Dec 14 1938Enclosure – Rough draft of letter to Desmond Flower from RG
PublicPage from Robert Graves diary manuscript. The diary includes 1,546 pages with 117 enclosures: letters, clippings, photographs post cards, notes, games.
- In Collection:
- 1 page : 12 x 19.5 cm or smaller
- The diary is written on quarto sheets, folded horizontally to form octavo booklets, one recto page devoted to each day.
- Robert Graves Diary, 1935-1939
- Accession Number: 1969-003, Item: Gr-1-1398
- Robert Graves Diary project URL: http://graves.uvic.ca/diary_1938-12-17_01_enc.html
- Special Collection finding aid: https://uvic2.coppul.archivematica.org/robert-graves-collection
- July 19, 2002
- Enclosure – Rough draft of letter to Desmond Flower from RG La Chevrie par Boisgervilly I-et-V France Dec 14 1938 Dear Desmond Flower, Laura Riding is not very well at the moment and since she wishes your letter to be answered promptly has asked me to answer it for her; and I have some things to say myself at the end. She says that she is sorry that her letter put you in a mood to write as you did: there was nothing in her letter or in her feelings as she wrote it to earn a sarcastic answer. She regarded it as reasonable that she should pay any extra advertising expenses not covered by the usual allowance for a book of poems, and did not expect you to take it amiss that an author should take such an active interest in the sale of her books [I am myself lazy in this respect, I confess.] As for New Verse she would not have described it as a scurrilous rag to you had she thought that you would not have instantly agreed – in respect of the scurrilities it has contained against Michael Roberts, Edith Sitwell and others besides herself. Why she suggested that Grigson should be sent a copy for a testimonial was that he had been blowing hot & cold about her work and she wished him to commit himself definitely: a vulgar insult from Grigson carries negative weight among the decent-minded. [I may add that she should have been put in the because a few months a year or so before he had successfully grovelled to her when a charge was pending against him for publishing sending her publishing an obscene libel] which would have cost him his job at the Morning Post ] she had let him off] As for 'significant artist.' You quote the Norton Oxford English Dictionary for an abridgement in explanation. The Oxford English Dictionary is not a dictionary so much as a corpus of precedents in the: current, obsolete, cant, cataphretic and nonce-words are all included. It is The expressed view th of the Editors is that 'words cannot be put into strait-waistcoats.' and If you consult a desk much shorter phone table dictionary which makes rather considerably more effort than the abridged Oxford English Dictionary to define distinguish the current meanings of words — Cassells Messrs Cassell's dictionary for example for examp — you will find no encouragement given to 'artist' except as applied to the one who practices a fine-arts or a manual craft, or to who gives theatrical performances. The phrase significant artist' Nothing is said there about poetry. A poet is a poet; an artist is an artist; and though I have a musician is a musician (not either an artist or a poet.) ....You fence; if you are fence a good fencer the well you would surely prefer to regard yourself as a good swordsman rather than as an artist with the foils? You enjoy bull-fights — Bull-fighters have the same (the real ones) — not the Barreras and Carniceritos) prefer to be toreros to rather than artistas . As for 'sigficant' — 'significant' when this adjective means pointing to cannot govern governs a noun means that it is so absolutely unless the thing of of which the noun is a sign is it implies some a reference is either expressed explicit or implicit. e.g. A look look significant of Fascism. certain hate the dislike she felt for him or: A significant look (one implying that the things not said) wrong discretion must be observed) A What a significant artist is supposed to be significant of I bet you couldn't tell me offhand; though there is a historical historical explanation of the phrase. is nobody knows: the phrase attached to the phrase. In its cant use it dates from about 1910-1912 when in (in the English Weekly Review , Chicago Poetry & similar journals) it meant implied that there was an artistic a literary renascence on the way, the spirit of which was to be artistic not rather than literary. This renascence, as you will recall, never really came off. It's a pity that when we met in London you neither you nor your wife gave and so the phrase was left high & dry. ¶ I don't know why you should have this taken this crack against my ' modesty: ' vanity nobody likes to be called names. by the his publishers friends or publishers which is no doubt what you mean by my 'modesty'; it is only that I prefer not to be incorrectly labelled in advertisements. I hope that you have no secret literary affiliations that Most writers write compose their own blurbs & I shall should hate people to think that the phrase was my testimony choice. With best wishes to Mrs Flower & yourself Yours sincerely RG a reference is either explicit or implicit. eg. a look significant of dislike she felt for him a loo significant look (one implying things not said) But 'significant' is applied to actions and words, not to persons. What the cant odd phrase 'significant artist' is supposed to be means or meant I don't think that you could tell me is , could can only be fully explained even by the Oxford English Dictionary by a learned historical note: that in 1910 a literary renascence was thought to be on the way, the spirit of which was to be artistic rather than literary. This renascence never came was never acknowledged as having arrived but frequent the works of several writers were held in the years 1910-15 to be significant of its imminent approach e.g. those of J. Masefield, E.M. Forster, James Douglas Ford Madox Hueffer, Wyndham Lewis, James Joyce, Virginia Woolf. The phrase, by the 1920s nineteen twenties, had been left high & dry except in Paris and Australia. (I have looked at just consulted the Big unabridged Oxford English Dictionary including the Supplement and they have omitted the phrase and and the ed which we have here and find that they have it has no report of this usual period usage: we We keep a list of such must add it to the list we are compiling of Oxford English Dictionary omissions as we come across them a good many in the course of the work on the Dictionary of Exact Definitions which L.R. is now editing for Dent & Little Browne , and shall add this for your sake to it, to send to Oxford in due course But I do not know why my questioning of the phrase as applied to myself should have elicited this sarcasm from you about my modesty. Nobody I should have thought that you would have understood my point take expected you as a non-dictatorial publisher, to considered my objection as one of your authors as coming from that of as an author of serious standards authors write their own blurbs and it might seem that the phrase was my own. less flippantly as an author a scrupulous author in a less less flippantly. way – especially since most as one of authors, in a more friendly way; and since our relations hitherto have been of the friendliest and that both Both Laura Riding & I have have had a warm feeling of personal liking for your work & yourself When we met you in London & have been extremely grateful to you for the great trouble you have taken to make the each ofour Collected Poems a really handsome books. If there is Has some concealed subsequent animosity or resentment that >has prompted you to write in this sarcastic strain? way? Please let it be this ventilated appear clearly: to We hope not. make us all feel better and Please do your best to clarify the situation which I, for one, find rather distressing most uncomfortable Yours sincerely.
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