Sherard Vines

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Sherard Vines
Vines in Japan, circa 1927
Vines in Japan, circa 1927
BornWalter Sherard Vines
1890 (1890)
Oxford
Died1974 (aged 83–84)
OccupationAuthor and academic
LanguageEnglish
NationalityBritish
Alma materNew College, Oxford
Years active1910–1950
Spouses
  • Helene Ernestine Dreyfus
    ​
    ​
    (m. 1916, divorced)​
  • Agnes Rennie Cumming
    ​
    ​
    (m. 1930)​
Children
  • Jeannine A. R. Vines
  • Rennie J. Vines
RelativesSydney Howard Vines (father)

Walter Sherard Vines (1890–1974),

Japanese culture; and A Hundred Years of English Literature (1959), a survey of the literature of Britain, the British Empire
and the United States.

Early life and career

Sherard Vines was born in Oxford in 1890.[2] His father, Sydney Howard Vines, was Sherardian Professor of Botany at the University of Oxford and named his son after William Sherard.[2] He attended Magdalen College School and New College, Oxford.[2] His tutor at Oxford was the literary scholar George Stuart Gordon.[3]

From 1910 to 1914 he was editor of

First World War in 1914.[2] He served in the Highland Light Infantry until 1917, when he was wounded and forced to return to civilian life.[1] While in France, he had married a 21-year-old Salvadorean-born Frenchwoman, Helene Ernestine Dreyfus.[4] She joined him in England, and gave birth to a daughter, Jeannine in 1922.[5]

His collection The Two Worlds was reviewed in 1917 in Poetry, where it was described as an uneven work in which "it would seem as though the author, in advancing, grew bolder in thought, more daring as to form, casting aside tritenesses and careless rhymes that mar the first part of the work."[6] In the following years Vines was associated with the Bloomsbury Group and poems of his were included in the Sitwells' Wheels anthologies between 1917 and 1921.[7] In 1920 he published The Kaleidoscope: Poems for the People.[8] Reviewing The Kaleidoscope in Poetry, Marion Strobel commented that the volume "springs fearlessly from one subject to another" and prefers "a harsh simplicity" to "sensuous cadences"or "beauty of wording".[9]

Japan

Starting in 1923, Vines taught for five years at

Imperial University of Tokyo.[11] In 1924 and 1925 Vines contributed short stories to Blunden's Oriental Literary Times.[12] These included the semi-autobiographical "Also Ran", about an obscure author denied the success he believes he deserves.[13] In 1925 he published a critical biography of the Japanese author Yone Noguchi.[14] From 1925 to 1927 he was a tutor to Yasuhito, Prince Chichibu.[11]

Another poetry collection, The Pyramid, was published in 1926.

Times Literary Supplement wrote of The Pyramid: "[Vines'] despair is significant because it is so intellectually positive ... His verse is remarkable for the piercing violence with which it expresses the disenchantment of one for whom the world has become divested of value."[8] Movements in Modern English Poetry and Prose, composed mostly of lectures Vines had given and written with Japanese students in mind, was published in 1927.[15] A review in The Criterion described the book as "not only up-to-date and impartial, but also full of acute perceptions and judgments."[16] While in Japan he also became friends with the South African author William Plomer, who spent the years 1926–29 there and described Vines as "a poet of distinction", albeit "neglected ... by a reading public too easily hypnotized by the parrot-like repetition of names and too incurious to find things out for itself".[17]

Return to Europe

Vines returned to Europe in 1928 to take up a position as Professor of English at

Eric Roll.[23] Vines' students at Hull included Harold Andrew Mason.[18] In 1930 Vines he married his second wife, Agnes Rennie Cumming; their daughter, Rennie J. Vines, was born in 1933.[18]

His travel book Yofuku, or, Japan in Trousers was published in 1931 and overlaps to a degree with Humours Unreconciled.[24] It contains numerous references to his time at Keio and discussion of the perceived eccentricities of Japanese society, customs and cuisine.[25] Vines described the typical Japanese student as "personally as a rule most charming, and sometimes a trifle pathetic", and noted divergent attitudes among Japanese people toward foreigners.[26] In the book Vines also sought to establish connections between features of Japanese life and the Japanese climate and cuisine.[27] William Snell has argued that Yofuku portrays Japan in a less positive light than Humours Unreconciled, and reflects Vines' "particularly jaundiced view of [Japan] and its people".[28] A reviewer in Pacific Affairs criticised Vines' focus on the aspects of Japanese life he found less pleasant, and asserted that "the informed reader, particularly one who has lived in Japan," would find it incomplete and one-sided, concluding "it is hard to imagine any considerable public for the book or any way in which that public could be served by its appearance."[29]

Return, Belphegor!, a

Books Abroad, John Paul Pritchard described Vines as "a staunch defender of the Victorians" and noted the book's incomplete coverage of American literature.[32] Robert Withington, reviewing the book in the CEA Critic, likewise noted certain omissions and argued that much of the book's material would be too obscure for students and too contentious and incomplete for academics.[33] Vines remained at Hull until his retirement in 1952, and died in 1974.[34]

Works

Poetry

  • The Two Worlds (1916)
  • The Kaleidoscope (1921)
  • The Pyramid (1926)
  • Triforium (1928)

Novels

  • Humours Unreconciled: A Tale of Modern Japan (1928)
  • Return, Belphegor! (1932)
  • Green to Amber (1941)

Other works

  • Yone Noguchi: A Critical Study (1925)
  • Movements in Modern English Poetry and Prose (1927)
  • The Course of English Classicism from the Tudor to the Victorian Age (1930)
  • Yofuku, or, Japan in Trousers (1931)
  • Georgian Satirists (1934)
  • A Hundred Years of English Literature (1950)

Notes

  1. ^ a b Snell 2008, p. 503.
  2. ^ a b c d e f Snell 2007, p. 45.
  3. ^ Snell 2008, p. 501.
  4. ^ Vines married Helene Dreyfus on 12 July 1916 in Paris, according to Leicestershire Antills and Connected Families, retrieved 16 May 2020.[1]
  5. ^ After divorce ended Vines' first marriage, Helene raised their daughter, Jeannine Agnes Renestine Vines, in France. Jeannine married Jacques Barry Delongchamps in 1948; their eldest son is French diplomat François Barry Martin-Delongchamps
  6. ^ A. F. 1917, p. 46.
  7. ^ Snell 2008, p. 503–2.
  8. ^ a b c Snell 2007, p. 48.
  9. ^ Strobel 1921, p. 345.
  10. ^ Snell 2007, p. 44.
  11. ^ a b Snell 2007, p. 46.
  12. ^ Snell 2007, p. 49.
  13. ^ Snell 2007, pp. 61–62.
  14. ^ Snell 2007, p. 51.
  15. ^ Snell 2008, pp. 502–1.
  16. ^ "Shorter Notices" 1928, p. 362.
  17. ^ Snell 2007, p. 50.
  18. ^ a b c d e f Snell 2008, p. 499.
  19. ^ Snell 2007, p. 55.
  20. ^ G. N. G. 1932, pp. 217–8.
  21. ^ Blair 1968, pp. 44, 45.
  22. ^ G. N. G. 1932, pp. 217, 219.
  23. ^ Snell 2008, p. 498.
  24. ^ Snell 2007, p. 52.
  25. ^ Snell 2007, pp. 52–4.
  26. ^ Snell 2007, pp. 56–7.
  27. ^ E. G. 1933, p. 238.
  28. ^ Snell 2007, p. 60.
  29. ^ E. G. 1933, pp. 238, 239.
  30. ^ Stableford 2005, p. 110.
  31. ^ Snell 2007, p. 59.
  32. ^ a b Pritchard 1952, p. 195.
  33. ^ Withington 1951, p. 4.
  34. ^ Snell 2008, p. 499, 503.

References

  • A. F. (1917). "Review of The Escaped Princess by W. R. Childe, Thursday's Child by E. Rendall, Bohemian Glass by E. L. Duff, Contacts by T. W. Earp, The Iron Age by Frank Betts, The Two Worlds by Sherard Vines, The Burning Wheel by Aldous Huxley, Op. I by Dorothy Sayres, and A Vagabond's Wallet by S. Reid-Heyman".
    JSTOR 20571193
    .
  • 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.
  • E. G. (1933). "Review of Yofuku by Sherard Vines".
    JSTOR 2751232
    .
  • G. N. G. (1932). "Review of The Course of English Classicism by Sherard Vines".
    JSTOR 508842
    .
  • Pritchard, John Paul (1952). "Review of A Hundred Years of English Literature by Sherard Vines".
    JSTOR 40091082
    .
  • "Shorter Notices". The Criterion. 8 (31): 359–368. 1928.
  • Snell, William (2007). "James Cousins and Sherard Vines at Keio University: 1919-20; 1923-28" (PDF). The Hiyoshi Review of English Studies. 50: 43–68.
  • Snell, William (2008). "Five Previously Unpublished Poems by Sherard Vines" (PDF). The Geibun-Kenkyu: Journal of Arts and Letters. 95: 503–488.
  • Stableford, Brian (2005). The A to Z of Fantasy Literature. Scarecrow Press.
  • Strobel, Marion (1921). "Two English Poets".
    JSTOR 20573243
    .
  • Withington, Robert (1951). "Review of A Hundred Years of English Literature by Sherard Vines". CEA Critic. 13 (9): 4.
    JSTOR 44419886
    .

Further reading

External links
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