Here's a question for Dr. Farmer: if you take CAS' poem "The Poet Speaks to the Biographers" at face value, one would assume that he was an advocate of the position taken by critics such as I. A. Richards and Post-Modernist schools like the Deconstructionists that everything one needs to appreciate a literary work may be found in the work itself, and that the facts of the author's life are irrelevant.

While I am in sympathy with Dr. Richards (Practical Criticism, along with Northrop Frye's Anatomy of Criticism, are the bedrocks of my own critical approach), there are aspects of the work of Lovecraft and M. R. James, to name two writers dear to Clark, that I believe cannot be adequately explicated without reference to their own lives. CAS wrote good things about Hervey's Allen's Israfel and a volume on Thomas Lovell Beddoes referred to in SLCAS, and he owned a number of other literary biographers as well. He also actively supported Derleth and Wandrei's efforts to preserve Lovecraft's letters, so I don't think CAS was opposed to all attempts at literary biography.

I believe that CAS' negative attitude was directed toward the school of biography that uses an author's work as an indictment of their morality, sanity, and personal cleanliness, specifically by Marie Bonaparte's Freudian biography of Poe, which was published in English in 1949, which would be about the time that CAS wrote the poem to which I previously referred. Does the Good Doctor recall if CAS was familiar with Bonaparte's book, and if so what was his opinion of it? What did CAS think of other biographers such as James Harrison and Allen?

And a Merry Christmas to all! (I plan to celebrate by reading yet again HPL's "The Festival." They say Santa uses reindeer, but we know that his cherry cheeks and red nose are due to a waxen mask, and he travels to each home on the Winter solstice using things that resemble not altogether crows, nor moles, nor buzzards, nor ants, nor vampire bats, nor decomposed human beings. So sleep soundly.... [engage: Dwight Frye as Reinfield] heh heh heh.


Scott



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 20 Dec 08 | 06:43PM by Scott Connors.

Sorry, don't have any recollection of speaking with him of those folk. He intensely wanted his work to stand alone on its own merits - rise or fall -- this was the problem I faced at a symposium on Eliot's "The Cocktail Party" in which I had played Reilly -- the panel of experts and theologians were all fussing about trying to figure out Eliot's "deep" meanings in this "comedy", and its significance in the overall history of 20th cent. literature etc., ad nauseam, ad infin. - I put it to them simply, the real issue for the writer is whether or not it works as theater -- time has made its judgment - no one does it anymore. On the whole, the type of biography done in some prefaces to reprints, first looks like "in Memoriam" and "The Sorcerer Departs", are generous (even loving) memorials, and regrets at his overall neglect by the academic world - -- Clark resented the petty psychoanalysis approach, or attempts to uncover some dark secret part of his soul hidden from the world - bluntly, he was a man - next he was a man who managed to do the thing he loved, with minimal effort put into mere physical survival - be assured he would have loved to have had great fame and wealth suddenly poured on him, but he spent not one second of his life in regret, but savored moments with friends, and savored solitude - when necessity intruded, he dealt with it (pick fruit, chop wood, went to Tsuda's market for a few groceries, picked up a small bottle of Loomis Burgundy, stopped in at the "Happy Hour" for a drink and banter with the denizens of that establishment (regulars) and walked home; he was more devoted to his parents than most, and deeply appreciated their conversation, and deeply mourned their loss -- he loved deeply, laughed (but never for conviviality or shallow repartee) when it meant something. He made utterance when he had something worth saying - I was privileged to be there often on such occasions until the last.
His true self is in his correspondence - I suggest reading that and making conclusions on one's own - He would appreciate the work Scott and Ron and a few others have done -- But again, I never heard him mention any biographers, nor am I aware of his taking time to read critical essays, and so on - Of course he was influenced by other writers, but by the time I knew him well, the "influencing" was over.

Thanks much. Negative information can be almost as valuable as positive. I can't help but think that he was aware of Bonaparte's book, maybe even ordered it from the California State Library, but was undoubtedly repelled by her attempts to diagnose Poe's alleged psychopathology from the evidence of his work.

Scott

As Dr. Johnson Said: "Nobody can write the life of a man, but those who have eat [sic] and drunk and lived in social intercourse with him." According to Boswell, a few impertinent youths once roused Johnson from sleep and asked if he would join them for drinks, and he replied something like "I'LL HAVE A ROUST WITH YOU!"
Scott, have you read "The House on the Way to Hell" in Heron-Allen's The Strange Papers of Dr. Blayre? If so you'll recall that unfinished critical works aren't deemed worthy of completion by the archivalists of the Underworld. But that might be the only way I'll ever get to read LOST WORLDS 4, apparently!

jkh

Just re-reading this Post, post-Xmas with Gchildren, and do indeed remember hearing him mention the bonaparte, but did not discuss with him, as, as that time I was not aware of it, and had other matters on my agenda - I think we were at Marilyn's house in Newcastle, and it may have come up that she had a copy, and wondered briefly about its value -
misty memory