John Cowper Powys
Encyclopedia
John Cowper Powys was a British
novelist and lecturer.
, in 1872, the son of the Reverend Charles Francis Powys (1843–1923), who was vicar of Montacute, Somerset for thirty-two years, and Mary Cowper Johnson, a descendent of the poet William Cowper
. He came from a family of eleven children, many of whom were also talented. His two younger brothers Llewelyn Powys
(1884–1939) and Theodore Francis Powys were well-known writers, while his sister Philippa
published a novel and some poetry. Another sister Marian Powys was an authority on lace and lace-making and published a book on this subject. His brother A. R. Powys, was Secretary of the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings, and published a number of books on architectural subjects. John studied at Sherborne School
and graduated from Corpus Christi College, Cambridge
, June 1894.
On 6 April 1896 he married Margaret Lyon. They had a son, Littleton Alfred, in 1902. The marriage was unsatisfactory and Powys eventually lived a large part of each year in the USA and had relationships with various women, before establishing a permanent common-law relationship with Phyllis Playter in the 1920s. However, he diligently supported Margaret and the education of their son. Another important woman in his life was the American poet http://www.powys-lannion.net/Powys/America/Gregg.htm Frances Gregg, whom he first met in Philadelphia in 1912. He was also a friend of the famous dancer Isadora Duncan
. Another friend and an important supporter in America was the novelist Theodore Dreiser
.
Powys's first employment was teaching in girls’ schools. He then worked as an Extension lecturer throughout England, for both Oxford and Cambridge Universities. Then in 1905 he began lecturing in the USA for The American Society for the Extension of University Teaching. He worked as an itinerant lecturer until the early 1930s, gaining a reputation as a charismatic speaker. However, he usually spent the Summer in England. During this time he travelled the length and breadth of the USA
, as well as into Canada. He engaged in public debate with the philosopher Bertrand Russell
on marriage, as well as with the philosopher and historian Will Durant
; he was also a witness in the obscenity trial of James Joyce
's novel, Ulysses
, and was mentioned with approval in the autobiography of US feminist and anarchist, Emma Goldman
. Powys would later share Goldman's support for the Spanish Revolution
.
His first published works were highly derivative collections of poetry, (" Very Hardyesque
", - was Philip Larkin
's opinion), published in the 1890s. His first novel Wood and Stone, dedicated to Thomas Hardy, was published in 1915. This was followed by a collection of literary essays Visions and Revisions in 1915 and his first full length work of popular philosophy, A Complex Vision, in 1920.
In 1921 he met Phyllis Playter, the twenty-six year old daughter of industrialist and business man Franklin Playter. Eventually they established a permanent relationship, though he was unable to divorce his wife Margaret, who was a Catholic. Margaret Powys died in 1947, and his son Littleton Alfred in 1954.
It was not until 1929, with Wolf Solent, that Powys achieved any real critical, and financial success. A Glastonbury Romance
, one of Powys’s most admired novels, published in 1932, also sold well, though he made little if any money from it because of a libel lawsuit. Another important work, Autobiography, was published in 1934. In 1929 Powys and Phyllis had moved from Greenwich Village in New York City to rural, upstate New York. Then in June 1934 John Cowper Powys and Phyllis Playter left America and moved to England, living first in Dorchester, the setting for the final Wessex novel, Maiden Castle, before eventually moving to Corwen
, North Wales
, in July 1935, with the help of the novelist James Hanley, who lived nearby. Here Powys immersed himself in Welsh literature, mythology and culture, including learning to read Welsh. The move inspired two major novels with Welsh settings, Owen Glendower
[1941] and Porius (1951). They later moved, a final time, in May 1955, to Blaenau Ffestiniog
in North Wales. John Cowper Powys died in 1963 and Phyllis Playter in 1982.
, G. Wilson Knight, George Steiner, Harald Fawkner, and Jerome McGann. Film director John Boorman
wrote in his autobiography that early in his career he contemplated making a movie based on A Glastonbury Romance
.
Powys’s first published works were collections of poems published in 1896 and 1899, but these, and three subsequent volumes in 1915, 1916 and 1923, are of minor importance. However, the Welsh poet and critic Roland Mathias thought this side of Powys worthy of critical study: The Hollowed-Out Elder Stalk: John Cowper Powys as Poet.
It was not until 1915 that he published his first novel, Wood and Stone, which was dedicated to Thomas Hardy.
While he was a famous lecturer and published a variety of both fiction and non-fiction regularly from 1915, it was not until he was in his early fifties, with the publication of Wolf Solent in 1929, that he achieved critical and financial success as a novelist. This novel was reprinted several times in both the USA and Britain. In the same year The Meaning of Culture was published and it too was frequently reprinted. In Defence of Sensuality, published at the end of the following year, was yet another best seller.
Before Wolf Solent there had been four earlier apprentice novels; Wood and Stone (1915), Rodmoor (1916), the posthumous After my Fashion (1980), which was written around 1919, and Ducdame (1925). Wolf Solent was the first of the so-called Wessex novels, which include A Glastonbury Romance (1932), Weymouth Sands (1934) and Maiden Castle.(1936). The latter is set in Dorchester, Thomas Hardy’s Casterbridge, and there are parallels with that earlier work. All the same despite his indebtedness to the Victorian novel and his enthusiasm for Hardy and Walter Scott, as well as lesser figures such as Ainsworth, Powys was clearly a modernist, with affinities also with Dostoievsky, Nietzsche, Pater, Proust, Jung, Freud, Lawrence, Joyce, Dorothy Richardson, and the T. S. Eliot. of The Waste Land.
It is clear from Powys’s diaries that his new found success was greatly helped by the stability that his relationship with Phyllis Playter gave him and her frequent advice on his work in progress.
A Glastonbury Romance sold particularly well in its British edition, though this was of little avail as it was the subject of an expensive libel case brought by Gerard Hodgkinson
, the owner of the Wookey Hole Caves, who felt himself identifiably and unfairly portrayed in the character of Philip Crow. First published in 1933 A Philosophy of Solitude was another best seller for Powys in the USA.
While Welsh mythology was already important in A Glastonbury Romance and Maiden Castle it became even more important after he and Phyllis Playter moved to Corwen, Wales in 1935. First in the minor novel Morwyn (1937). There then followed two major historical novels set in Wales, Owen Glendower [1941] and Porius (1951). The first deals with the rebellion of the Welsh Prince Owen Glendower (A.D.1400-16), while Porius takes place in the time of the mythic King Arthur (A.D. 499). However, Arthur is a minor character compared with the Welsh Prince Porius, and the King’s magician Myrddin (Merlin). In both works, but especially Porius, Powys makes use of the mythology found in the Welsh classic The Mabinogion. Just as the landscape of Dorset and Somerset, and the characters deep personal relationships with it, had been of great importance in the great Wessex novels, so the landscape of Wales, especially that of the Corwen region, became now of equal significance.
The landscape and the intimate relationship that characters have with the elements, including the sky, wind, plants, animals, insects, etc., is of great significance in all Powys’s works. This is linked to another major influence on Powys, Romanticism, especially William Wordsworth
, and writers influenced by Wordsworth, such as Walter Pater. Powys was also an admirer of Goethe and Rousseau. Words such as mysticism and pantheist are sometimes used in discussing Powys’s attitude to nature, but what he is concerned with is an ecstatic response to the natural world, epiphanies such as Wordsworth describes in his "Ode: Intimations of Immortality" – with an important difference, because Powys believes that the ecstasy of the young child can be retained by any adult who actively cultivates the power of the imagination. Some have compared this to zen and such contemplative practices and for Powys, and the protagonists of his novels who usually resemble him, the cultivation of a psycho-sensuous philosophy is as important as the Christian religion was for an earlier generation.
Porius is, in some eyes, the crowning achievement of Powys’s maturity but others are repelled by its obscurity. It was originally severely cut for publication but in recent years two attempts have been made to recreate Powys’s original intent.
The novels that followed Porius are more minor in scale and an element of fantasy is a special characteristic of them. In Atlantis even the inanimate world is allowed to speak. Some of the very last works would presumably not have been published if submitted by an unknown writer, though even they have their champions.
One of Powys’s most important works, his Autobiography, was published in 1934. While he sets out to be totally frank about himself, and especially his sexual peculiarities and perversions, he largely excludes any substantial discussion of the women in his life. The reason for this is now much clearer because we now know that it was written while he was still married to Margaret, though he was living in a common-law relationship with Phyllis Playter.
Periodically, over almost 50 years, starting with Confessions of Two Brothers in 1916, Powys wrote works that present his personal philosophy of life. These are not works of philosophy in the academic sense and in a bookstore the appropriate section might be self-help. Powys describes A Philosophy of Solitude (1933) as, a "short textbook of the various mental tricks by which the human soul can obtain ... comparative happiness beneath the normal burden of human fate" (7). It might seem that Powys’s various works of popular philosophy were mere potboilers, written to help their finances while he was working on his novels, but critics like Denis Lane, Harald Fawkner and Janina Nordius believe that they give insight into "the intellectual structures that form the metastructures of the great novels".
Taking advantage of his reputation as an itinerant lecturer, Powys published in 1915 a collection of literary essays, Visions and Revisions. In the next forty years he published a couple of similar works, as well as three studies of writers, Dorothy Richardson (1931), Dostoivesky (1947), and Rabelais (1948), respectively. While not especially profound or original in their insights, they are full of the author’s infectious enthusiasm for literature. There is also a work on John Keats, part of which was published posthumously and Powys was working on a study of Aristophanes in his later years.
John Cowper Powys was a prolific writer of letters, many of which have been published, and kept a diary from 1929, some of which has also been published. Among his correspondents were the novelists Theodore Dreiser, James Purdy, James Hanley, Henry Miller and Dorothy Richardson, but he also replied to the many ordinary admirers who wrote to him.
One repeated theme in Powys' work is condemnation of animal cruelty, especially vivisection
. As a result, some writers have claimed he anticipated the modern animal rights
movement. This included not surprisingly opposition to fox-hunting. Powys was also a vegetarian, but probably more for dietary than ideological reasons.
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
novelist and lecturer.
Biography
Powys was born in Shirley, DerbyshireShirley, Derbyshire
Shirley is a small village in Derbyshire, close to the town of Ashbourne. It is situated in the countryside on top of a small hill.-History:Shirley was mentioned in the Domesday book as belonging to Henry de Ferrers and being worth forty shillings.....
, in 1872, the son of the Reverend Charles Francis Powys (1843–1923), who was vicar of Montacute, Somerset for thirty-two years, and Mary Cowper Johnson, a descendent of the poet William Cowper
William Cowper
William Cowper was an English poet and hymnodist. One of the most popular poets of his time, Cowper changed the direction of 18th century nature poetry by writing of everyday life and scenes of the English countryside. In many ways, he was one of the forerunners of Romantic poetry...
. He came from a family of eleven children, many of whom were also talented. His two younger brothers Llewelyn Powys
Llewelyn Powys
Llewelyn Powys was a British writer and younger brother of John Cowper Powys and T. F. Powys.-Life:Powys was born in Dorchester, the son of a clergyman, and was educated at Sherborne School and Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. While lecturing in the United States he contracted tuberculosis...
(1884–1939) and Theodore Francis Powys were well-known writers, while his sister Philippa
Philippa Powys
Catharine Edith Philippa Powys , a novelist and poet, belonged to one of the most distinguished families in modern literature.-Family:Among her brothers were the novelists John Cowper Powys and Theodore Francis Powys and the essayist Llewelyn Powys as well as Littleton Charles Powys , headmaster...
published a novel and some poetry. Another sister Marian Powys was an authority on lace and lace-making and published a book on this subject. His brother A. R. Powys, was Secretary of the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings, and published a number of books on architectural subjects. John studied at Sherborne School
Sherborne School
Sherborne School is a British independent school for boys, located in the town of Sherborne in north-west Dorset, England. It is one of the original member schools of the Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference....
and graduated from Corpus Christi College, Cambridge
Corpus Christi College, Cambridge
Corpus Christi College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. It is notable as the only college founded by Cambridge townspeople: it was established in 1352 by the Guilds of Corpus Christi and the Blessed Virgin Mary...
, June 1894.
On 6 April 1896 he married Margaret Lyon. They had a son, Littleton Alfred, in 1902. The marriage was unsatisfactory and Powys eventually lived a large part of each year in the USA and had relationships with various women, before establishing a permanent common-law relationship with Phyllis Playter in the 1920s. However, he diligently supported Margaret and the education of their son. Another important woman in his life was the American poet http://www.powys-lannion.net/Powys/America/Gregg.htm Frances Gregg, whom he first met in Philadelphia in 1912. He was also a friend of the famous dancer Isadora Duncan
Isadora Duncan
Isadora Duncan was a dancer, considered by many to be the creator of modern dance. Born in the United States, she lived in Western Europe and the Soviet Union from the age of 22 until her death at age 50. In the United States she was popular only in New York, and only later in her life...
. Another friend and an important supporter in America was the novelist Theodore Dreiser
Theodore Dreiser
Theodore Herman Albert Dreiser was an American novelist and journalist of the naturalist school. His novels often featured main characters who succeeded at their objectives despite a lack of a firm moral code, and literary situations that more closely resemble studies of nature than tales of...
.
Powys's first employment was teaching in girls’ schools. He then worked as an Extension lecturer throughout England, for both Oxford and Cambridge Universities. Then in 1905 he began lecturing in the USA for The American Society for the Extension of University Teaching. He worked as an itinerant lecturer until the early 1930s, gaining a reputation as a charismatic speaker. However, he usually spent the Summer in England. During this time he travelled the length and breadth of the USA
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, as well as into Canada. He engaged in public debate with the philosopher Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, OM, FRS was a British philosopher, logician, mathematician, historian, and social critic. At various points in his life he considered himself a liberal, a socialist, and a pacifist, but he also admitted that he had never been any of these things...
on marriage, as well as with the philosopher and historian Will Durant
Will Durant
William James Durant was a prolific American writer, historian, and philosopher. He is best known for The Story of Civilization, 11 volumes written in collaboration with his wife Ariel Durant and published between 1935 and 1975...
; he was also a witness in the obscenity trial of James Joyce
James Joyce
James Augustine Aloysius Joyce was an Irish novelist and poet, considered to be one of the most influential writers in the modernist avant-garde of the early 20th century...
's novel, Ulysses
Ulysses (novel)
Ulysses is a novel by the Irish author James Joyce. It was first serialised in parts in the American journal The Little Review from March 1918 to December 1920, and then published in its entirety by Sylvia Beach on 2 February 1922, in Paris. One of the most important works of Modernist literature,...
, and was mentioned with approval in the autobiography of US feminist and anarchist, Emma Goldman
Emma Goldman
Emma Goldman was an anarchist known for her political activism, writing and speeches. She played a pivotal role in the development of anarchist political philosophy in North America and Europe in the first half of the twentieth century....
. Powys would later share Goldman's support for the Spanish Revolution
Spanish Revolution
The Spanish Revolution was a workers' social revolution that began during the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in 1936 and resulted in the widespread implementation of anarchist and more broadly libertarian socialist organizational principles throughout various portions of the country for two to...
.
His first published works were highly derivative collections of poetry, (" Very Hardyesque
Thomas Hardy
Thomas Hardy, OM was an English novelist and poet. While his works typically belong to the Naturalism movement, several poems display elements of the previous Romantic and Enlightenment periods of literature, such as his fascination with the supernatural.While he regarded himself primarily as a...
", - was Philip Larkin
Philip Larkin
Philip Arthur Larkin, CH, CBE, FRSL is widely regarded as one of the great English poets of the latter half of the twentieth century...
's opinion), published in the 1890s. His first novel Wood and Stone, dedicated to Thomas Hardy, was published in 1915. This was followed by a collection of literary essays Visions and Revisions in 1915 and his first full length work of popular philosophy, A Complex Vision, in 1920.
In 1921 he met Phyllis Playter, the twenty-six year old daughter of industrialist and business man Franklin Playter. Eventually they established a permanent relationship, though he was unable to divorce his wife Margaret, who was a Catholic. Margaret Powys died in 1947, and his son Littleton Alfred in 1954.
It was not until 1929, with Wolf Solent, that Powys achieved any real critical, and financial success. A Glastonbury Romance
A Glastonbury Romance
A Glastonbury Romance is a novel by John Cowper Powys, published in 1932. Usually considered Powys' most famous work, the novel is part of his "Wessex Novels," also including Wolf Solent, Maiden Castle, and Weymouth Sands...
, one of Powys’s most admired novels, published in 1932, also sold well, though he made little if any money from it because of a libel lawsuit. Another important work, Autobiography, was published in 1934. In 1929 Powys and Phyllis had moved from Greenwich Village in New York City to rural, upstate New York. Then in June 1934 John Cowper Powys and Phyllis Playter left America and moved to England, living first in Dorchester, the setting for the final Wessex novel, Maiden Castle, before eventually moving to Corwen
Corwen
Corwen is a town and community in the county of Denbighshire in Wales; it was previously part of the county of Meirionnydd). Corwen stands on the banks of the River Dee beneath the Berwyn mountains. The town is situated west of Llangollen and south of Ruthin...
, North Wales
North Wales
North Wales is the northernmost unofficial region of Wales. It is bordered to the south by the counties of Ceredigion and Powys in Mid Wales and to the east by the counties of Shropshire in the West Midlands and Cheshire in North West England...
, in July 1935, with the help of the novelist James Hanley, who lived nearby. Here Powys immersed himself in Welsh literature, mythology and culture, including learning to read Welsh. The move inspired two major novels with Welsh settings, Owen Glendower
Owen Glendower (novel)
Owen Glendower is a historical novel by John Cowper Powys, first published in 1940.-Plot introduction:The book tells the story of the rebellion of Owain Glyndŵr, as seen through the eyes of his young relation, Rhisiart ab Owen of Hereford...
[1941] and Porius (1951). They later moved, a final time, in May 1955, to Blaenau Ffestiniog
Blaenau Ffestiniog
Blaenau Ffestiniog is a town in Gwynedd, north-west Wales. It has a population of 5,000, including Llan Ffestiniog, which makes it the third largest town in Gwynedd, behind Caernarfon & Porthmadog. Although the population reached 12,000 at the peak of the slate industry, the population fell due to...
in North Wales. John Cowper Powys died in 1963 and Phyllis Playter in 1982.
Works
Cowper Powys is a somewhat controversial "writer who evokes both massive contempt and near idolatry". Thus while Walter Allen in Tradition and Dream recognizes Powys's genius, he is dissatisfied with what Powys has done with it, seeing Powys’s approach to the novel, as "so alien to the temper of the age as to be impossible for many people to take seriously". Annie Dillard, however, views things quite differently: "John Cowper Powys is a powerful genius, whose novels stir us deeply". What, however, is noteworthy is that consistently throughout his career he gained the admiration of major novelists, including Theodore Dreiser, Henry Miller, Iris Murdoch, Margaret Drabble, and James Purdy, as well as some academic critics, including George PainterGeorge Painter
George Duncan Painter, OBE known as George D. Painter, was an English author most famous as a biographer of Marcel Proust....
, G. Wilson Knight, George Steiner, Harald Fawkner, and Jerome McGann. Film director John Boorman
John Boorman
John Boorman is a British filmmaker who is a long time resident of Ireland and is best known for his feature films such as Point Blank, Deliverance, Zardoz, Excalibur, The Emerald Forest, Hope and Glory, The General and The Tailor of Panama.-Early life:Boorman was born in Shepperton, Surrey,...
wrote in his autobiography that early in his career he contemplated making a movie based on A Glastonbury Romance
A Glastonbury Romance
A Glastonbury Romance is a novel by John Cowper Powys, published in 1932. Usually considered Powys' most famous work, the novel is part of his "Wessex Novels," also including Wolf Solent, Maiden Castle, and Weymouth Sands...
.
Powys’s first published works were collections of poems published in 1896 and 1899, but these, and three subsequent volumes in 1915, 1916 and 1923, are of minor importance. However, the Welsh poet and critic Roland Mathias thought this side of Powys worthy of critical study: The Hollowed-Out Elder Stalk: John Cowper Powys as Poet.
It was not until 1915 that he published his first novel, Wood and Stone, which was dedicated to Thomas Hardy.
While he was a famous lecturer and published a variety of both fiction and non-fiction regularly from 1915, it was not until he was in his early fifties, with the publication of Wolf Solent in 1929, that he achieved critical and financial success as a novelist. This novel was reprinted several times in both the USA and Britain. In the same year The Meaning of Culture was published and it too was frequently reprinted. In Defence of Sensuality, published at the end of the following year, was yet another best seller.
Before Wolf Solent there had been four earlier apprentice novels; Wood and Stone (1915), Rodmoor (1916), the posthumous After my Fashion (1980), which was written around 1919, and Ducdame (1925). Wolf Solent was the first of the so-called Wessex novels, which include A Glastonbury Romance (1932), Weymouth Sands (1934) and Maiden Castle.(1936). The latter is set in Dorchester, Thomas Hardy’s Casterbridge, and there are parallels with that earlier work. All the same despite his indebtedness to the Victorian novel and his enthusiasm for Hardy and Walter Scott, as well as lesser figures such as Ainsworth, Powys was clearly a modernist, with affinities also with Dostoievsky, Nietzsche, Pater, Proust, Jung, Freud, Lawrence, Joyce, Dorothy Richardson, and the T. S. Eliot. of The Waste Land.
It is clear from Powys’s diaries that his new found success was greatly helped by the stability that his relationship with Phyllis Playter gave him and her frequent advice on his work in progress.
A Glastonbury Romance sold particularly well in its British edition, though this was of little avail as it was the subject of an expensive libel case brought by Gerard Hodgkinson
Gerard Hodgkinson
Gerard William Hodgkinson OBE, MC played first-class cricket for Somerset between 1904 and 1911. He was born at Clifton, Bristol and died at Wookey Hole, Somerset...
, the owner of the Wookey Hole Caves, who felt himself identifiably and unfairly portrayed in the character of Philip Crow. First published in 1933 A Philosophy of Solitude was another best seller for Powys in the USA.
While Welsh mythology was already important in A Glastonbury Romance and Maiden Castle it became even more important after he and Phyllis Playter moved to Corwen, Wales in 1935. First in the minor novel Morwyn (1937). There then followed two major historical novels set in Wales, Owen Glendower [1941] and Porius (1951). The first deals with the rebellion of the Welsh Prince Owen Glendower (A.D.1400-16), while Porius takes place in the time of the mythic King Arthur (A.D. 499). However, Arthur is a minor character compared with the Welsh Prince Porius, and the King’s magician Myrddin (Merlin). In both works, but especially Porius, Powys makes use of the mythology found in the Welsh classic The Mabinogion. Just as the landscape of Dorset and Somerset, and the characters deep personal relationships with it, had been of great importance in the great Wessex novels, so the landscape of Wales, especially that of the Corwen region, became now of equal significance.
The landscape and the intimate relationship that characters have with the elements, including the sky, wind, plants, animals, insects, etc., is of great significance in all Powys’s works. This is linked to another major influence on Powys, Romanticism, especially William Wordsworth
William Wordsworth
William Wordsworth was a major English Romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch the Romantic Age in English literature with the 1798 joint publication Lyrical Ballads....
, and writers influenced by Wordsworth, such as Walter Pater. Powys was also an admirer of Goethe and Rousseau. Words such as mysticism and pantheist are sometimes used in discussing Powys’s attitude to nature, but what he is concerned with is an ecstatic response to the natural world, epiphanies such as Wordsworth describes in his "Ode: Intimations of Immortality" – with an important difference, because Powys believes that the ecstasy of the young child can be retained by any adult who actively cultivates the power of the imagination. Some have compared this to zen and such contemplative practices and for Powys, and the protagonists of his novels who usually resemble him, the cultivation of a psycho-sensuous philosophy is as important as the Christian religion was for an earlier generation.
Porius is, in some eyes, the crowning achievement of Powys’s maturity but others are repelled by its obscurity. It was originally severely cut for publication but in recent years two attempts have been made to recreate Powys’s original intent.
The novels that followed Porius are more minor in scale and an element of fantasy is a special characteristic of them. In Atlantis even the inanimate world is allowed to speak. Some of the very last works would presumably not have been published if submitted by an unknown writer, though even they have their champions.
One of Powys’s most important works, his Autobiography, was published in 1934. While he sets out to be totally frank about himself, and especially his sexual peculiarities and perversions, he largely excludes any substantial discussion of the women in his life. The reason for this is now much clearer because we now know that it was written while he was still married to Margaret, though he was living in a common-law relationship with Phyllis Playter.
Periodically, over almost 50 years, starting with Confessions of Two Brothers in 1916, Powys wrote works that present his personal philosophy of life. These are not works of philosophy in the academic sense and in a bookstore the appropriate section might be self-help. Powys describes A Philosophy of Solitude (1933) as, a "short textbook of the various mental tricks by which the human soul can obtain ... comparative happiness beneath the normal burden of human fate" (7). It might seem that Powys’s various works of popular philosophy were mere potboilers, written to help their finances while he was working on his novels, but critics like Denis Lane, Harald Fawkner and Janina Nordius believe that they give insight into "the intellectual structures that form the metastructures of the great novels".
Taking advantage of his reputation as an itinerant lecturer, Powys published in 1915 a collection of literary essays, Visions and Revisions. In the next forty years he published a couple of similar works, as well as three studies of writers, Dorothy Richardson (1931), Dostoivesky (1947), and Rabelais (1948), respectively. While not especially profound or original in their insights, they are full of the author’s infectious enthusiasm for literature. There is also a work on John Keats, part of which was published posthumously and Powys was working on a study of Aristophanes in his later years.
John Cowper Powys was a prolific writer of letters, many of which have been published, and kept a diary from 1929, some of which has also been published. Among his correspondents were the novelists Theodore Dreiser, James Purdy, James Hanley, Henry Miller and Dorothy Richardson, but he also replied to the many ordinary admirers who wrote to him.
One repeated theme in Powys' work is condemnation of animal cruelty, especially vivisection
Vivisection
Vivisection is defined as surgery conducted for experimental purposes on a living organism, typically animals with a central nervous system, to view living internal structure...
. As a result, some writers have claimed he anticipated the modern animal rights
Animal rights
Animal rights, also known as animal liberation, is the idea that the most basic interests of non-human animals should be afforded the same consideration as the similar interests of human beings...
movement. This included not surprisingly opposition to fox-hunting. Powys was also a vegetarian, but probably more for dietary than ideological reasons.
External links
- British Powys Society
- "The Powys Review" Collection of critical articles and other material, Belinda Humfrey (Ed)
- http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=mediatype%3A(texts)%20-contributor%3Agutenberg%20AND%20(subject%3A%22Powys%2C%20John%20Cowper%2C%201872-1963%22%20OR%20subject%3A%22Powys%2C%20J%2E%20C%2E%20%28John%20Cowper%29%2C%201872-1963%22%20OR%20subject%3A%22Powys%2C%20John%20C%2E%20%28John%20Cowper%29%2C%201872-1963%22%20OR%20subject%3A%22Powys%2C%20John%20Cowper%22%20OR%20subject%3A%22Powys%2C%20J%2E%20C%2E%20%28John%20Cowper%29%22%20OR%20subject%3A%22Powys%2C%20John%20C%2E%20%28John%20Cowper%29%22%20OR%20subject%3A%22John%20Cowper%20Powys%22%20OR%20subject%3A%22John%20C%2E%20Powys%22%20OR%20subject%3A%22J%2E%20C%2E%20Powys%22%20OR%20creator%3A%22Powys%2C%20John%20Cowper%2C%201872-1963%22%20OR%20creator%3A%22Powys%2C%20John%20Cowper%2C%20Sir%2C%201872-1963%22%20OR%20creator%3A%22Powys%2C%20J%2E%20C%2E%20%28John%20Cowper%29%2C%201872-1963%22%20OR%20creator%3A%22Powys%2C%20John%20C%2E%20%28John%20Cowper%29%2C%201872-1963%22%20OR%20creator%3A%22Powys%2C%20John%20Cowper%22%20OR%20creator%3A%22Powys%2C%20J%2E%20C%2E%20%28John%20Cowper%29%22%20OR%20creator%3A%22Powys%2C%20John%20C%2E%20%28John%20Cowper%29%22%20OR%20creator%3A%22John%20Cowper%20Powys%22%20OR%20creator%3A%22John%20C%2E%20Powys%22%20OR%20creator%3A%22J%2E%20C%2E%20Powys%22%20OR%20title%3A%22John%20Cowper%20Powys%22%20OR%20title%3A%22John%20C%2E%20Powys%22%20OR%20title%3A%22J%2E%20C%2E%20Powys%22%20OR%20description%3A%22John%20Cowper%20Powys%22%20OR%20description%3A%22John%20C%2E%20Powys%22%20OR%20description%3A%22J%2E%20C%2E%20Powys%22%20OR%20description%3A%22Powys%2C%20John%20Cowper%22%20OR%20description%3A%22Powys%2C%20J%2E%20C%2E%20%28John%20Cowper%29%22%20OR%20description%3A%22Powys%2C%20John%20C%2E%20%28John%20Cowper%29%22)Works by or about John Cowper Powys] at Internet ArchiveInternet ArchiveThe Internet Archive is a non-profit digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It offers permanent storage and access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, music, moving images, and nearly 3 million public domain books. The Internet Archive...
and Google Books (scanned books original editions) - "The facts and fictions of John Cowper Powys", review of Morine Krissdottir's biography and "Porius", TLSThe Times Literary SupplementThe Times Literary Supplement is a weekly literary review published in London by News International, a subsidiary of News Corporation.-History:...
, Margaret Drabble, November 14, 2007 - "The Powys connection", : review of The Powys Journal, Vol. 18, TLSThe Times Literary SupplementThe Times Literary Supplement is a weekly literary review published in London by News International, a subsidiary of News Corporation.-History:...
, P. J. Carnehan , October 31, 2008 - Bilingual French/English Powys Site
- Swedish John Cowper Powys Society
- A Guardian article Aug. 2006 by Margaret Drabble: Overview of works and career on Powys
- A review by A.N. Wilson of Powys’ Porius
- John Cowper Powys in Sussex