Edith Sitwell
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Born | Edith Louisa Sitwell 7 September 1887 Scarborough, North Riding of Yorkshire, England |
Died | 9 December 1964 London, England | (aged 77)
Occupation | Poet |
Nationality | British |
Parents | George Sitwell Lady Ida Denison |
Relatives | Osbert Sitwell and Sacheverell Sitwell (brothers) |
Dame Edith Louisa Sitwell
Sitwell published poetry continuously from 1913, some of it abstract and set to music. With her dramatic style and exotic costumes, she was sometimes labelled a poseur, but her work was praised for its solid technique and painstaking craftsmanship. She was a recipient of the Benson Medal of the Royal Society of Literature.
Early life
This section needs additional citations for verification. (April 2016) |
Edith Louisa Sitwell was born in
Sitwell had two younger brothers, Osbert (1892–1969) and Sacheverell (1897–1988), both distinguished authors, well-known literary figures in their own right, and long-term collaborators. She described her childhood as "extremely unhappy" and said her mother had "terrible rages" while she rarely saw her father.[2] Her relationship with her parents was stormy at best, not least because her father made her undertake a "cure" for her supposed spinal deformation, involving locking her into an iron frame. She wrote in her autobiography that her parents had always been strangers to her.
Whilst in Scarborough the Sitwell family lived in Wood End, a marine villa bought by Lady Louisa Sitwell in 1879 to which she added a double height conservatory filled with tropical plants and birds which Edith mentioned in her autobiography.[3] Although Edith's relationship with Scarborough was not always a happy one, references to the seaside environment often occur in her work, particularly Facade.[4]
Adult life
In 1914, 26-year-old Sitwell moved to a small, shabby flat in Pembridge Mansions, Bayswater, which she shared with Helen Rootham (1875–1938), her governess since 1903.
Sitwell never married, but seems to have fallen in love with a number of unavailable men over the course of her life. Around 1914, she developed a passion for the Chilean artist and boxer Álvaro de Guevara, whom her biographer Richard Greene describes as "thuggish".[5] Violent, unstable and addicted to opium, Guevara eventually became involved with the poet and socialite Nancy Cunard, whom Sitwell subsequently "never lost an opportunity to speak ill of".[6]
After meeting the poet
In 1927, Sitwell fell in love with the gay Russian painter Pavel Tchelitchew. They developed a close friendship, with Sitwell regularly helping him financially and publicising his work. However, she was often hurt by his unpredictable temper and seeming lack of appreciation for her efforts on his behalf, and Greene suggests that Tchelitchew "toyed with her expectations" of romance when he wanted something from her, growing more distant again when he got what he wanted.[11] Nevertheless, the relationship lasted until his death 30 years later. In 1928, Helen Rootham had surgery for cancer; she eventually became an invalid. In 1932, Rootham and Sitwell moved to Paris, where they lived with Rootham's younger sister, Evelyn Wiel.
In 1930, Sitwell published a study of the poet
Sitwell's mother died in 1937. Sitwell did not attend the funeral because of her displeasure with her parents during her childhood. Helen Rootham died of
The poems she wrote during the war brought her back before the public. They include Street Songs (1942), The Song of the Cold (1945), and The Shadow of Cain (1947), all of which were much praised. "Still Falls the Rain", about the
In 1943, her father died in Switzerland, his wealth depleted. In 1948, a reunion with Tchelitchew, whom she had not seen since before the war, went badly. In 1948 Sitwell toured the United States with her brothers, reciting her poetry and, notoriously, giving a reading of
Tchelitchew died in July 1957. Her brother Osbert died in 1969, of
Sitwell wrote two books about Queen
Sitwell was the subject of
From 1961 until shortly before her death, Sitwell lived in a flat in Hampstead in London, which is now marked with an English Heritage blue plaque.[14]
Last years and death
In about 1957, Sitwell began using a wheelchair, after lifelong joint problems now thought to be caused by Marfan syndrome.[citation needed] In 1959, Sitwell was interviewed by John Freeman, about her life and work, on the BBC television series Face to Face.[15] Sitwell was one of only two women to be interviewed during this first iteration of the series; the other being French actress Simone Signoret.
Her last poetry reading was in 1962. In the following year she was awarded the title of Companion of Literature by the Royal Society of Literature (the first woman to be so honoured).[16] She died at St Thomas' Hospital, Lambeth, London, on 9 December 1964 at the age of 77.[17] She is buried in the churchyard of the parish church of Saints Mary and Peter in Weedon Lois, Northamptonshire.[18]
Sitwell's papers are held at the
Poetry
Sitwell published her first poem The Drowned Suns in the Daily Mirror in 1913, and between 1916 and 1921 she edited Wheels, an annual poetic anthology compiled with her brothers—a literary collaboration generally called "the Sitwells".
In 1929, she published Gold Coast Customs, a poem about the artificiality of human behaviour and the barbarism that lies beneath the surface. The poem was written in the rhythms of the
She became a proponent and supporter of innovative trends in English poetry and opposed what she considered the conventionality of many contemporary backward-looking poets. Her flat became a meeting place for young writers whom she wished to befriend and help: these later included Dylan Thomas and Denton Welch. One of her editors at Duckworth Books was Anthony Powell, who dedicated his novel What's Become of Waring to her. [19] She also helped to publish the poetry of Wilfred Owen after his death.
Sitwell's only novel, I Live Under a Black Sun, based on the life of Jonathan Swift, was published in 1937.
Publicity and controversy
Sitwell had angular features resembling Queen Elizabeth I and she stood six feet tall. She often dressed in an unusual manner with gowns of brocade or velvet, with gold turbans and many rings; her jewellery is now in the jewellery galleries of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. Her unusual appearance provoked critics almost as much as her verse, and she was the subject of virulent personal attacks from Geoffrey Grigson, F. R. Leavis, and others. She gave as good as she got, describing Leavis as "a tiresome, whining, pettyfogging little pipsqueak".[20]
Sitwell treated her enemies with scorn.
Sitwell explored the distinction between poetry and music in
Publications
Poetry collections
Sitwell's poetry collections are:[24]
- Mother and Other Poems (1915)
- Clowns' Houses (1918)
- The Wooden Pegasus (1920)
- Façade (1922)
- Bucolic Comedies (1923)
- The Sleeping Beauty (1924)
- Troy Park (1925)
- Rustic Elegies (1927)
- Gold Coast Customs (1929)
- Collected Poems (1930)
- Five Variations on a Theme (1933)
- Poems New and Old (London: Faber & Faber, 1940)
- Street Songs (1942)
- Green Song and Other Poems (1944)
- The Song of the Cold (1945)
- The Shadow of Cain (1947)
- The Canticle of the Rose: Selected Poems 1920–1947 (1949)
- Façade, and Other Poems 1920–1935 (1950)
- Gardeners and Astronomers: New Poems (1953)
- Collected Poems (1954)
- The Outcasts (1962)
Other books
- Alexander Pope (1930)
- Bath (1932), a profile of the city under Beau Nash
- The English Eccentrics (1933)
- Aspects of Modern Poetry (1934)
- Victoria of England (1936)
- I Live Under a Black Sun (1937)
- English Women (1942)
- A Poet's Notebook (1943)
- Fanfare for Elizabeth (1946), a biography of Elizabeth I
- The Queens and the Hive (1962), a biography of Elizabeth I
- Taken Care Of (1965), autobiography
References
- ^ Harris, Tim (13 January 2003). "Eccentric patriarch with slender grip on reality". The Age. Melbourne. Retrieved 26 February 2023.
- ^ a b "Dame Edith Sitwell". Face to Face. BBC. 6 May 1959. Retrieved 30 January 2021.
- ^ "Woodend and The Sitwell Family". Scarborough Museums and Galleries. Retrieved 25 February 2024.
- ^ "Poem: I Do Like To Be Beside the Seaside by Dame Edith Sitwell". www.poetrynook.com. Retrieved 25 February 2024.
- ISBN 978-1-86049-967-8.
- ^ Greene (2011). Edith Sitwell: Avant-Garde Poet, English Genius. London. p. 119.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) - ^ Greene (2011). Edith Sitwell: Avant-Garde Poet, English Genius. p. 206.
- ^ Egremont, Max (2005). Siegfried Sassoon: A Biography (1st ed.). London: Picador. p. 300.
- ^ Sassoon, Siegfried (24 May 1922). "'Too Fantastic for Fat-Heads'". Daily Herald.
- ^ Greene (2011). Edith Sitwell: Avant-Garde Poet, English Genius. p. 235.
- ^ Greene (2011). Edith Sitwell: Avant-Garde Poet, English Genius. p. 191.
- ^ Blair, E. A. (1968) [1930]. "Review". In Orwell, Sonia; Angus, Ian (eds.). The Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters of George Orwell, Volume 1: An Age Like This 1920–1940. Penguin. pp. 44–47.
- ^ Premiere: Lisa Milne, soprano, with Belcea Quartet, Wigmore Hall, London, 14 March 2005. Review: Robert Maycock, "Belcea Quartet, Wigmore Hall, London", The Independent, 14 December 2005. Published by Ricordi.
- ^ "Edith Sitwell | Poet | Blue Plaques". English Heritage. Retrieved 30 January 2021.
- ^ "'Face to Face, Dame Edith Sitwell". BBC. 6 May 1959. Retrieved 18 February 2023.
- ^ "Companions of Literature". Royal Society of Literature.
- ISBN 978-0-19-861412-8. (Subscription or UK public library membershiprequired.)
- ^ "Edith Sitwell Weedon Lois England poet grave". www.poetsgraves.co.uk.
- ^ Keith Marshall, "Who Were the Dedicatees of Powell's Non-Dance Works?" Anthony Powell Society Newsletter 68 (Autumn 2017):16-19.
- ISBN 978-0-85683-298-7, page 280.
- ^ Edith Sitwell. Selected Letters. Edited by John Lehman and Derek Parker. London: Macmillan, 1970.
- ISBN 978-0809315857.
- ASIN B0034RS9EK.
- ^ A History of Twentieth-Century British Women's Poetry (Dowson and Entwistle 341)
Further reading
- R. Greene, Edith Sitwell: Avant-Garde Poet, English Genius (2011)
- R. Greene (ed.), Selected Letters of Edith Sitwell (1997)
- S. Bradford [et al.], The Sitwells and the Arts of the 1920s and 1930s [exhibition catalogue, National Portrait Gallery, London] (1994)
- Geoffrey Elborn, Edith Sitwell, A Life (1981)
- Victoria Glendinning, Edith Sitwell, A Unicorn Among Lions (1981)
- John Malcolm Brinnin, "The Sitwells in Situ", in Sextet: T. S. Eliot, Truman Capote and Others (1981)
- John Pearson, Facades, Edith, Osbert and Sacheverell Sitwell (1978)
- R. Fifoot, A Bibliography of Edith, Osbert and Sacheverell Sitwell (1971)
- James D. Brophy, Edith Sitwell: The Symbolist Order (1968)
- J. Lehmann, A Nest of Tigers, Edith, Osbert and Sacheverell Sitwell in their Times (1968)
- E. Salter, The Last Years of a Rebel, A Memoir of Edith Sitwell (1967)
- Desmond Seward, Renishaw Hall: The Story of the Sitwells (2015)
- E. Sitwell, Taken Care Of (1965)
- O. Sitwell, Laughter in the Next Room (1949)
- O. Sitwell, Great Morning (1948)
- O. Sitwell, Left Hand Right Hand (1945)
External links
- Dame Edith Sitwell papers are held at the Clara Thomas Archives and Special Collections, York University Libraries, Toronto, Ontario
- Dame Edith Sitwell Collection Archived 5 June 2010 at the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center
- Edith Sitwell Collection Archived 20 April 2021 at the Wayback Machine at John J. Burns Library, Boston College
- Brief biography at CatholicAuthors
- Sitwell at the Lied and Art Songs Text Page
- "Archival material relating to Edith Sitwell". UK National Archives.
- Letters sent to Walter Greenwood Archived 22 June 2009 at the Wayback Machine held at the University of Salford
- Wheels: An Anthology of Verse (1916–1921), edited by Sitwell, at The Modernist Journals Project
- BBC Face to Face interview with Dame Edith Sitwell and John Freeman, 6 May 1959
- Finding aid to Sitwell family letters and manuscripts at Columbia University. Rare Book & Manuscript Library.
- Poetry Archive page on Sitwell
Electronic editions
- Works by Edith Sitwell at Faded Page (Canada)
- Works by or about Edith Sitwell at Internet Archive
- Works by Edith Sitwell at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)