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A. L. Rowse | |
|---|---|
 Rowse in 1926 | |
| Born | Alfred Leslie Rowse 4 December 1903 Tregonissey, Cornwall, UK |
| Died | 3 October 1997(1997-10-03) (aged 93) Trenarren, Cornwall, UK |
| Occupation(s) | Poet, academic andElizabethan historian |
| Awards |  Companion of Honour |
| Academic background | |
| Education | St Austell Grammar School |
| Alma mater | Christ Church, Oxford |
| Academic work | |
| Institutions | All Souls College, Oxford Merton College, Oxford London School of Economics Huntington Library |
Alfred Leslie RowseCH FBA FRSL FRHistS (4 December 1903 – 3 October 1997) was a British historian and writer, best known for his work onElizabethan England and books relating toCornwall.
Born in Cornwall and raised in modest circumstances, he was encouraged to study forOxford by fellow-Cornishman SirArthur Quiller-Couch. He was elected afellow ofAll Souls College and later appointed lecturer atMerton College. Best known of his many works wasThe Elizabethan Age trilogy. His work onShakespeare included a claim to have identified theDark Lady of the Sonnets asEmilia Lanier, which attracted much interest from scholars, but also many counterclaims. Rowse was in popular demand as a lecturer in North America.[1]
In the 1930s, he stood unsuccessfully as theLabourcandidate forPenryn and Falmouth, though later in life he became a Conservative.
Rowse was born at Tregonissey, nearSt Austell, Cornwall, the son of Annie (née Vanson) and Richard Rowse, achina clay worker. Despite his modest origins and his parents' limited education, he won a place atSt Austell CountyGrammar School and then a scholarship toChrist Church, Oxford, in 1921. He was encouraged in his pursuit of an academic career by a fellow Cornish man of letters, SirArthur Quiller-Couch, ofPolperro, who recognised his ability from an early age. Rowse endured doubting comments about his paternity, thus he paid particular attention to his mother's association with a local farmer and butcher fromPolgooth, near St Austell, Frederick William May (1872–1953).[2] Any such frustrations were channelled into academia, which reaped him dividends later in life.
Rowse had planned to studyEnglish literature, having developed an early love of poetry, but was persuaded to read history. He was a popular undergraduate and made many friendships that lasted for life. He graduated with first class honours in 1925 and was elected afellow ofAll Souls College the same year. In 1927 Rowse was appointed lecturer atMerton College, where he stayed until 1930. He then became a lecturer at theLondon School of Economics. In 1929, he proceeded to aMaster of Arts degree. While at Oxford, Rowse metAdam von Trott zu Solz who was attending Oxford as a Rhodes scholar. Rowse became deeply infatuated with Trott, a man whom he madly loved and who influenced his thinking about Germany.[3] Trott took Rowse on a number of tours of Berlin, Hamburg and Dresden to introduce him to German high culture.[3] Rowse's biographer,Richard Ollard, described Trott as "...the most longest and most intense love" of Rowse's life, a man whom he was never able to get over despite a rift that had developed between them by the late 1930s.[3] Rowse described Trott as "six feet tall" and "well aware of his shattering beauty", but complained that he was "fundamentally heterosexual".[4] He later stated that his relationship with Trott was "an ideal love-affair, platonic in a philosophical sense; we never exchanged a kiss, let alone an embrace. We were both extremely high-minded, perhaps too much so".[4]
In 1931, Rowse contested the parliamentary seat ofPenryn and Falmouth for theLabour Party, but was unsuccessful, finishing third behind aLiberal. In the general election of 1935 he again stood unsuccessfully, but managed to finish in second place, ahead of the Liberal. In both the 1931 and 1935 elections,Maurice Petherick was returned as aConservativeMP to Parliament, albeit with a minority of the vote. Rowse supported calls made by SirStafford Cripps and others for a"Popular Front". Cripps was expelled from the Labour Party for his views. In 1937, Rowse wrote in his diary: "My emotional life was engulfed in Adam, quite anguished enough in itself".[3] By this point, Rowse and Trott were drifting apart as Trott sought to make a diplomatic career in the highly elitistAuswärtiges Amt (Foreign Office), which offended Rowse as serving in theAuswärtiges Amt meant serving the Nazis.[3] Moreover, Trott was a German ultra-nationalist committed to recovering all of the lands lost under the Treaty of Versailles, which led him to a certain support for Nazi foreign policy, a position that Rowse could not accept.[5] Trott's viewpoint that he did not particularly like the Nazis, but was willing to serve them insofar as Nazi foreign policy was aimed at undoing the Treaty of Versailles was dismissed by Rowse as amoral.[6]
Rowse worked to get agreement by Labour and Liberal parties in Devon and Cornwall, making a common cause with the Liberal MPSirRichard Acland. A general election was expected to take place in 1939, and Rowse, who was again Labour's candidate for Penryn & Falmouth, was not expected to have a Liberal opponent. That would increase his chances of winning. But, due to outbreak of war, the election did not take place and his political career was effectively ended.
Undeterred, Rowse chose to continue his career by seeking administrative positions atOxford becomingSub-Warden ofAll Souls College. In 1952, he failed in his candidacy for election as Warden againstJohn Sparrow. Shortly afterwards he began what became regular trips toThe Huntington Library in Southern California, where for many years he was a senior research fellow. He received a doctorate (DLitt) from Oxford University in 1953. After delivering theBritish Academy's 1957 Raleigh Lecture on history about SirRichard Grenville's place in English history, Rowse was selected as a fellow of the academy (FBA) in 1958.
Rowse published about 100 books. By the mid-20th century, he was a celebrated author and much-travelled lecturer, especially in the United States. He also published many popular articles in newspapers and magazines in Great Britain and the United States. His brilliance was widely recognised. His knack for the sensational, as well as his academic boldness (which some considered to be irresponsible carelessness), sustained his reputation. His opinions on rival popular historians, such asHugh Trevor-Roper andA. J. P. Taylor, were expressed sometimes in very ripe terms.[citation needed] In 1977, he sparked much controversy with his bookHomosexuals in History which linked creativity in the arts with being gay.[4] Rowse wrote that his book was a study on the "predisposing conditions of creativeness, the psychological rewards of ambivalence, the doubled response to life, the sharping of perception, the tensions that led to achievement".[4]Homosexuals in History attracted critical reviews as some of the artists identified as being gay in the book were based on only circumstantial evidence; the book had no footnotes or endnotes; his theory of a connection between artistic creativity and homosexuality was ill-defined; and his opinionated writing style full of arch comments alienated many.[4] The American scholar Richard Aldrich wrote that for its flawsHomosexuals in History was one of the first serious studies in gay history and that many of the artists whom Rowse "outed" in his book were indeed gay, which marked the first time that this aspects of their lives was discussed in a mainstream book.[4]
In his later years, Rowse moved increasingly towards thepolitical right, and many considered him to be part of theTory tradition by the time he died. One of Rowse's lifelong themes in his books and articles was his condemnation of theConservative-dominatedNational Government's policy ofappeasement ofNazi Germany in the 1930s, and the economic and political consequences for Great Britain of fighting aSecond World War with Germany. He also criticised his former Labour Party colleagues–includingGeorge Lansbury,Kingsley Martin andRichard Crossman—for endorsing appeasement, writing "not one of theLeft intellectuals could republish what they wrote in the Thirties without revealing what idiotic judgments they made about events."[7] Another was his horror at the degradation of standards in modern society. He is reported as saying: "... this filthy twentieth century. I hate its guts".
Despite international academic success, Rowse remained proud of hisCornish roots. He retired from Oxford in 1973 toTrenarren House, his Cornish home, from where he remained active as writer, reviewer and conversationalist until immobilised by a stroke in 1996. He died at home on 3 October 1997.[8] His ashes are buried in the Campdowns Cemetery,Charlestown nearSt Austell.
Rowse's early works focus on 16th-century England and his first full-length historical monograph,Sir Richard Grenville of the Revenge (1937), was a biography of a 16th-century sailor. His next wasTudor Cornwall (1941), a lively detailed account of Cornish society in the 16th century. He consolidated his reputation with a one-volume general history of England,The Spirit of English History (1943), but his most important work was the historical trilogyThe Elizabethan Age:The England of Elizabeth (1950),The Expansion of Elizabethan England (1955), andThe Elizabethan Renaissance (1971–72), respectively examine the society, overseas exploration, and culture of late 16th-century England.
In 1963 Rowse began to concentrate onWilliam Shakespeare, starting with a biography in which he claimed to have dated all thesonnets, identifiedChristopher Marlowe as the suitor's rival and solved all but one of the other problems posed by the sonnets. His failure to acknowledge his reliance upon the work of other scholars alienated some of his peers, but he won popular acclaim. In 1973 he publishedShakespeare the Man, in which he claimed to have solved the final problem – the identity of the 'Dark Lady': from aclose reading of the sonnets and the diaries ofSimon Forman, he asserted that she must have beenEmilia Lanier, whose poems he would later collect. He suggested that Shakespeare had been influenced by the feud between the Danvers andLong families in Wiltshire, when he wroteRomeo and Juliet. The Danverses were friends ofHenry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton.
Rowse's "discoveries" about Shakespeare's sonnets amount to the following:
Rowse was dismissive of those who rejected his views. He supported his conclusions. In the case of Shakespeare's sexuality, he emphasised the playwright's heterosexual inclinations by noting that he had impregnated an older woman by the time he was 18, and was consequently obliged to marry her. Moreover, he fathered three children by the time he was 21. In the sonnets, Shakespeare's explicit erotic interest lies with the Dark Lady; he obsesses about her. Shakespeare was still married and Rowse believes he was having an extramarital affair.
The diary excerpts published in 2003 reveal that "he was an overt even rather proud homosexual in a pre-Wolfenden age, fascinated by young policemen and sailors, obsessively speculating on the sexual proclivities of everyone he meets".[9] Much later, following retirement, he said, "of course, I used to be a homo; but now, when it doesn't matter, if anything I'm a hetero".[8]
He was aware of his own intelligence from earliest childhood, and obsessed that others either did not accept this fact, or not quickly enough. The diaries describe what he said were "a series of often inane jealousies".[9]
He described a "Slacker State": "I don't want to have my money scalped off me to maintain other people's children. I don't like other people; I particularly don't like their children; I deeply disapprove of their proliferation making the globe uninhabitable. The fucking idiots – I don't want to pay for their fucking."[9]
Rowse's first book wasOn History, a Study of Present Tendencies published in 1927 as the seventh volume ofKegan Paul'sPsyche Miniature General Series. In 1931 he contributed toT. S. Eliot's quarterly reviewThe Criterion. In 1935 he co-editedCharles Henderson'sEssays in Cornish History for theClarendon Press. His best-seller was his first volume of autobiography,A Cornish Childhood, first published by Jonathan Cape in 1942, which has gone on to sell nearly half a million copies worldwide. It describes his hard struggle to get to the University of Oxford and his love/hate relationship with Cornwall.
From the 1940s to the 1970s, he served as the General Editor for the popular "Teach Yourself History" and "Men and their Times" series, published by the English Universities Press.
Rowse wrote poetry all his life. He contributed poems toPublic School Verse whilst at St Austell Grammar School. He also had verse published inOxford 1923,Oxford 1924, andOxford 1925. His collected poemsA Life were published in 1981. The poetry is mainly autobiographical, descriptive of place (especially Cornwall) and people he knew and cared for, e.g.The Progress of Love, which describes his platonic love forAdam von Trott, a handsome and aristocratic German youth who studied at Oxford in the 1930s and who was later executed for his part in theJuly Plot of 1944 to killHitler. Unusually for a British poet, Rowse wrote a great number of poems inspired by American scenery.
His most controversial book (at the time of publication) was on the subject ofhuman sexuality:Homosexuals in History (1977).
He wrote other biographies of English historical and literary figures, and many other historical works. His biographies include studies of Shakespeare, Marlowe, and the Earl of Southampton, the major players in the sonnets, as well as later luminaries of English literature such asJohn Milton,Jonathan Swift andMatthew Arnold. A devoted cat-lover, he also wrote the biographies of several cats who came to live with him at Trenarren, claiming that it was as much a challenge to write the biography of a favourite cat as it was a Queen of England. He also published a number of short stories, mainly about Cornwall, of interest more for their thinly veiled autobiographical resonances than their literary merit. His last book,My View of Shakespeare, published in 1996, summed up his life-time's appreciation ofThe Bard of Stratford. The book was dedicated"ToHRH The Prince of Wales in common devotion to William Shakespeare".
One of Rowse's great enthusiasms was collecting books, and he owned many first editions, many of them bearing his acerbic annotations. For example, his copy of the January 1924 edition ofThe Adelphi magazine edited byJohn Middleton Murry bears a pencilled note after Murry's poemIn Memory ofKatherine Mansfield: 'Sentimental gush on the part of JMM. And a bad poem. A.L.R.'
Upon his death in 1997 he bequeathed his book collection to theUniversity of Exeter, and his personal archive of manuscripts, diaries, and correspondence. In 1998 the University Librarian selected about sixty books from Rowse's own working library and a complete set of his published books.The Royal Institution of Cornwall selected some of the remaining books and the rest were sold to dealers. The London booksellersHeywood Hill produced two catalogues of books from his library.
Rowse was elected aFellow of the British Academy (FBA), of theRoyal Historical Society (FRHistS) and of theRoyal Society of Literature (FRSL).
In addition to hisDLitt (Oxon) degree (1953), Rowse received the honorary degrees of DLitt from theUniversity of Exeter in 1960 andDCL from theUniversity of New Brunswick, Fredericton, Canada, the same year.
In 1968 he was made aBard ofGorseth Kernow, taking thebardic nameLef A Gernow ('Voice of Cornwall'), reflecting his high standing in the Cornish community.
He was elected to theAthenaeum Club under Rule II in 1972, and received theBenson Medal of theRoyal Society of Literature in 1982.[10]
Rowse was appointed aMember of the Order of the Companions of Honour (CH) in the1997 New Year Honours.
As well as his own appearances on radio and television, Rowse has been depicted in variousTV drama documentaries about British politics in the 1930s andappeasement.
Christopher William Hill'sradio playAccolades, rebroadcast onBBC Radio 4 in March 2007 as a tribute to its star,Ian Richardson, who had died the previous month, covers the period leading up to the publication ofShakespeare the Man in 1973 and publicity surrounding Rowse's unshakable confidence that he had discovered the identity of the Dark Lady of the Sonnets. It was broadcast again on 9 July 2008.
A Cornish Childhood has also been adapted for voices (in the style ofUnder Milk Wood) byJudith Cook.
Quotations related toA. L. Rowse at Wikiquote
