Curnow and Baxter

Masochism seems and incompatible desire for an organism that is driven to fulfil its needs in order to achieve pleasure - According to Patrick Evans however, this is a feature prominent in much of New Zealand’s authors of the middle of last century. “What distinguishes the heyday of New Zealand’s cultural nationalism around mid-century,” states Evan “is its fetishisation of the artist-as- victim” (Evans n. pag.). This fetishisation is believed to precipitate in poetic masochism, where Evans gives the example of Allen Curnow’s “self-flagellating verse”, which I hold to be an incorrect description of the selected poem The Skeleton of the Great Moa in the Canterbury Museum, Christchurch. The definition of masochism, as “fundamentally the desire for the harm to self” (Baumeister 33), should first be considered when making such remarks. Curnow’s poetry, although self-deprecating and diminutive is not masochistic; whereas James K. Baxter’s religiously inspired poetry actively portrays a desire for pain and punishment. Curnow’s Moa poem along with Spring 1942 will be compared to Baxter’s masochist poem Jerusalem sonnets to indicate that the verse of Curnow is in fact not “self-flagellating” at all. As masochism has been defined in the introduction, it should be explained why its application exists. This would assist in confirming if these poets either represent it in their poetry or not and how it relates to the overall thematic intention of the poems. Masochism is believed to be means of a temporary ‘transcendence’ from the intellectual and overly ‘self-conscious’ self, through a focus of attention to physical pain. It is believed by sociologist Roy Baumeister that “masochism is essentially an attempt to escape from self, in the sense of achieving loss of high-level awareness. More precisely, awareness of self as symbolic, schematic, choosing entity is removed and replaced with low-level awareness of self and a physical body and locus of immediate