‘Such a death were sweet’: Invitingly Deadly Waters in the Poems and Drawings of Stevie Smith
Keywords:
Stevie Smith, Illustration, Poetry, Poet-illustrators, DeathAbstract
Death by drowning was a favourite topic of Stevie Smith’s across her poetic oeuvre. J. Edward Mallot established this in his 2003 article which concentrated on the agency of Smith’s drowning women. However, in my close examination of some pertinent examples of Smith’s water poems, I want to address the theme of communication that Mallot briefly introduced. This paper will specifically analyse how and why Smith’s waters are deadly but inviting for her various characters. I will be drawing on Smith’s illustrations and her written texts as evidence for my argument. This is in keeping with my wider research on poets who have illustrated their own work for an adult readership.
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Blake, William. Songs of Innocence and of Experience. London: Tate Publishing, 2006.
---. Songs of Innocence and of Experience. Ed. Morris Eaves, et al. Copy AA. 2003. The William Blake Archive. Accessed 28 September 2016.
Mallot, J. Edward. ‘Not Drowning But Waving: Stevie Smith and the Language of the Lake’. Journal of Modern Literature. 27.1/2 (2003): 171-187.
May, Will. Ed. The Collected Poems and Drawings of Stevie Smith, London: Faber & Faber, 2015.
Smith, Stevie. A Good Time Was Had By All. London: Jonathan Cape, 1937.
---. Ed. The Batsford Book of Children’s Verse. B.T. Batsford: London, 1970.
---. The Frog Prince and Other Poems. London: Longmans, 1966.
---. The Spoken Word, BBC, 2009, Audio CD.
Sternlicht, Sanford. Stevie Smith. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1990.
---. Ed. In Search of Stevie Smith. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1991.
Severin, Laura. Stevie Smith’s Resistant Antics. Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press, 1997.
Thaddeus, Janice. See Sternlicht, In Search Of Stevie Smith.
Williams, Jonathan. See Sternlicht, In Search of Stevie Smith.
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