16 - The Poem in the Archive

Summary

This chapter examines the ontological questions raised by the encounter with poems in archives, whether in the form of drafts, post-publication revisions, or unique or multiple versions circulating in manuscript alone. Most poems in most archives prompt the same question – what is this? – and they thereby challenge expectations of what a poem will be. When are two related texts versions of the same poem, for instance, and when are they instead two different poems? What about poems that were never finished or were never originally conceived of as “poems”? And how are poems in archives framed by surrounding materials, be those materials other poems or other kinds of writing altogether? Through a close study of Thomas Gray's commonplace book, this chapter focuses on the interpretative challenges prompted by such ontological questions. Using Gray's methods as its example, the chapter experiments with what it means to read manuscript poems synchronically within the archival documents in which they are found, rather than diachronically in search of sources or variants.