et se tournoient, li uns de travers,
li aultres de costé, ou il cheoient et trebuchoient desous
leurs mestres qui ne se pooient aidier ne relever;
ne onques li ditte bataille des mareschaus ne peut
15 approcier le bataille dou prince. Il y eut bien aucuns
chevaliers et escuiers bien montés, qui par force de
chevaus passèrent oultre et rompirent le haie, et
cuidièrent approcier le bataille dou prince et ses banières;
mès il ne peurent.
20 Messires James d’Audelée, en le garde de ses quatre
escuiers et l’espée en le main, si com ci dessus
est dit, estoit ou premier fronch de ceste bataille, et
trop en sus de tous les aultres, et là faisoit merveillez
d’armes. Et s’en vint par grant vaillance combatre
25 desous le banière de monsigneur Ernoul d’Audrehen,
marescal de France, un moult hardi et vaillant chevalier;
et se combatirent grant temps ensamble. Et
là fu durement navrés li di messires Ernoulz, car la
bataille des mareschaus fu tantos toute desroute et
30 desconfite par le trait des arciers, si com ci dessus
[37] est dit, avoecques l’ayde des hommes d’armes qui se
boutoient entre yaus, quant il estoient abatu, et les
prendoient et occioient à volenté. Là fu pris messires
 Ernoulz d’Audrehen et durement navrés, mès
5 ce fu d’autres gens que de monsigneur Jame d’Audelée,
ne des quatre escuiers qui dalés lui estoient;
car onques li dis chevaliers ne prist prisonnier le
journée, ne n’entendi au prendre, mès tousjours au
combatre et à aler avant sus ses ennemis.

10 § 385. D’autre part, messires Jehans de Clermont,

mareschaus de France et moult vaillans et gentilz
chevaliers, se combatoit desous se banière et y fist
assés d’armes, tant qu’il peut durer, mès il fu abatus;
onques puis ne se peut relever ne venir à
15 raençon: là fu il mors et occis en servant son signeur.
Et voelent bien maintenir et dire li aucun
[que[272]] ce fu pour les parolles que il avoit eu le journée
devant à monsigneur Jehan Chandos. A painnes
vei on onques avenir en peu d’eure si grant meschief
20 sus gens d’armes et bons combatans, que il avint là
sus le bataille des mareschaus de France; car il
fondoient li un sus l’autre et ne pooient aler avant.
Cil qui derrière estoient et qui le meschief veoient
et qui avant passer ne pooient, reculoient et venoient
25 vers le bataille dou duch de Normendie qui estoit
grande et espesse pardevant: mès tantost fu esclarcie
et [despessie[273]] par derière, quant il entendirent
que li mareschal estoient desconfi. Et montèrent à
[38] cheval li plus, et s’en partirent; car il descendirent
une route d’Englès de une montagne, en costiant les
batailles, tout monté à cheval, et grant fuison d’arciers
ossi devant yaus, et s’en vinrent ferir sus èle
5 sus le bataille le duch de Normendie. Au voir dire, li
arcier d’Engleterre portèrent à leurs gens moult grant
avantage et trop esbahirent les François; car il
traioient si ouniement et si espessement que li François
ne savoient au quel lés entendre que il ne fuissent
 10 consievi dou tret, et toutdis s’avançoient il et
conqueroient terre.

§ 386. Quant les gens d’armes d’Engleterre veirent

que ceste première bataille estoit desconfite, et
que la bataille dou duch de Normendie branloit
15 et se començoit à ouvrir, si leur vint et recroissi
force, alainne et corages trop grossement; et montèrent
errant tout à cheval que il avoient de premiers
ordonnés et pourveus à demorer dalés yaus. Quant
il furent tout monté et bien en haste, il se remisent
20 tout ensamble et commencièrent à escriier à haute
vois, pour plus esbahir leurs ennemis: «Saint Jorge!
Giane!» Là dist messires Jehans Chandos au prince
un grant mot et honnourable: «Sire, sire, chevauciés
avant: la journée est vostre, Diex sera hui en
25 vostre main. Adreçons nous devers vostre adversaire
le roy de France; car celle part gist tous li fors de le
besongne. Bien sçai que par vaillance il ne fuira
point: si nous demorra, s’il plaist à Dieu et à saint
Jorge, mès qu’il soit bien combatus; et vous desistes
30 orains que hui on vous veroit bon chevalier.»
Ces parolles esvertuèrent le prince si qu’il dist tout
[39] en hault: «Jehan, alons, vous ne me verés meshui
retourner, mès toutdis chevaucier avant.» Adonc
dist il à sa banière: «Chevauciés avant, banière, ou
nom de Dieu et de saint Jorge.» Et li chevaliers qui
5 le portoit, fist le commandement dou prince. Là fu
li presse et li enchaus grans et perilleus, et maint
homme y eut reversé. Si saciés bien qui estoit cheus,
il ne se pooit relever, se il n’estoit trop bien aidiés.
Ensi que li princes et se banière chevauçoit en entrant
10 en ses ennemis et que ses gens le sievoient, il
regarda sus destre dalés un petit buisson: si vei monsigneur
Robert de Duras, qui là gisoit mors et se banière
 dalés lui, qui estoit de France au sautoir de
geules, et bien dix ou douze des siens à l’environ.
15 Si commanda à deux de ses escuiers et à trois arciers:
«Metés le corps de ce chevalier sus une targe,
et le portés à Poitiers; et le presentés de par moy
au cardinal de Pieregorc, et li dittes que je le salue à
ces ensengnes.» Li dessus dit varlet fisent tantost et
20 sans delay ce qu’il leur commanda.
Or vous dirai qui meut le prince à ce faire: li aucun
poroient dire que il le fist par manière de dérision.
On avoit jà enfourmé le prince que les gens le
cardinal de Pieregorch estoient demoret sus les camps
25 et yaus armet contre lui, ce qui n’estoit mies apartenans
ne drois fais d’armes; car gens d’eglise, qui
pour bien et sus trettiés de pais vont et travellent de
l’un à l’autre, ne se doient point armer ne combatre
par raison pour l’un ne pour l’autre. Et pour tant
30 que cil l’avoient fait, en estoit li princes courouciés
sus le cardinal et li envoia voirement son neveu
monsigneur Robert de Duras, si com ci dessus est
[40] contenu. Et voloit au chastelain d’Amposte, qui là
fu pris, faire trenchier le teste; et l’euist fait sans
faute en son aïr, pour tant que cilz estoit de le famille
le cardinal, se n’euist esté messires Jehans Candos,
5 qui l’en refrena par douces parolles et li dist:
«Monsigneur, souffrés vous et entendés à plus grant
cose que ceste ne soit. Espoir escusera li cardinaulz
de Pieregorch si bellement ses gens, que vous en
serés tous contens.» Ensi passa li princes oultre, et
10 commanda que li dis chastelains fust biens gardés.

§ 387. Ensi que la bataille des mareschaus fu toute

desbaretée, perdue et desconfite sans recouvrier, et
que ceste dou duc de Normendie se commença à
desrompre et à ouvrir, et li plus de chiaus qui y estoient
 15 et qui par raison combatre se devoient, à
monter à cheval et à fuir en voies, s’avancièrent li
Englès qui là estoient tout monté, et s’adrecièrent
premierement vers le bataille dou duch d’Athènes,
connestable de France. Là eut grant froisseis et grant
20 bouteis, et maint homme reversé par terre. Là escrioient
li aucun chevalier et escuier de France, qui
par tropiaus se combatoient: «Monjoie! Saint Denis!»
et li Englès: «Saint Jorge! Giane!» Là estoit
entre yaus grandement proèce remoustrée; car il n’i
25 avoit si petit qui ne vausist un bon homme d’armes.
Et eurent à ce donc li princes et ses gens d’encontre
le bataille des Alemans, dou conte de Salebruce,
dou conte Jehan de Nasço et dou conte de Nido et
de leurs gens; mès il ne durèrent point gramment,
30 ançois furent il rebouté moult asprement et mis en
cace. Là estoient arcier d’Engleterre viste et legier de
[41] traire ouniement et si espessement que nulz ne se
pooit ne osoit mettre en leur tret: si blecièrent et
occirent de ce rencontre tamaint homme qui ne
peurent venir à raençon ne à merci. Là furent pris
5 assés en bon couvenant li troi conte dessus nommé,
et mort et pris tamaint chevalier et escuier de leur
route.
En ce puigneis et en ce reculeis fu rescous messires
Eustasses d’Aubrecicourt par ses gens qui le
10 queroient et qui prisonnier entre les Alemans le
sentoient; si y rendi messires Jehans de Ghistelles
grant painne. Et fu li dis messires Eustasses remis à
cheval. Depuis fist il ce jour tamainte apertise d’armes,
et prist et fiança de bons prisonniers dont il
15 eut ou temps à venir grant finance et qui moult l’aidièrent
à avancier.
Quant la bataille dou duch de Normendie, si com
 je vous ay jà dit, veirent approcier si fortement les
batailles dou prince qui jà avoient desconfit les mareschaus
20 et les Alemans et estoient entré en cace, si
en furent la plus grant partie tout esbahi. Et entendirent
li aucun et priesque tout à yaus sauver, et les
enfans dou roy aussi, le duc de Normendie, le conte
de Poitiers et le conte de Tourainne, qui estoient en
25 ce tempore moult jone et à petit de avis: si crurent
legierement chiaus qui les gouvrenoient. Toutesfois
messires Guiçars d’Angle et messires Jehans de Saintré,
qui estoient dalés le conte de Poitiers, ne veurent
mies retourner ne fuir, mès se boutèrent ou plus
30 fort de le bataille. Ensi se partirent, par conseil, li
troi enfant dou roy, et avoecques yaus plus de huit
cens lances sainnes et entières, qui onques n’approcièrent
[42] leurs ennemis, et prisent le chemin de Chauvegni.
Quant messires Jehans de Landas et messires Thiebaus
de Vodenay, qui estoient mestre et meneur dou
5 duch Charle de Normendie, avoecques le signeur de
Saint Venant, eurent chevauciet environ une grosse
liewe en le compagnie dou dit duch, il prisent congiet
à lui et priièrent au signeur de Saint Venant que point
ne le vosist laissier, mès mener à sauveté, et que il
10 y acquerroit otant d’onneur, en gardant son corps,
que ce que il demorast en le bataille; mès li dessus
dit voloient retourner et venir dalés le roy et en se
bataille, et il leur respondi que ossi feroit il à son
pooir. Ensi retournèrent li doi chevalier et encontrèrent
15 le duch d’Orliiens et se grosse bataille toute
sainne et toute entière, qui estoient parti et venu par
derrière le bataille dou roy. Bien est vérités que
pluiseur bon chevalier et escuier, quoique leur signeur
se partesissent, ne se voloient mies partir, mès euissent
20 plus chier à morir que fuite leur fust reprocie.
 § 388. Vous avés ci dessus en ceste hystore bien
oy parler de le bataille de Creci, et comment fortune
fu moult mervilleuse pour les François: ossi
à le bataille de Poitiers, elle fu moult diverse et très
25 felenesse pour yaus, et auques parelle à ceste de
Creci; car li François estoient bien gens d’armes
sept contre un. Or regardés se ce ne fu mies grant
infortuneté pour yaus, quant il ne peurent obtenir le
place contre leurs ennemis. Mais au voir dire, la bataille
30 de Poitiers fu trop mieulz combatue que ceste
de Creci, et eurent toutes manières de gens d’armes,
[43] mieulz loisir de aviser et considerer leurs ennemis,
que il n’euissent à Creci; car la ditte bataille de
Creci commença au vespre tout tart, sans arroi et
sans ordenance, et ceste de Poitiers matin, à heure
5 de prime, et assés par bon couvenant, se eur y euist
eu pour les François. Et y avinrent trop plus de biaus
fais d’armes sans comparison que il ne fesissent à
Creci, comment que tant de grans chiés de pays n’i
furent mies mort, que il furent à Creci.
10 Et se acquittèrent si loyaument envers leur signeur
tout cil qui demorèrent à Poitiers, mort ou pris, que
encore en sont li hoir à honnourer, et li vaillant
homme qui là se combatirent, à recommender; ne
on ne poet pas dire ne presumer que li rois Jehans
15 de France s’effreast onques pour cose que il oïst ne
veist; mès demora et fu toutdis bons chevaliers et
bien combatans, et ne moustra pas samblant de fuir
ne de reculer, quant il dist à ses hommes: «A piet,
à piet!» et fist descendre tous chiaus qui à cheval
20 estoient. Et il meismes se mist à piet devant tous les
siens, une hace de guerre en ses mains, et fist passer
avant ses banières ou nom de Dieu et de saint Denis,
dont messires Joffrois de Chargni portoit la souverainne;
et ensi par bon couvenant la grosse bataille
 25 dou roy s’en vint assambler as Englès. Là eut grant
hustin, fier et cruel, et donnet tamaint horion de
haces et de espées et de aultres bastons de gerre.
Si assamblèrent li rois de France et messires Phelippes
ses mainnés filz à le bataille des mareschaus
30 d’Engleterre, le conte de Warvich et le conte de
Sufforch; et ossi y avoit il là des Gascons, monsigneur
le captal, le signeur de Pumiers, monsigneur
[44] Aymeri de Tarse, le signeur de Muchident, le signeur
de Longueren et le soudich de l’Estrade. Bien avoit
sentement et cognissance li rois Jehans de France
que ses gens estoient en peril; car il veoit ses batailles
5 ouvrir et branler, et banières et pennons trebucier
et reculer, et par le force de leur ennemis
rebouter; mais par fait d’armes, il les cuida bien
toutes recouvrer. Là crioient li François leur cri:
«Monjoie! Saint Denis!» et li Englès: «Saint
10 Jorge! Giane!»
Si revinrent cil doi chevalier tout à temps, qui
laissiet avoient le route le duch de Normendie, messires
Jehans de Landas et messires Thiebaus de Vodenay:
si se misent à piet en le bataille dou roy et se
15 combatirent depuis moult vaillamment.
D’autre part, se combatoient li dus d’Athènes,
connestables de France, et ses gens; et un petit plus
en sus, li dus de Bourbon, environnés des bons chevaliers
de son pays de Bourbonnois et de Pikardie.
20 D’autre lés, sus costière, estoient li Poitevin, li
sires de Pons, li sires de Partenay, li sires de Puiane,
li sires de Tannay Bouton, li sires de Surgières, messires
Jehans de Saintré, messires Guiçars d’Angle, li
sires d’Argenton, li sires de Linières, li sires de Monttendre
25 et pluiseurs aultres, li viscontes de Rochouwart
et li viscontes d’Ausnay.
 Là estoit chevalerie remoustrée et toute apertise
d’armes faite; car creés fermement que toute fleur de
chevalerie estoit d’une part et d’autre. Là se combatoient
30 vaillamment messires Guichars de Biaugeu, li
sires de Chastielvillain et pluiseur bon chevalier et
escuier de Bourgongne.
[45] D’autre part, estoient li contes de Ventadour et de
Montpensé, messires Jakemes de Bourbon, en grant
arroy, et ossi messires Jehans d’Artois et messires
Charles ses frères, et messires Renaulz de Cerevole,
5 dis Arceprestres, armés pour le jone conte d’Alençon.
Si y avoit ossi d’Auvergne pluiseurs grans barons
et bons chevaliers, telz que le signeur de Mercueil,
le signeur de la Tour, le signeur de Calençon, monsigneur
10 Guillaume de Montagut, le signeur de Rocefort,
le signeur d’Acier et le signeur d’Acon; et de
Limozin: le signeur de Melval, le signeur de Moruel
et le signeur de Pierebufière; et de Pikardie: messires
Guillaumez de Nielle, messires Raoulz de Rainneval,
15 messires Joffroy de Saint Digier, le signeur de Kauni,
le signeur de Helli, le signeur de Montsaut, le signeur
de Hangès et pluiseurs aultres.
Encores en le bataille dou roy estoit li contes de
Duglas, d’Escoce, et se combati une espasse assés
20 vaillamment; mès quant il vei que la desconfiture se
contournoit dou tout sus les François, il se parti et
se sauva au mieus qu’il peut, car nullement il ne
volsist estre pris ne escheus ens ès mains des Englès:
il euist eu plus chier à estre occis sus le place.

25 § 389. On ne vous poet mies de tous parler ne

dire ne recorder: «Cilz le fist bien et cilz mieulz;»
car trop y faurroit de parolles. Nonpourquant d’armes
on ne se doit mies legierement partir ne passer;
 mais il y eut là moult de bons chevaliers et d’escuiers,
30 d’un costé et d’aultre. Et bien le moustrèrent, car
cil qui y furent mort et pris, de le partie dou roy de
[46] France, ne dagnièrent onques fuir; mès demorèrent
vaillamment dalés leur signeur et hardiement se combatirent.
D’autre part, on veist chevaliers d’Engleterre
et de Gascongne yaus enventurer si très hardiement
5 et si ordonneement chevaucier et requerre
leurs ennemis, que merveilles seroit à penser, et leurs
corps au combatre abandonner; et ne l’eurent mies
davantage, mès leur couvint moult de painne souffrir
et endurer, ançois que il peuissent en le bataille
10 dou roy de France entrer.
Là estoient dalés le prince et à son frain messires
Jehans Chandos et messires Pières d’Audelée, frères
à monsigneur Jame d’Audelée, de qui nous avons
parlé chi dessus, qui fu des premiers assallans, si com
15 il avoit voé, et liquels avoit jà fait tant d’armes,
parmi l’ayde de ses quatre escuiers, que on le doit
bien tenir et recommender pour preu; car il, tout
dis comme bons chevaliers, estoit entrés ou plus fort
des batailles et combatus si vaillamment que il y fu
20 durement navrés ou corps et ou chief et ou viaire;
et tant que alainne et force li peurent durer, il se
combati et ala toutdis avant, et tant que il fu moult
essannés. Adonc, sus le fin de le bataille, le prisent
li quatre escuier qui le gardoient, et le amenèrent
25 moult foible et fort navré au dehors des batailles,
dalés une haie, pour li un petit refroidier et esventer,
et le desarmèrent au plus doucement qu’il peurent,
et entendirent à ses plaies bender et loiier, et rekeudre
les plus perilleuses.
30 Or revenons au prince de Galles qui toutdis chevauçoit
avant, en abatant et occiant ses ennemis,
dalés lui monsigneur Jehan Chandos, par lequel conseil
[47] il ouvra et persevera le journée. Et li gentilz chevaliers
s’en acquitta si loyaument que onques il n’entendi
ce jour à prendre prisonnier, mès disoit au
prince: «Sire, chevauciés avant; Diex est en vostre
5 main: la journée est nostre.» Li princes, qui tendoit
à toute perfection d’onneur, chevauçoit avant, se
banière devant lui, et renforçoit ses gens là où il les
veoit ouvrir ne branler, et y fu très bons chevaliers.

10 § 390. Ce lundi, fu la bataille des François et des

Englès, assés priès de la cité de Poitiers, moult dure
et moult forte. Et y fu li rois Jehans de France de
son costé très bons chevaliers; et, se la quarte partie
de ses gens l’euissent ressamblé, la journée euist esté
15 pour yaus, mais il n’en avint mies ensi. Toutesfois li
duch, li conte, li baron, li chevalier et li escuier qui
demorèrent, se acquittèrent à leur pooir bien et
loyaument, et se combatirent tant qu’il furent tout
mort ou pris. Petit s’en sauvèrent de chiaus qui
20 descendirent à piet sus le sablon, dalés le roy leur
signeur.
Là furent occis, dont ce fu pités et damages,
li gentilz dus de Bourbon, qui s’appelloit messires
Pières, et assés priès de lui messires Guiçars de Biaugeu
25 et messires Jehans de Landas; et pris et durement
navrés li Arceprestres, messires Thiebaus de Vodenay
et messires Bauduins d’Ennekins; mors li dus d’Athènes,
connestables de France, et li evesques de
Chaalons en Champagne; et d’autre part, pris li contes
30 de Vaudimont et de Genville, li contes de Vendôme,
et cilz de Ventadour et de Montpensé; et occis un
[48] petit ensus messires Guillammes de Nielle et messires
Eustasses de Ribeumont, et, d’Auvergne, li sires de
la Tour, et messires Guillaumes de Montagut; et pris
messires Loeis de Melval, li sires de Pierebufière et
 5 li sires de Seregnach. Et en celle empainte furent plus
de deux cens chevaliers mors et pris.
D’autre part, se combatoient aucun bon chevalier
de Normendie à une route d’Englès; et là furent
mort messires Grimoutons de Cambli et messires li
10 Baudrains de le Huese et pluiseur aultre qui estoient
desfouchiet et se combatoient par tropiaus et par
compagnies, ensi que il se trouvoient et recueilloient.
Et toutdis chevauçoit li princes et s’adreçoit vers le
bataille dou roy; et li plus grant partie des siens
15 entendoit à faire sa besongne à son pourfit, au mieus
que il pooient, car tout ne pooient mies estre
[ensamble[274]]. Si y eut ce jour fait mainte belle apertise
d’armes, mainte prise et mainte rescousse, qui toutes
ne vinrent mies à cognissance; car on ne poet pas
20 tout veoir ne savoir, ne les plus preus ne plus hardis
aviser ne concevoir. Si en voel jou parler au plus
justement que je porai, selonch ce que j’en fui depuis
enfourmés par les chevaliers et escuiers qui furent d’une
part et d’autre.

25 § 391. Entre ces batailles et ces rencontres et les

caces et les poursieutes qui furent ce jour sus les
camps, en chei à monsigneur Oudart de Renti ensi
que je vous dirai. Messires Oudars estoit partis de le
bataille, car il veoit bien que elle estoit perdue sans
[49] recouvrier: si ne se voloit mies mettre ou dangier
des Englès, là où il le peuist amender, et estoit jà
eslongiés bien une liewe. Si l’avoit uns chevaliers
d’Engleterre poursievi une espasse, la lance au poing,
5 et escrioit à le fois: «Chevaliers, retournés, car c’est
grans hontes d’ensi fuir.»
Messires Oudars, qui se sentoit caciés, se virgonda
et se arresta tous quois et mist l’espée en fautre, et
 dist en soi meismes que il attenderoit le chevalier
10 d’Engleterre. Li chevaliers englès cuida venir et
adrecier dessus messire Oudart et assir son glave sus
sa targe; mès il falli, car messires Oudars se destourna
contre le cop et ne falli pas au chevalier consievir,
mès le feri telement de sen espée, en passant sus son
15 bacinet, que il l’estonna tout et l’abati jus à terre de
son cheval, et se tint là tous quois une espasse sans
relever.
Adonc mist piet à terre messires Oudars, et vint
sus le chevalier qui là gisoit, et li apoia son espée sus
20 sa poitrine et li dist que il l’ociroit, se il ne se rendoit
à lui et li fiançast prison, rescous ou non rescous.
Li chevaliers ne se vei mies au dessus de sa
besongne: si se rendi au dit monsigneur Oudart
pour son prisonnier, et s’en ala avoecques lui; et depuis
25 le rançonna il bien et grandement.
Encores entre les batailles et ou fort de le cace,
avint une ossi belle aventure et plus grande à un
escuier de Pikardie, qui s’appelloit Jehans d’Ellènes,
appert homme d’armes durement. Il s’estoit ce jour
30 combatus assés vaillamment en le bataille dou roy:
si avoit veu et conceu le desconfiture et le grant pestilense
qui y couroit; et li estoit si bien avenu que
[50] ses pages li avoit amené son coursier. Et estoit li dis
escuiers montés et partis de tous perilz, car il trouva
son coursier fresk et nouvel, qui li fist grant bien.
A ce donc estoit sus les camps li sires [de] Bercler,
5 uns jones et appers chevaliers, et qui ce jour avoit
levet banière: si vei le couvenant de Jehan d’Ellènes;
si issi très apertement des conrois après li, montés
ossi sus fleur de coursier. Et pour faire plus grant
vaillance d’armes, il s’embla de se route et volt le
10 dit Jehan poursievir tout seul, ensi qu’il fist. Et
 chevaucièrent hors de toutes batailles moult loing, sans
yaus approcier, Jehans d’Ellènes devant et li sires de
Bercler après, qui mettoit grant painne à li raconsievir.
Li intention de l’escuier franchois estoit bien
15 tèle que il retourroit voirement, mès que il euist
amenet le chevalier encores un petit plus avant; et
chevaucièrent, ensi que par alainnes de coursiers, plus
de une grosse liewe, et eslongièrent bien otant et
plus toutes les batailles. Li sires de Bercler escrioit à
20 le fois à Jehan d’Ellènes: «Retournés, retournés,
homs d’armes: ce n’est pas honneur ne proèce d’ensi
fuir.»
Quant li dis escuiers vei son tour et que temps fu,
il retourna moult aigrement sus le chevalier, tout à
25 un fais, l’espée ou poing, et le mist desous son brach,
à manière de glave, et s’en vint en cel estat sus le
signeur de Bercler qui onques ne le volt refuser,
mès prist sen espée de Bourdiaus, bonne et legière
et roide assés, et le apoigna par les hans, en levant
30 le main, pour jetter en passant à l’escuier, et l’escoui
et laissa aler. Jehans d’Ellènes, qui vei l’espée en
volant venir sur li, se destourna, et perdi par celle
[51] voie son cop au dit escuier. Mès Jehans ne perdi point
le sien, mès consievi en passant au chevalier sus son
braeh, telement que il li fist voler l’espée ou camp.
Quant li sires de Bercler vei que il n’avoit point
5 d’espée, et li escuiers avoit le sienne, si salli jus de
son coursier et s’en vint tout le petit pas là où sen
espée estoit; mais il n’i peut onques si tos venir que
Jehans d’Ellènes ne le hastast. Et jetta par avis si
roidement sen espée au dit chevalier, qui estoit à
10 terre; si l’aconsievi telement hault ens ès cuissieus que
li espée, qui estoit roide et bien acerée et envoiie de
fort brach et de grant volenté, entra ens ès quissieus
et s’encousi tout parmi les quissieus jusques as hans.
 De ce cop chei li chevaliers, qui fu durement navrés
15 et qui aidier ne se pooit.
Quant li escuiers le vei en cel estat, [si[275]] descendi
moult apertement de son coursier et vint à l’espée
dou chevalier qui gisoit à terre: si le prist, et puis
tout le pas s’en vint sus le chevalier, et li demanda
20 se il se voloit rendre, rescous ou non rescous. Li
chevaliers li demanda son nom; il dist: «On m’appelle
Jehan d’Ellènes; et vous, comment?»—«Certes
compains, respondi li chevaliers, on m’appelle Thumas,
et sui sires de Bercler, un moult biel chastiel
25 seant sus le rivière de Saverne, en le marce de Galles.»
—«Sire de Bercler [dist li escuiers[276]], vous serés mon
prisonnier, si com je vous ay dit; et je vous metterai
à sauveté, et entenderai à vous garir, car il me samble
que vous soiiés durement navrés.» Li sires de Bercler
[52] respondi: «Je le vous acorde ensi. Voirement sui
je vostre prisonnier; car vous m’avés loyaument
conquis.» Là li creanta il sa foy que, rescous ou non
rescous, il demorroit son prisonnier.
5 Adonc traist Jehans l’espée hors des cuissieus dou
chevalier: si demora la plaie toute ouverte, mais
Jehans le loia et bendela bien et biel, au mieulz qu’il
peut; et fist tant que il le remist sus son coursier et
l’amena ce jour tout le pas jusques à Chastieleraut.
10 Et là sejourna il plus de quinze jours, pour l’amour
de lui, et le fist medeciner; et quant il eut un peu
mieus, il le mist en une litière et le fist amener tout
souef à son hostel en Pikardie. Là fu il plus d’un an
et tant qu’il fu bien garis, mès il demora afolés; et
15 quant il parti, il paia six mil nobles. Et devint li dis
escuiers chevaliers, pour le grant pourfit que il eut
de son prisonnier le signeur de Bercler. Or revenons
à le bataille de Poitiers.
 § 392. Ensi aviennent souvent les fortunes en armes
20 et en amours, plus ewireuses et plus mervilleuses
que on ne les poroit ne oseroit penser ne souhaidier,
tant en batailles et en rencontres, que par trop folement
cacier. Au voir dire, ceste bataille, qui fu assés
priés de Poitiers, ens ès camps de Biauvoir et de
25 Maupetruis, fu moult grande et moult perilleuse; et
y peurent bien avenir pluiseurs grandes avenues et
biaus fais d’armes qui ne vinrent mies tout à cognissance.
Ceste bataille fu très bien combatue, bien
poursievie et mieus achievée pour les Englès; et y
30 souffrirent li combatant, d’un lés et d’autre, moult
de painne.
[53] Là fist li rois Jehans de main merveilles d’armes, et
tenoit la hace dont trop bien se combatoit. A le presse
rompre et ouvrir, furent pris assés priès de li li contes
de Tankarville et messires Jakemes de Bourbon, contes
5 pour le temps de Pontieu, et messires Jehans d’Artois,
contes d’Eu; et d’autre part, un petit plus ensus,
desous le pennon le captal, messires Charles d’Artois
et moult d’autres chevaliers.
La cace de la desconfiture dura jusques ès portes
10 de Poitiers; et là eut grant occision et grant abateis
de gens d’armes et de chevaus, car cil de Poitiers
refremèrent leurs portes, et ne laissoient nullui ens
pour le peril: pour tant y eut, sus le caucie et devant
la porte, si grant horribleté de gens abatre, navrer
15 et occire, que merveilles seroit à penser. Et se rendoient
li François de si lonch que il pooient cuesir[277]
un Englès; et y eut là pluiseur Englès, arciers et
aultres, qui avoient quatre, cinq ou six prisonniers,
ne on n’oy onques de tel mescheance parler, comme
20 il avint là sus yaus.
Li sires de Pons, uns grans barons de Poito, fu là
 occis et moult d’autres chevaliers et escuiers; pris li
viscontes de Rocewart, li sires de Puiane et li sires
de Partenai; et de Saintonge: li sires de Montendre,
25 et pris messires Jehans de Saintré, et tant batus que
onques depuis n’eut santé: si le tenoit on pour le
milleur et plus vaillant chevalier de France; et laiiés
pour mors entre les mors, messires Guiçars d’Angle,
qui trop vaillamment se combati ceste journée.
30 Là se combatoit vaillamment et assés priès dou
[54] roy messires Joffrois de Cargni, et estoit toute la
presse et la huée sur lui, pour tant qu’il portoit la
souveraine banière dou roy; et il meismes avoit la
sienne sus les camps, qui estoit de geules à trois
5 escuçons d’argent. Tant y sourvinrent Englès et Gascons,
de toutes pars, que par force il ovrirent et
rompirent le priesse de le bataille le roy de France.
Et furent li François si entouelliet entre leurs ennemis
que il y avoit bien, en tel lieu estoit et telz fois fu,
10 cinq hommes d’armes sus un gentil homme. Là fu
pris messires Bauduins d’Anekins de messire Bietremieu
de Brues. Et fu occis messires Joffrois de Chargni,
la banière de France entre ses mains, et pris li
contes de Dammartin de monsigneur Renault de
15 Gobehen. Là eut adonc trop grant presse et trop
grant bouteis sus le roy Jehan, pour le convoitise de
li prendre; et li crioient cil qui le cognissoient et qui
le plus priès de lui estoient: «Rendés vous, rendés
vous: aultrement vous estes mors.»
20 Là avoit un chevalier de le nation de Saint Omer,
que on clamoit monsigneur Denis de Morbeke; et
avoit depuis cinq ans ou environ servi les Englès,
pour tant que il avoit de sa jonèce fourfait le royaume
de France par guerre d’amis et d’un hommecide que
25 il avoit fait à Saint Omer, et estoit retenus dou roy
d’Engleterre as saulz et as gages. Si chei adonc si
 bien à point au dit chevalier que il estoit dalés le roy
de France et li plus proçains qui y fust, quant on
tiroit ensi à lui prendre: si se avança en le presse,
30 à le force des bras et dou corps, car il estoit grans et
fors; et dist au roy en bon françois, où li rois s’arresta
plus c’as aultres: «Sire, sire, rendés vous.»
[55] Li rois, qui se veoit en dur parti et trop efforciés
de ses ennemis et ossi que sa deffense ne li valoit
mès riens, demanda en regardant le chevalier: «A
cui me renderai jou? à cui? Où est mon cousin le
5 prince de Galles? se je le veoie, je parleroie.»—«Sire,
respondi messires Denis de Morbeke, il n’est
pas ci; mès rendés vous à moy, je vous menrai
devers lui.»—«Qui estes[278], dist li rois?»—«Sire
je sui Denis de Morbeke, uns chevaliers d’Artois;
10 mès je siers le roy d’Engleterre, pour tant que je ne
puis ou royaume de France et que je y ay fourfait
tout le mien.»
Adonc respondi li rois de France, si com je fui
depuis enfourmés, ou deubt respondre: «Et je me
15 rench à vous,» et li bailla son destre gant. Li chevaliers
le prist, qui en eut grant joie. Là eut grant
priesse et grant tirich entours le roy, car cescuns
s’efforçoit de dire: «Je l’ay pris, je l’ay pris»; et ne
pooit li rois aler avant, ne messires Phelippes ses
20 mainsnés fils. Or lairons un petit à parler de ce touellement
qui estoit sus le roy de France, et parlerons
dou prince de Galles et dou fin de le bataille.

§ 393. Li princes de Galles, qui durement estoit

hardis et corageus, et le bacinet en le tieste, estoit
25 comme uns lyons felz et crueus, et qui ce jour avoit
pris grant plaisance à combatre et à encaucier ses
ennemis, sus le fin de le bataille estoit durement escaufés:
 si que messires Jehans Chandos, qui toutdis
fu dalés lui, ne onques ce jour ne le laia, li dist:
[56] «Sire, c’est bon que vous vos arrestés ci et metés
vostre banière hault sus ce buisson: se s’i ralloieront
vos gens qui sont durement espars, car, Dieu merci,
la journée est vostre. Ne je ne voi mès nulles banières
5 ne nuls pennons des François, ne conroi entre yaus
qui se puist ralloiier; et si vous rafreschirés un petit,
car je vous voi moult escauffé.»
A l’ordenance de monsigneur Jehan Chandos s’acorda
li princes, et fist sa banière mettre sus un hault
10 buisson, pour toutes gens ralloiier, et corner ses
menestrelz, et osta son bachinet. Tantost furent si
chevalier apparilliet, cil dou corps et cil de sa cambre;
et tendi on illuec un petit vermeil pavillon où
li princes entra, et li aporta on à boire et as signeurs
15 qui estoient dalés lui. Et toutdis mouteplioient il, car
il revenoient de le cace: si s’arrestoient là ou environ,
et s’ensonnioient entours leurs prisonniers.
Sitost que li doy mareschal revinrent, li contes de
Warvich et li contes de Sufforch, li princes leur demanda
20 se il savoient nulles [nouvelles[279]] dou roy de
France. Il respondirent: «Sire, nennil, bien certainnes;
nous creons ensi que il est mors ou pris, car
point n’est partis des batailles.» Adonc li princes en
grant haste dist au conte de Warvich et à monsigneur
25 Renault de Gobehen: «Je vous pri, partés de ci et
chevauciés si avant que à vostre retour vous m’en sachiés
à dire le verité.»
Cil doi signeur tantost de rechief montèrent à cheval
et se partirent dou prince et montèrent sus un
30 tertre pour veoir entour yaus: si perçurent une grant
[57] flote de gens d’armes tout à piet et qui venoient
moult lentement. Là estoit li rois de France en grant
 peril, car Englès et Gascon en estoient mestre et l’avoient
jà tollu à monsigneur Denis de Morbeke et
5 moult eslongiet de li; et disoient li plus fort: «Je
l’ay pris, je l’ay pris.» Toutesfois li rois de France,
qui sentoit l’envie que il avoient entre yaus sus lui,
pour eskiewer le peril, avoit dit: «Signeur, signeur,
menés moi courtoisement devers le prince mon cousin,
10 et mon fil avoecques mi; et ne vous rihotés
plus ensamble de ma prise, car je sui sires et grans
assés pour cescun de vous faire riche.»
Ces parolles et aultres que li rois leur disoit, les
soela un petit, mès nonpourquant toutdis recommençoit
15 leur rihote; et n’aloient piet avant de terre
que il ne se rihotaissent. Li doi baron dessus nommet,
quant il veirent celle foule et ces gens d’armes ensi
ensamble, s’avisèrent que il se trairoient celle part;
si ferirent coursiers des esporons et vinrent jusques à
20 là et demandèrent: «Qu’es çou? qu’es çou?» Il leur
fu dit: «C’est li rois de France qui est pris; et le
voellent avoir et calengent plus d’yaus dix chevaliers
et escuiers.»
Adonc li doi baron, sans plus parler, rompirent, à
25 force de chevaus, le presse, et fisent toutes manières
de gens traire arrière; et leur commandèrent, de par
le prince et sus le teste, que tout se traissent arrière
et que nulz ne l’approçast, se il n’i estoit ordonnés
et requis. Lors se partirent toutes gens, qui n’osèrent
30 ce commandement brisier, et se traisent bien ensus
dou roy et des deux barons qui tantost descendirent
à terre et enclinèrent le roy tout bas, liquelz rois fu
[58] moult liés de leur venue, car il le delivrèrent de grant
dangier. Or vous parlerons encores un petit de l’ordenance
dou prince, qui estoit dedens son pavillon,
et quel cose il fist en attendant les chevaliers dessus
5 nommés.