Letters Of Literary Figures
Chris Lott

Collected letters of literary figures make fascinating reading because the nature of their artifice is wholly different than that of the author's creative work. While the poems and stories are at least twice removed from the author herself, the letter-- se lective and veiled-- is but once. While not completely a production, letters do not comprise any kind of direct insight either. The majority of authors are not likely thinking of how their letters to friends, family and business partners will be received by later generations (at least not at the beginning) but, like anyone would be, they are concerned with how they will be perceived by their recipients. The letter is a curious blend of insight into an author's life and work-- as it must be-- and how they h ope to be understood by others. Reading through the letters of Joyce, for instance, one can't help but be struck by the real-life details of his ordeal with various publishers and printers who continued to refuse to print his "obscene" work... in this case The Dubliners. The facts of this matter are well-known, but to actually read the letters of the 24 year old unpublished author as he battles to save his work intact and who is willing to scuttle the publication completely rather than make even minor chan ges brings the events to life. How many of us at that age would be strong enough to turn down this kind of opportunity even at a relatively small price? Joyce was, and I can't help but sympathize with the youthful arrogance at the close of his final lett er to the publisher where he first asks that the publisher find a printer that was "dumb from his birth" and thus couldn't raise objections and then claims that to publish the work with the revisions requested would: "… retard the course of civilisation in Ireland by preventing the Irish people from having one good look at themselves in [his] nicely polished looking glass." As if this were not enough, six years later we find him writing to no less than William Butler Yeats and mentioning the state of The Dubliners which is still unpublished: "Roberts refused to publish it and finally agreed to sell me the first edition for £30 so that I might publish it myself. Then the publisher refused to hand over the 1000 copies which he had printed either to me or to anyone else and actually broke up the type and burned the whole first edition." With other authors we learn more from the asides, postscripts and allusions than we do from any of the matters directly discussed. Lord Byron was a well-known womanizer and general scalawag, but most of his letters are, on their face, unexpectedly dull. However, close attention and some reading between the lines reveals his complicated nature. Juxtaposed with hundreds of love letters that are in turn moving, patheic, beseeching, imploring and pleading are casual toss-offs to male friends that do much to enhance his cold reputation. At one point he attaches a postscript to a long business letter to a friend about one of his major companions, a woman he ran off with , lived with, was caught with by a scheming husband and who he eventually left for another paramour after she left her husband for him: "P.S.-- As I tell you--that the Guiccioli business is on the even of exploding one way or the other … If she and her husband make it up--you will perhaps see me in England sooner than you expect--if not--I shall retire with her to France or America … All this may seem odd--but I have got the girl into a scrape ... I am in honour bound to support her through." Some time later he writes to another friend of a sordid clash he witnesses between a husband and his estranged wife and her lover in which he segues smoothly into and right back out of a personal matter that would be of some import to most: "My own amours go on very tranquilly--she plagues me less than any woman I ever met with--and I am indebted to her for the pleasantest month I can reckon this many a day.--I know you hate that sort of thing--so I will say no more about love & the like--except that in a letter from S[helley] I hear that C[laire] is about to produce a young "it and I".--By the way--what think ye?--a bookseller—a villain--an imposter--in Cheapside--publishes a set of damn things calling them mine…" Beside the obvious Freudian interpretation of mentioning such matters together, careful reading of subsequent letters shows that this little "it and I" proves to be of no small influence on Byron for the rest of his life. Taken individually and selectively, many literary letters provide quick, distinct thrills, whether it be a young D.H. Lawrence thrashing A.E. Housman: "Do you know anything of A.E. Housman? He is no poet; he can only sing the stale tale of the bankruptcy of life,-- in death … nevertheless I thank you heartily for the volume. I have now a passion for modern utterances, particularly modern verse … I enjoy feeling that I can do better; I have a wicked delight in smashing things which I think I can do better." or the letters of Mark Twain, which are predictably replete with sarcasm: "Twenty-four years ago I was strangely handsome. The remains of it are still visible through the rifts of time. I was so handsome that human activities ceased as if spellbound when I came in view, and even inanimate things stopped to look…" and wry commentary, as in this letter containing questions to a friend and critic which later became his famous diatribe on "Walter Scott's Literary Offenses": "6. Has he heroes and heroines whom the reader admires, admires and knows why? 7. Has he funny characters that are funny, and humorous passages that are humorous? … 10. Does he know how to write English and didn't do it because he didn't "want to" but which are also interspersed with letters showing aspects of Twain's personality that were not evident in his work, sensitive passages marked by family tragedy, deaths and bankruptcy that are to be found nowhere else. The real benefit of reading such letters, though, is found by reading a complete selection. Only in this way can one get a sense of the contours of a writer's life, the things hidden or obscured in the work of authors\'85 even those who we fancy we know well. The Selected Letter of Theodore Roethke was particu larly interesting for me in this regard (I recommend reading a "selected" volume to start and moving on to a "complete" volume only if you find yourself particularly fascinated). The selection begins with Roethke writing a letter to the editor of Poetry magazine, asking that she again look at some poems after she'd "coldly" rejected him earlier, and ends with letters from "Ted", the famous, Pulitzer-prize winning poet who has honorary degrees and titles and spends part of his time hobnobbing with Thomas, Cummings, Williams and many other poets of the "know-em-by-their-last-name" ilk. Throughout the volume, though, regardless of his status, Roethke wears his insecurity on his sleeve. Nearly every letter, even those to his closest friends and patrons, begins or ends with a note of apology for imposing upon them with his latest "little verses" and a request that if they are "too dreadful" to send them right back. Even towards the end of his life the intense struggle between insecurity and a growing awareness of his accomplishments seems to plague Roethke, sometimes causing him to clearly protest just a bit too much ("enough of this slobbering egomania" he asserts at least a hundred times, each utterance coming after mentioning even the slightest accomplishment). Roethke's insecurities were more than just small foibles; they were, in fact, manifestations of a more serious mental illness. Although he was treated a number of times throughout his life as an in- and out-patient at various mental health facilities, there is scant direct mention of it in most of his letters. He alludes at times to "going away for a while" and getting "treatment" and even mentions receiving shock therapy, but never discusses it directly with even his closest correspondents. However, when h e writes on behalf of Elizabeth Hudgins (one episode of many in his attempt to promote her work and secure her a spot among the Yaddo artist's colony, among other things) his passion on the subject is evident: "I've never sent that Hudgins girl her check because she is in a loony-bin at "present, in Pueblo, Colorado. My God, I've had the most heart-rending letters "from her : Would-I-come-and-sign-her-out; the-doctor's-would-listen-to-me, etc. "They've slugged her, I have no doubt, with enough electric shock to kill six oxen. "For why? She thinks in metaphor most of the time…" Only towards the end of his life does he start talking directly about his psychological difficulties, discussing them with friends such as Marianne Moore and James Wright. It is fascinating and terrifying to watch a person who has had a brilliant life as a poet slowly awaken to his own psychological composition. In addition to dramatic letters to Wright and Moore, he writes to a friend of an incident in class: " There is much, much more to be found even in this relatively small volume: Dylan's love- hate relationship with T.S. Eliot ("He hates anyone who dares to challenge God" he writes petulantly), his long-term relationship with mentor Kenneth Burke that mysteriously dies as he surpasses his teacher, the continuing battle between insecurity and the growing appreciation of his own literary place and powers… Literary letters are an often overlooked resource that are often skipped over as research material when they can be as engaging, dynamic and interesting as any more traditionally "creative" work. Suggested Reading Letters of James Joyce. Edited by Stuart Gilbert. Viking: New York, 1968. The Flesh is Frail: Byron's Letters and Journals. Edited by Leslie Marchand. Harvard UP: Cambridge, 1976. The Collected Letters of D. H. Lawrence. Edited by Harry Moore. Viking: New York, 1962. The Selected Letters of Mark Twain. Edited by Charles Neider. Harper & Row: New York, 1981. Selected Letters of Theodore Roethke. Harper & Row: New York, 1968.