Subject
A.R. Orage: liquids & labials
Date
Body
A.R. Orage who died in the 30s was the longtime editor of the British
journal NEW AGE. He was also a witty and shrewd book reviewer. I quote
from his comments on Arthur Symon's edition of an Ernest Dowson
collection.
"It is symptomatic of Dowson's state of mind ... that he was always
repeating Poe's line" 'the viol, the violet, and the vine.' A special
affection for labials and liquids is conclusive evidence of minority, not
to say infantilism; and stylists with any ambition to excel ... will be
wise to watch their "v's" and "m's" and "l's," in fact their, their
labials and liquids generally. Dowson wallowed in liquids and labials to
the end of his short life; his vocabulary never grew up, and I have no
doubt that, had he been asked to quote his own best lines, he would have
pointed, not to the notorious 'Cynara,' which was sufficiently
pretty-pretty, but to these lines, in which he came as near to Poe as
originality permits:--
Violets and leaves of vine
For Love that lives a day.
"One is essentially of the autumn,' he wrote of himself. But that is not
true, for Dowson was not ripe, but (I say it with all respect) rotten. He
remained in the cradle sucking sensations long after he should have been
out in the world creating sensations. Life never got beyond his lips."
----------------------
Nabokov takes several pot shots at the irresistable Dowson in his work.
One wonders, however, about what he had in mind (apart from lewd iconic
letter play) in this passage from THE REAL LIFE OF SEBASTIAN KNIGHT:
In SKn's farewell letter to Claire Bishop he writes:
"Life with you was lovely--and when I say lovely, I mean doves
and lilies, and velvet, and that soft pink "v" in the middle and the way your
tongue curved up to the long lingering "l." Our life together was
alliterative, and when I think of all the little things which will die.
now that we cannot share them, I feel as if we were dead too .... This is
all poetry. I am lying to you. Lily-livered"
One also wonders about "the plump, short, short bow-tied Mr. [Ronald]
Oranger," Van Veen and Ada's publisher, who marries their secretary
Violet.
---------------------
D. Barton Johnson Department of Germanic, Slavic and Semitic
Studies Phelps Hall University of California at Santa Barbara Santa
Barbara, CA 93106 Phone and Fax: (805) 687-1825 Home Phone: (805) 682-4618
journal NEW AGE. He was also a witty and shrewd book reviewer. I quote
from his comments on Arthur Symon's edition of an Ernest Dowson
collection.
"It is symptomatic of Dowson's state of mind ... that he was always
repeating Poe's line" 'the viol, the violet, and the vine.' A special
affection for labials and liquids is conclusive evidence of minority, not
to say infantilism; and stylists with any ambition to excel ... will be
wise to watch their "v's" and "m's" and "l's," in fact their, their
labials and liquids generally. Dowson wallowed in liquids and labials to
the end of his short life; his vocabulary never grew up, and I have no
doubt that, had he been asked to quote his own best lines, he would have
pointed, not to the notorious 'Cynara,' which was sufficiently
pretty-pretty, but to these lines, in which he came as near to Poe as
originality permits:--
Violets and leaves of vine
For Love that lives a day.
"One is essentially of the autumn,' he wrote of himself. But that is not
true, for Dowson was not ripe, but (I say it with all respect) rotten. He
remained in the cradle sucking sensations long after he should have been
out in the world creating sensations. Life never got beyond his lips."
----------------------
Nabokov takes several pot shots at the irresistable Dowson in his work.
One wonders, however, about what he had in mind (apart from lewd iconic
letter play) in this passage from THE REAL LIFE OF SEBASTIAN KNIGHT:
In SKn's farewell letter to Claire Bishop he writes:
"Life with you was lovely--and when I say lovely, I mean doves
and lilies, and velvet, and that soft pink "v" in the middle and the way your
tongue curved up to the long lingering "l." Our life together was
alliterative, and when I think of all the little things which will die.
now that we cannot share them, I feel as if we were dead too .... This is
all poetry. I am lying to you. Lily-livered"
One also wonders about "the plump, short, short bow-tied Mr. [Ronald]
Oranger," Van Veen and Ada's publisher, who marries their secretary
Violet.
---------------------
D. Barton Johnson Department of Germanic, Slavic and Semitic
Studies Phelps Hall University of California at Santa Barbara Santa
Barbara, CA 93106 Phone and Fax: (805) 687-1825 Home Phone: (805) 682-4618