Please see the final page of the newsletter
for the call for papers for next year’s International Richard Aldington Society
conference, to be held in Venice from 19-21 June 2014.
**********
Death of a Hero is discussed in Rob Hawkes’s engaging recent monograph Ford
Madox Ford and the Misfit Moderns: Edwardian Fiction and the First World War
(Palgrave Macmillan, 2012). Hawkes uses the title grouping to refer to
Aldington, Arnold Bennett, Joseph Conrad, Robert Graves, Siegfried Sassoon, H.
G. Wells and Rebecca West. Death of a Hero is discussed at length in the
final chapter, ‘Destruction/Reconstruction: Narrative, Shell Shock and the War
Novel’. The novel is read sympathetically against the depredations of earlier
critics such as Bernard Bergonzi, and compared with Ford Madox Ford’s Parade’s
End.
**********
A Book of ‘Characters’
Recently, in a Suffolk Oxfam bookshop, I was surprised to come
across this book by RA which, I suspect, may be little known to even quite
well-informed Aldingtonians – at least it was totally unfamiliar to me. It was
published by Routledge in London and E P Dutton in New York in 1924. In it RA
translated, collected and edited a range of writers of this genre, from
Theophrastus to the heyday of the genre, the 17th century. In the ‘character’
writers give detailed descriptions of the behaviour and appearance of a class
of person or of a type. In 560 pages RA gives further evidence, if it were
needed, of the scope and depth of his reading, scholarship, and translation
skills. His Introduction provides a valuable and enlightening overview of this
historic genre. He writes:
‘. . . the subject
described must be a type, not an individual; for the description of an
individual is a Portrait.’
‘. . . the Character is a kind of prose sonnet limited
to one range of subjects.’
‘Character and even
character-types are, of course, an almost essential part of most creative
writing. . . . the description of character-types when not introduced as an
integral part of an action or plot inevitably remains a minor literary form.’
‘The Characters of
Theophrastus are realistic. His Athenians are . . . ordinary and sometimes
disagreeable people.’
‘Characters are really
more enjoyable if we take them as types and not as particular persons’.
‘Samuel Butler is the
most considerable writer of Characters in the second half of the 17th
century . . . Butler’s prose Characters are decidedly satirical. They are well
written, but with plenty of 17th century burlesque and conceit . . .
There is a new sting and tartness in his phrase . . . we are at the beginning
of the satirical age; and the Character as a separate form is dissolving into
the essay.’
‘. . . as a
Character-writer La Bruyère is a greater man than Steele or Addison, in some
ways greater even than Theophrastus . . . the worldly-wise bitterness of La
Bruyère . . . is so far superior to all other French Character-writers . . . La
Bruyère’s Caractères are not mere squibs or the work of a few months,
but the concentrated results of years of observation and thought . . . a quiet
little man, with much bitterness of spirit, great shrewdness, and literary
talent, watching, noting – and never forgetting . . . concentrated malice.’
The best 17th practitioners of the genre in
English are mostly obscure figures now: Joseph Hall, Sir Thomas Overbury,
Nicholas Breton, John Earle, and Thomas Fuller, together with the better-known
Samuel Butler. Without question, the greatest Character-writer in French is La
Bruyère.
John Morris, in the Introduction to his Exploring
Stereotyped Images in Victorian and Twentieth-Century Literature and Society
(The Edwin Mellen Press, 1993), writes:
‘Aldington was in fact a
master of invective, surely one of the finest, most fearless and, some would
claim most merciless practitioners of the lampoon . . . For Aldington was a
scholar of what a writer did and had done for centuries when he reduced
characters to types, humours and cyphers. His study, A Book of ‘Characters’ (1924),
is an important contribution to this question and deserves to be better known.’
Chapter 4 of
Morris’s book is ‘The Stereotype as Satire in the Fiction of Richard Aldington’
by Norman Gates. In it Gates concentrates on Death of a Hero, The
Colonel’s Daughter, and Soft Answers. This essay suggests an
intriguing area of inquiry that it would be profitable to take still further,
given RA’s clear admiration and preference for Butler and La Bruyère above all
other practitioners of this defunct (?) genre, namely, to what extent did RA
exploit its capabilities and features as a resource for the character-drawing
of his own fiction, especially regarding the more satirical figures that
inhabit much of his writing, including A Fool i’ the Forest?
Michael Copp
**********
George Simmers, the author of the excellent
Great War Fiction blog (http://greatwarfiction.wordpress.com/)
has written a review of RA’s Seven Against Reeves (1938) for Sheffield
Hallam University’s popular fiction collection blog. Simmers starts by calling
it ‘quite an interesting novel, in that it is a book by a highbrow with a
middlebrow hero, and it very strongly upholds middlebrow – or indeed Philistine
– values. The book is a lively satire on artistic pretentiousness.’ However,
he ultimately judges it a heavy-handed satire, particularly for its
representation of homosexuality.
http://reading19001950.wordpress.com/2013/08/14/seven-against-reeves-by-richard-aldington-1938/
**********
David Wilkinson informs us that had some of
the television cameras in Bucklebury - covering the arrival of the future King
- turned through 180 degrees we might have seen the house at the end of The
Avenue to which Miss Helen Mills, the colonel's daughter, and her mother
retired after they left Padworth four miles away in 1930.
**********
Correspondent Caroline Zilboorg writes that
her biography of Mary Renault, The Masks of Mary Renault: A Literary
Biography (originally University of Missouri Press, 2001) will be reissued
as an eBook on Amazon in November 2013. This is timed to coincide with a
relaunch of all of Mary Renault's novels—the contemporary ones as well as the
Greek ones.
**********
The
Associate Editor sends the following report from this year’s Ezra Pound
Conference:
The
25th Ezra Pound International Conference (EPIC) took place in
Dublin, Ireland at
Trinity
College and the Mater Dei Institute from the 9th to the 13th of
July, 2013. Under the title of “Ezra Pound and Modernism,” this year’s
conference featured a wide-variety of presentations and talks on Pound and his
poetic theories, product, friendships, travels, and interactions. Taking place
in Dublin, much focus was devoted to Pound’s relationships with Samuel Beckett,
James Joyce, and, not surprisingly, W. B. Yeats.
One
of the major treats of EPIC 2013 was the presence of Nobel laureate poet,
Seamus Heaney. Heaney offered a Welcoming Address and stayed to attend other
talks and presentations. As an attendee, it was a wonderful experience to hear
the poet discuss Pound’s work and lineage, and, in light of Heaney’s recent
passing, it was also a cherished opportunity to witness the grace,
intelligence, and humility of an amazing man and poet.
Another
highlight of the conference was the panel, “New Editions of Pound in
Translation,” that featured Pound’s daughter, Mary de Rachewiltz, along with
Heinz Ickstadt, and Massimo Bacigalupo. Ms. De Rachewiltz discussed working
with her father to translate The Cantos into Italian, and Professor
Bacigalupo described his new Italian version of XXX Cantos. Professor Ickstadt
sat in place of Eva Hessa, who could not attend, and expounded on her project
translating The Cantos into German. Along with being highly informative
and interesting, the familiarity between Ms. de Rachewiltz and Professor
Bacigalupo made for great entertainment as the latter attempted to defer to Ms.
de Rachewiltz and her translation while also justifying the merit of his new
work. Often, taking the time to carefully craft his words while wearing a
smile, Professor Bacigalupo certainly navigated the situation deftly and amused
his audience as much as he apprised them of his new
edition of The Cantos.
As
is EPIC’s custom, the event featured many activities along with its academic
presentations. Prior to conference, tours of Trinity College and Dublin were
offered, as was an informal meet-and-greet at The Duke eatery and pub located
in the heart of the city. During the conference, a well-attended poetry reading
by Poundian Poets took place on the evening of the 12th, and,
following the conference, many attendees took a bus tour through Yeats Country
that featured a night’s stay in Sligo and a traditional Irish music showcase
performed by an award-winning group of talented young musicians from that
region.
Although
not many presentations focused on the work of Aldington or his relationship
with Pound, Professor Ira Nadel’s plenary talk entitled, “Pound and the
Artichoke, Beckett and the Whistle,” did recount Aldington’s
less-than-favorable description of Beckett’s musical prowess on said whistle
when the two roomed near each other in a hotel. Taken, I believe, from Life
for Life’s Sake, the account was quite amusing and certainly showcased
Aldington’s characteristic wit.
The next EPIC is
scheduled to occur in the summer of 2015 at Brunnenburg Castle in Northern
Italy. The event was deliberately planned to coincide with Mary de Rachewiltz’s
90th birthday.
***********
The Editor notes that Randall Stevenson’s
new literary survey, Literature and the Great War, 1914-18 (Cambridge
University Press, 2013), contains several references to RA. Stevenson refers
to both poetry and prose by Aldington. Death of a Hero is mentioned a
number of times, although it is not subject to any extended analysis; Stevenson
also erroneously suggests Richard Aldington divorced from H. D. in 1919 (p. 74).
The volume is valuable for the way it starts to reshape the narrative of war
literature away from the traditional focus on poetry, but for those well-versed
in the subject it will offer little by way of revelation.
**********
Correspondent Michael Copp writes: references to RA in Selected
Letters of Siegfried Sassoon and Edmund Blunden, 1919-1967, ed. Carol Z.
Rothkopf, Pickering & Chatto, 2012, are, unsurprisingly, very sparse. It
seems that RA never had any personal or epistolary contact with either Sassoon
or Blunden. The background of Sassoon and Blunden (Oxbridge educated) and their
literary lineage (Georgian pastoralism) ensured that such relationships would
be rendered extremely unlikely. RA must surely have read their war poems, but I
am not aware of any confirmation of this in RA’s correspondence or from any
other source. However, Sassoon and Blunden were familiar with some of RA’s
work:
Blunden to Sassoon, 22 September 1929:
‘R. Aldington’s war book [Death of a Hero] is excellent fury,
and his bombardments &c are real.’ (Blunden reviewed this in the TLS,
19 September 1929.)
Blunden to Sassoon, 12 December 1937:
‘R. Aldington has a smack at bogus artists and intellectuals in a
new novel [Very Heaven] which amuses me a great deal. He has been
watching the creatures with some care.’
Sassoon to Blunden, 16 February 1955:
‘Lately – owing to the fuss about Aldington’s nauseating attack on
T.E. [Lawrence of Arabia: A Biographical Enquiry], I have been reading
through his letters.’
Blunden to Sassoon, 2 March 1955:
‘I do not much
want to read The Mint, nor Aldington on Lawrence. These both seem to
cloud the memory of TEL, and his epic in chief. But you must tell me.’
**********
“But to affirm the gold
thread in the pattern (Torcello)”
Ezra Pound, Cantos CXVI
CALL FOR PAPERS
The VIII International Richard
Aldington Society &
IV International Imagism
Conference
will be held in Venice/Torcello June 19-21,
2014.
Conference Schedule Outline
o Thursday June 19: The conference opening
reception and poetry reading will be held at the legendary Locanda Cipriani on
the island of Torcello at 4 P.M.
o Friday June 20: All-day paper sessions at the
Dante Society venue, Fdm. S. Elena, Venice
o Saturday June 21: morning paper sessions (if
necessary) and conference-closing luncheon
As always, we welcome papers that focus on
Richard Aldington and his colleagues and contemporaries or on Imagism. Thus we
invite papers that deal with any aspect of the life and work of Aldington, or
with the “Imagist Movement.” Possible topics include Aldington and the Great
War, Aldington and Ezra Pound, Aldington and the Imagists (Pound, H. D., F. S.
Flint, Ford Madox Ford, Amy Lowell, James Joyce, Ernest Hemingway, T. S. Eliot,
Elizabeth Madox Roberts et al). We also welcome papers related to the
engagement of Imagist writers with Venice and the Veneto. And given the time
and place proximity of the Aldington and Hemingway Conferences, we invite
papers that deal comparatively with Hemingway's Italian works (e.g., A
Farewell to Arms, Across the River and Into the Trees, etc.) and
their connections with Aldington or Imagism.
FYI: Three very recent books that have grown out
of our past conferences are now available: 1) Imagism: Essays on Its
Initiation, Impact and Influence, eds. John Gery, Daniel Kempton, and H. R.
Stoneback (University of New Orleans Press, 2013) is up on Amazon.com; 2) Ghosts
in the Background Moving: Aldington and Imagism, eds. Daniel Kempton,
Matthew Nickel, and H. R. Stoneback (Florida English, 2013)—for copies contact
(ruffnec@scf.edu) and/or (grienej@scf.edu); 3) Aldington, Pound, and
the Imagists at Brunnenburg, eds. Daniel Kempton and H. R. Stoneback
(Gregau Press, 2012)—for copies contact the editors/conference co-directors.
Please send your title and brief abstract (c. 150
words) before the November 15th deadline to BOTH conference co-directors:
Daniel Kempton (kemptond@newpaltz.edu)
and H. R. Stoneback (stonebah@newpaltz.edu).
At the bottom of your abstract include your name, academic affiliation, and
e-mail address. Please put IRAS ALDINGTON/IMAGISM ABSTRACT in the subject line
of your e-mail. If you wish to read a poem at our opening reception program
please so indicate at the bottom of your abstract e-mail.
If you submit your abstract by the November 15
deadline, or if you indicate interest in attending the conference without
presenting a paper, you will receive circa January 1, 2014 an e-mail
announcement concerning lodging, registration, and conference updates. Please
remember to send all conference inquiries and communications to both conference
directors.
We look forward to seeing you this coming June
in Venice and the Veneto—one of the most extraordinary places in the world.
Daniel
Kempton and H. R. Stoneback
Conference
Co-Directors