John Middleton Murry
John Middleton Murry | |
---|---|
Peckham, London, England | |
Died | 13 March 1957 West Suffolk Hospital, Bury St Edmunds, England | (aged 67)
Resting place | Thelnetham, England |
Alma mater | |
Spouse |
|
Children | 4, including John Middleton Murry Jr. |
John Middleton Murry (6 August 1889 – 12 March 1957)
Early life
John Middleton Murry was born in
He met
Editor
Murry was editor of the literary magazine
In 1919, Murry became the editor of
Critic
Murry reviewed for
Murry led the charge against
F. R. Leavis admired and was influenced by Murry's early criticism;[31] later he criticised Murry in the pages of Scrutiny,[32] but continued to acknowledge a debt to him late in life.
On Romanticism
Murry gave his philosophy its fullest expression in his writings on
- "To discover that within myself which I *must obey, to gain some awareness of the law which operates in the organic world of the internal world, to feel this internal world as an organic whole working out its own destiny according to some secret vital principle, to know which acts and utterances are a liberation from obstacles and an accession of strength, to acknowledge secret loyalties which one cannot deny without impoverishment and starvation – this is to possess one's soul indeed, and it is not easy either to do or to explain."[33]
The upshot of this discovery results in the highest degree of ethical awareness, "an immediate knowledge of what I am and may not do."[34] The awareness of one being "really alone" in the universe,[35] as he put it, marks the final point of discovery which is followed by the upward ascent to spiritual life.
Murry vividly narrates this exploration as a spiritual conversion (in his 1929 book GOD) —what he describes as a "desolation" followed by "illumination"—after the death of Katherine Mansfield (who had moved to
The Adelphi
In 1930 Max Plowman joined Murry and Sir Richard Rees in developing The Adelphi as a socialist, and later pacifist, monthly; Murry had founded it in 1923 as a literary journal (The New Adelphi, 1927–30). Rees edited it from 1930; Plowman took on the role in 1938.[36] The Adelphi was closely aligned with the Independent Labour Party;[37] Jack Common worked for it as circulation promoter and assistant editor[38] in the 1930s. Throughout this period, Murry's then close friend and protege, Guernsey-born G. B. Edwards, was a regular contributor to the magazine. Thanks to Murry's support, Jonathan Cape commissioned Edwards to write a book on D.H. Lawrence but following Lawrence's death it was never completed.[39]
He moved to Norfolk; to South Acre; and then, with his third marriage in 1931, to the Old Rectory, Larling. Murry told Antony Alpers the biographer of Katherine Mansfield that K.M.'s manuscripts had all been "dispersed to collectors" in the 1930s. He had the manuscripts of nine or ten completed stories, and when an admirer wrote to ask if he would sell a manuscript, he would reply that some land adjoining his farm in Norfolk was on the market or that he needed a tractor, so would sell one for the amount he required.[40]
Plowman co-founded (in 1934) and ran the Adelphi Centre.
By 1937 the commune had collapsed, and the house, 'The Oaks', was turned over to some 60
Lodge Farm, Thelnetham
In October 1942 Murry set up a new commune at Lodge Farm in the Suffolk village of Thelnetham. Murry purchased the farm and recruited fellow conscientious objectors to run the enterprise. The commune had mixed fortunes and it gradually reverted to a more conventional arrangement with Murry running the farm as a commercial enterprise. He wrote an account of his time at Lodge Farm in the book "Community Farm" which was published in 1953 and was illustrated by his brother, the artist Richard Murry.[45]
Political views
Marxist
Murry had a
He supported the small Independent Socialist Party, a regional breakaway from the Independent Labour Party.
Pacifist
Murry was an outspoken radical Christian and pacifist,[48] writing The Necessity of Pacifism (1937). He was a Sponsor of the Peace Pledge Union, and editor of its weekly newspaper, Peace News, from 1940 to 1946.
Murry's opinions during this period often provoked controversy. He angered many left-wingers (including George Orwell and Vera Brittain) by arguing that Nazi Germany should be allowed to retain control of mainland Europe. Murry believed even though Nazi rule was tyrannical, it was preferable to the horrors of total war.[49][50] Murry later "renounced his pacifism in 1948 and...urged a preventative war against the Soviet Union, ending his life as a Conservative voter".[51][52] Finally Murry's opposition to the Soviet Union was attacked by pro-Soviet elements in the peace movement.[49]
Murry's
Christianity
During this period Murry was widely known as a Christian intellectual. He had in fact considered
Elitism
His views converged with those of Eliot: he supported a type of
Family
Murry was married four times: first to Katherine Mansfield in 1918; after her death in 1923 he arranged the publishing or republishing of her works. In 1924 he married Violet Le Maistre, in 1932 Ada Elizabeth Cockbaine,[59] and in 1954 Mary Gamble.[60] With his second wife, Violet Le Maistre, he had two children: a daughter, Katherine Violet Middleton Murry who became a writer and published Beloved Quixote: The Unknown Life of John Middleton Murry in 1986, and a son, John Middleton Murry Jr., who became a writer under the names of Colin Murry and Richard Cowper. There were also two children from the third marriage.[61]
Depictions
In fiction
Aldous Huxley portrayed him as "Denis Burlap" in Point Counter Point (1928).[62] He was the model for Philip Surrogate in Graham Greene's 1934 novel It's a Battlefield; Greene did not know him personally.[63] David Holbrook wrote that Gudrun and Gerald in Lawrence's Women in Love were based on Mansfield and Murry.[64] D. H. Lawrence satirised him in a number of short stories. In Lawrence's novel Aaron's Rod (1922), the title character is based on Murry. The relationship between Lilly and Aaron in the novel mirrors that of Lawrence and Murry.[65]
Dramatic portrayals
Murry appears as a character in
In Priest of Love (1981), he is portrayed by Mike Gwilym. In Leave All Fair (1985), he is portrayed by John Gielgud as a sanctimonious exploiter of Mansfield's memory who treated her poorly during their association.
See also
Works
Non-Fiction
- Fyodor Dostoevsky: A Critical Study (1916).
- The Evolution of an Intellectual (1920).
- Aspects of Literature (1920), revised edition 1945
- Countries of the Mind (1922).
- Pencillings (1922).
- The Problem of Style (1922).
- Wrap Me Up in My Aubusson Carpet (1924).
- Discoveries (1924).
- To the Unknown God (1925).
- Keats and Shakespeare (1925).
- The Life of Jesus (1926).
- Things to Come (1928).
- God: An Introduction to the Science of Metabiology (1929).
- D .H. Lawrence (1930).
- Son of Woman: The Story of D. H. Lawrence (1931).
- Studies in Keats (1931).
- The Necessity of Communism (1932).
- Reminiscences of D.H. Lawrence (1933).
- William Blake (1933).
- The Biography of Katherine Mansfield (1933) with Ruth E. Mantz
- Between Two Worlds (1935). (autobiography)
- Marxism (1935).
- Shakespeare (1936).
- The Necessity of Pacifism (1937).
- Heaven and Earth (1938).
- Heroes of Thought (1938).
- The Pledge of Peace (1938).
- The Defence of Democracy (1939).
- The Price of Leadership (1939).
- Europe in Travail (1940).
- The Betrayal of Christ by the Churches (1940).
- Christocracy (1942).
- Adam and Eve (1944).
- The Free Society (1948).
- Looking Before and After: A Collection of Essays (1948).
- The Challenge of Schweitzer (1948).
- Katherine Mansfield and Other Literary Portraits (1949).
- The Mystery of Keats (1949).
- John Clare and other Studies (1950).
- The Conquest of Death (1951).
- Community Farm (1952).
- Jonathan Swift (1955).
- Unprofessional Essays (1956).
- Love, Freedom and Society (1957).
- Not as the Scribes (1959).
- John Middleton Murry: Selected Criticism 1916–1957 (1960) editor Richard Rees
Fiction
- Still Life (1916).
- The Things We Are (1922).
- The Voyage (1924).
Verse
- Poems: 1917–18 (1918).
- The Critic in Judgement (1919).
- Cinnamon & Angelica (1920).
- Poems: 1916–1920 (1921).
As editor
- Journal of Katherine Mansfield (1927).
- The Letters of Katherine Mansfield (1928).
Notes
- ^ ISBN 978-0-19-861412-8. (Subscription or UK public library membershiprequired.)
- ^ Lea 1959, p. 5.
- ^ Lea 1959, p. 6–7.
- ^ Lea 1959, p. 9–13.
- ^ [1] Archived 6 January 2009 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Carswell, p. 66.
- ^ Downhill All the Way (1967), p. 49.
- ^ Lea, p. 213.
- ^ (Joy Grant, Harold Monro & the Poetry Bookshop (1967), p.34. It was infused with defiance and optimism.[...] Poetically it leaned towards modernity, printing free verse by Katherine Mansfield [...]. (Text available online Archived 9 February 2007 at the Wayback Machine.)
- ^ (Hans Ostrom, "The Blue Review," in British Literary Magazines: The Victorian and Edwardian Age, 1837–1913. Ed. Alvin Sullivan. Westport: Greenwood Press, 1984, pp. 41–43
- ^ Anthony Alpers, The Life of Katherine Mansfield p151 (1980, Oxford University Press, Viking Press)
- ^ Lea, p. 45.
- ^ Jonathan Bate, The Oxford English Literary History (2002), p. 262.
- ^ Carswell, p. 99.
- ^ David Goldie, A Critical Difference: T.S. Eliot and John Middleton Murry in English Literary Criticism, 1919–1928 (1998), p. 34.
- ^ Nicola Beauman, Morgan: A biography of E. M. Forster (1993), pp. 307–8.
- ^ E. M. Forster, Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson (1932), Harvest edition p. 176.
- ^ Edward Hyams, The New Statesman (1963), p. 119.
- ^ [2] Archived 8 October 2006 at the Wayback Machine
- Peter Davison(editor), George Orwell: A Kind of Compulsion 1903–1936 (1998), p. 181.
- ^ David Goldie, A Critical Difference: T.S. Eliot and John Middleton Murry in English Literary Criticism, 1919–1928 (1998), pp. 2–3.
- ^ Albert Gelpi, A Coherent Splendor: The American Poetic Renaissance, 1910–1950 (1987), pp. 116–7.
- ^ "Archived copy". www.archiveshub.ac.uk. Archived from the original on 17 July 2012. Retrieved 2 February 2022.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link) - ^ Mary Ann Gillies, Henri Bergson and British Modernism (1996), p. 60.
- ^ Alan Young (editor), Edgell Rickword: Essays and Opinions 1921–31 (1974), pp. 1–2.
- ^ Nicholas Murray, Aldous Huxley: An English Intellectual (2002), p. 111.
- ^ Steven G. Marks, How Russia Shaped the Modern World . Princeton University Press, 2003 (pp. 73–5)
- ^ Robert H. Ross, The Georgian Revolt (1967) pp. 202–3.
- ^ Jean Moorcroft Wilson, Siegfried Sassoon 1886–1918, p. 373 and 496.
- ^ Lea, p. 67.
- ^ [3] Archived 22 August 2011 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ "The Humanities Study". bic.cass.cn. Archived from the original on 24 July 2011. Retrieved 15 January 2022.
- ^ God, p. 47)
- ^ God, p. 49
- ^ God, p. 26
- ^ "Magazine Data File". Philsp.com. Retrieved 29 October 2015.
- ^ "Peter Sedgwick: George Orwell – International Socialist? (1969)". Marxists.org. Retrieved 29 October 2015.
- ^ "Archived copy". www.archiveshub.ac.uk. Archived from the original on 1 August 2012. Retrieved 2 February 2022.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link) - ^ Chaney, passim
- ISBN 0-19-558113-X.
- ^ "Prose & Poetry - Max Plowman". First World War.com. 22 August 2009. Retrieved 29 October 2015.
- ^ Dennis Hardy, Utopian England: Community Experiments, 1900–1945 (2002), p. 42.
- ^ Peter Davison (editor), George Orwell: A Kind of Compulsion 1903–1936 (1998), p. 493.
- ^ [4] Archived 22 December 2007 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Community Farm published by The Country Book Club in 1953
- ^ Lea p. 184, 193.
- ^ Andrew Lycett, Dylan Thomas (2003), p. 89.
- ^ "Quotation by John Middleton Murry". London: Dictionary.com. 1944.
{{cite web}}
: Missing or empty|url=
(help) - ^ a b Richard A. Rempel, "The Dilemmas of British Pacifists During World War II", The Journal of Modern History, Vol. 50, No. 4, On Demand Supplement (Dec., 1978), pp. D1213-D1229.
- ^ Lea, pp. 310–12.
- ISBN 1846310261, p. 208.
- ^ According to Alan Warwick Palmer and Veronica Palmer, Murry's 1948 book The Free Society
"...virtually called for a preventive war against the Soviet Union". ISBN 0710803125, (p.122).
- ^ Ruth Roach Pierson, Women and Peace: Theoretical, Historical, and Practical Perspectives,(1987) p.212.
- ^ Lea, p. 256.
- ^ José Harris, Civil Society in British History: Ideas, Identities, Institutions (2003), p. 233.
- ^ Roger Kojecky, T. S. Eliot's Social Criticism (1971), p. 166.
- ^ T. S. Eliot, Christianity and Culture, p. 62.
- ^ Chaney, Genius Friend, p. 168
- ^ [5] Archived 6 January 2009 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ "John Middleton Murry". Nndb.com. Retrieved 29 October 2015.
- ^ [6] Archived 6 January 2009 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Donald Watt, Aldous Huxley, the Critical Heritage (1975), p. 50.
- ^ Norman Sherry, The Life of Graham Greene volume I (1989), p. 466.
- ^ David Holbrook, Where D.H. Lawrence was Wrong about Woman (1992), p. 221.
- ISBN 0140007555.
- ^ Billington, Michael (2 July 2008), "On the Rocks Review", The Guardian, retrieved 2 March 2009
- ^ Bassett, Kate (6 July 2008), "On the Rocks, Hampstead Theatre, London", The Independent, archived from the original on 26 October 2012, retrieved 2 March 2009
References
- Carswell, J. P. (1978). Lives and Letters: A. R. Orage, Katherine Mansfield, Beatrice Hastings, John Middleton Murry, S. S. Koteliansky, 1906–1957, New York : New Directions Pub. Corp.
- Cassavant, Sharron Greer (1982). John Middleton Murry, the Critic as Moralist, University of Alabama Press.
- Chaney, Edward (2015). Genius Friend: G. B. Edwards and The Book of Ebenezer le Page, Blue Ormer, Exeter.
- Griffin, Ernest G. (1968). John Middleton Murry, Twayne Publishers.
- Lea, F. A. (1959). The Life of John Middleton Murry. Ms. Middleton Murry & Ruth Baker. London: OCLC 1150222498.
- Mais, S. P. B. (1923). "John Middleton Murry." In Some Modern Authors, Grant Richards Ltd.
External links
- Works by John Middleton Murry at Project Gutenberg
- Works by John Middleton Murry at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
- Works by or about John Middleton Murry at Internet Archive
- Letters from John Middleton Murry to Lord and Lady Glenavy in the George Lazarus Collection
- Woolf disregards John Middleton Murry's criticism – Modernism Lab
- J M Murry and Katherine Mansfield's relationship from a new biography by Kathleen Jones
- Berry, Neil, "We believe in life: The contentious career of John Middleton Murry," TLS, January 3, 2020.