`Matter Matters': Topographical and Theological Space in the Poetry of Norman Nicholson

Author: Cooper, David¹

Source: The Yearbook of English Studies, Volume 39, Numbers 1-2, 1 july 2009 , pp. 169-185(17)

Publisher: Modern Humanities Research Association

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Abstract:

Drawing on recent spatial thinking in both literary and theological studies, this article explores the inextricable intertwining of Christian and topographical concerns in the work of the twentieth-century Cumbrian poet Norman Nicholson (1914-87). The essay argues that Nicholson, in his early work, develops a regionally rooted incarnational poetics that is predicated upon a phenomenological understanding of being and dwelling. Central to this discussion is an examination of the way in which a dialectic of spatial boundedness and boundlessness underpins and problematizes Nicholson's Christian articulation of what it means to be-in-the-world. Through a spatial reading of Nicholson's early volumes, then, this article aims to open up conceptual thinking about the work of a poet who was supported and published by T. S. Eliot but who presently occupies a marginal position in the history of post-war British poetry.

Keywords: Christian; topographical; Norman Nicholson; incarnational poetics; phenomenological; boundedness; boundlessness; be-in-the-world; spatial reading

Document Type: Research article

Affiliations: 1: Lancaster University

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