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Edith Sitwell

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Roger Fry - Edith Sitwell

Edith Sitwell (1887-1964) by Roger Fry (1866-1934), 1915. Courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

Edith Sitwell
Born September Template:Birthdate
Scarborough, North Yorkshire, United Kingdom
Died December Template:Dda
London, United Kingdom
Occupation Poet
Nationality United Kingdom English

Dame Edith Louisa Sitwell DBE (7 September 1887 - 9 December 1964) was an English poet and literary critic.

Life[]

Family, youth, education[]

Sitwell was born in Scarborough, North Yorkshire, the oldest child and only daughter of Sir George Sitwell, 4th baronet, of Renishaw Hall;she was an expert on genealogy and landscaping.[1] Her mother was the former Lady Ida Emily Augusta Denison, a daughter of the earl of Londesborough and a granddaughter of Henry Somerset, 7th Duke of Beaufort. She claimed a descent through female lines from the Plantagenets.

Sitwell had 2 younger brothers, Osbert (1892–1969) and Sacheverell Sitwell (1897–1988) both distinguished authors, well-known literary figures in their own right, and long-term collaborators. Sacheverell married a Canadian woman, Georgia Doble, in 1925 and moved to Weston Hall in Northamptonshire.

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. In her later autobiography, she said that her parents had always been strangers to her.

Adult life[]

In 1914, 25-year-old Sitwell moved to a small, shabby fourth-floor flat in Pembridge Mansions, Bayswater, which she shared with Helen Rootham (1875–1938), her governess since 1903.

File:Portrait of Edith Sitwell.jpg

Portrait of Edith Sitwell, by Roger Fry, 1918

Edith never married. However, it is claimed that in 1927 she fell in love with homosexual Russian painter Pavel Tchelitchew. The relationship with Tchelitchew lasted until 1928; the same year when Helen Rootham underwent operations for cancer, eventually becoming an invalid. In 1932, Rootham and Sitwell moved to Paris, where they lived with Rootham’s younger sister, Evelyn Wiel. Rootham died of spinal cancer in 1938.

Sitwell's mother died in 1937. Sitwell did not attend the funeral because of her displeasure with her parents during her childhood.

During World War II, Sitwell returned from France and retired to Renishaw with her brother Osbert and his lover, David Horner. She wrote under the light of oil lamps when the lights of England were out of service. She knitted clothes for their friends who served in the army. One of the beneficiaries was young Alec Guinness, who received a pair of seaboot stockings.

The poems she wrote during the war brought her back before a public. They include Street Songs (1942), The Song of the Cold (1945) and The Shadow of Cain (1947), all of which were much praised.

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. She also helped to publish the poetry of Wilfred Owen after his death.

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 Lady Macbeth's sleepwalking scene. Her poetry recitals were always occasions; she made recordings of her poems, including 2 recordings of Façade (with Constant Lambert and Peter Pears respectively as co-narrators).


Sitwell wrote 2 books about Queen Elizabeth I of England, Fanfare for Elizabeth (1946) and The Queens and the Hive (1962). She always claimed that she wrote prose simply for money and both these books were extremely successful, as were her English Eccentrics (1933) and Victoria of England (1936).

Publicity and controversy[]

Sitwell had angular features resembling Queen Elizabeth I (they also shared the same birthday) and stood 6' (183 cm) tall, but often dressed in an unusual manner with gowns of brocade or velvet with gold turbans and a plethora of rings - her jewelry may be seen in the jewelry galleries of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. Her unusual appearance provoked critics almost as much as her verse, and throughout her life she was the subject of more or less virulent personal attacks from Geoffrey Grigson, F. R. Leavis and others, which she returned with vigour. As she lay dying, the critic Julian Symons published the last of these attacks in the London Magazine of November 1964, accusing her of 'wearing other people's bleeding hearts on her own safe sleeve.' Her 'enemies' were treated with scorn; after Noel Coward wrote a skit on Sitwell and her 2 brothers as "The Swiss Family Whittlebot" for his 1923 revue London Calling! she refused to speak to him until they were reconciled after her triumphant 70th birthday party at London's Festival Hall. To her friends she showed great sweetness and invariable kindness.

Sitwell was most interested by the distinction between poetry and music, a matter explored in Façade (1922), which was set to music by William Walton, a series of abstract poems the rhythms of which counterparted those of music. Façade was performed behind a curtain with a hole in the mouth of a painted face (the painting was by John Piper) and the words were recited through the hole with the aid of a Sengerphone. The public received the debut performance with bemusement, but there were many positive reactions.

Later life[]

Tchelitchew died in July 1957. Her brother Osbert died in 1969, of Parkinson's disease (diagnosed in 1950). In August, 1955, Sitwell converted to Roman Catholicism and asked author Evelyn Waugh to serve as her godfather.

Around 1957 she began using a wheelchair after battling with Marfan syndrome throughout her life. Her last poetry reading was in 1962. She died of cerebral haemorrhage at St. Thomas’s Hospital on 9 December 1964 at the age of 77.

Sitwell's papers are held at the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin.

Writing[]

Sitwell published her earliest poem, "The Drowned Suns", in the Daily Mirror in 1913, 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 tom-tom and of jazz, and shows considerable technical skill. Her early work reflects the strong influence of the French symbolists.

Her only novel, I Live under a Black Sun, based on the life of Jonathan Swift, was published in 1937.

Quotes[]

"I am not eccentric. It's just that I am more alive than most people. I am an unpopular electric eel set in a pond of goldfish."[2]

Recognition[]

Sitwell became a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1954.

In popular culture[]

Still Falls the Rain, about the London blitz, remains perhaps her best-known poem (it was set to music by Benjamin Britten as Canticle III: Still Falls the Rain).

Her poem The Bee-Keeper was set to music by Priaulx Rainier, as The Bee Oracles (1970), a setting for tenor, flute, oboe, violin, cello and harpsichord. It was premiered by Peter Pears in 1970.

Publications[]

Poetry[]

  • The Mother, and other poems. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1915.
  •  Twentieth Century Harlequinade, and other poems (With brother, Osbert Sitwell). Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1916.
  • Clowns' Houses. Longmans, Green, 1918.
  • The Wooden Pegasus. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1920.
  • Facade. Favil Press, 1922
    • new edition (with introduction by Jack Lindsay). London: Duckworth, 1950.
  • Bucolic Comedies. London: Duckworth, 1923.
  • The Sleeping Beauty. Duckworth, 1924.
  • (With brothers Osbert and Sacheverell Sitwell) Poor Young People. Fleuron, 1925.
  • Troy Park. London: Duckworth, 1925.
  • Elegy on Dead Fashion. London: Duckworth, 1926; Folcroft, PA: Folcroft, 1977.
  • Twelve Poems. London: Ernest Benn, 1926.
  • Rustic Elegies. New York: Knopf, 1927.
  • Popular Song. London: Faber & Gwyer, 1928.
  • Five Poems. London: Duckworth, 1928.
  • Gold Coast Customs. London: Duckworth, 1929.
  • The Collected Poems of Edith Sitwell. London: Duckworth, 1930; Vanguard, 1968.
  • Epithalamium, London: Duckworth, 1931.
  • In Spring. privately printed, 1931.
  • Five Variations on a Theme. London: Duckworth, 1933.
  • Selected Poems. London: Duckworth, 1936.
  • Poems New and Old, London: Faber, 1940.
  • Street Songs. London: Macmillan, 1942.
  • Green Song and other poems. London: Macmillan, 1944; Vanguard, 1946.
  • The Song of the Cold. London: Macmillan, 1945; Vanguard, 1948.
  • The Shadow of Cain (blank verse). John Lehmann, 1947; Folcroft, PA: Folcroft, 1977.
  • The Canticle of the Rose: Selected Poems, 1920-1947. London: Macmillan, 1949; Vanguard, 1949.
  • Facade: An entertainment with poems by Edith Sitwell (with music by William Turner Walton) (performed in 1922). Oxford University Press, 1951.
  • Gardeners and Astronomers: New poems. Vanguard, 1953.
  • Collected Poems. Vanguard, 1954.
  • Edith Sitwell. Vista Books, 1960.
  • The Outcasts. Macmillan, 1962.
  • Music and Ceremonies. Vanguard, 1963.
  • Selected Poems (compiled with introduction by John Lehmann). London: Macmillan, 1965.
  • Facade, and other poems, 1920-1935. London: Duckworth, 1971.
  • The Early Unpublished Poems of Edith Sitwell (edited by Gerald W. Morton & Karen P. Helgeson). New York: Lang, 1994.

Non-fiction[]

  • Introduction to Ann Taylor, Meddlesome Matty, and other poems for infant minds. London: John Lane, 1925.
  • Poetry and Criticism. London: Hogarth Press, 1925; New York: Holt, 1926; Folcroft, PA: Folcroft Press, 1969.
  • Alexander Pope. Cosmopolitan Book Corp., 1930; Ayer Co., 1972.
  • Jane Barston, 1719-1746,. London: Faber, 1931.
  • Bath. London: Faber, 1932, 1948
    • 1932 edition reprinted, Hyperion Press, 1981; 2nd edition, International Specialized Books, 1984.
  • Introduction to translation by Helen Rootham, Arthur Rimbaud, Prose Poems from Les Illuminations. London: Faber, 1932.
  • The English Eccentrics,. Houghton, 1933
    • revised & enlarged, Vanguard, 1957
    • abridged edition, Arrow Books, 1960.
  • Aspects of Modern Poetry. London: Duckworth, 1934; Scholarly Press, 1972.
  • Some Recent Developments in English Literature. Sydney: University of Sydney, 1936.
  • Victoria of England. Houghton, 1936
    • revised edition. London: Faber, 1949.
  • Introductory essay to Sacheverell Sitwell, Collected Poems. London: Duckworth, 1936.
  • Trio: Dissertations on some aspects of national genius (with Osbert Sitwell & Sacheverell Sitwell) . London: Macmillan, 1938; Rebecca West, 1979.
    • also published asTriad of Genius. British Book Centre, 1953
  • English Women. Collins, 1942.
  • A Poet's Notebook. London: Macmillan, 1943; Boston: Little, Brown, 1950
    • 1950 edition reprinted, Greenwood Press, 1972.
  • Fanfare for Elizabeth. London: Macmillan, 1946 Dufour, 1989.
  • A Notebook of William Shakespeare. London: Macmillan, 1948; Boston: Beacon, 1961.
  • Foreword to Charles Henri Ford, Sleep in a Nest of Flames. New York: New Directions, 1949.
  • Poor Men's Music, Fore Publications, 1950.
  • Introduction to Jose Garcia Villa, Selected Poems and New. McDowell, Oblensky, 1958.
  • The Queens and the Hive. Boston: Little, Brown, 1962.
  • Taken Care Of (autobiography). New York: Atheneum, 1965.

Novel[]

  • I Live Under a Black Sun. London: Gollancz, 1937; Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Doran, 1938; John Lehmann, 1948.

Juvenile[]

  • Children's Tales from the Russian Ballet. London: 1930.

Edited[]

  •  Wheels: An anthology of verse. Oxford, UK, & London: B.H. Blackwell / Duckworth / C.W. Daniel, 1916-21. Volume I, 1916; Volume II, 1917; Volume III, 1918; Volume IV, 1919; Volume V, 1920; Volume VI, 1921.
  • The Pleasures of Poetry: A critical anthology,. Duckworth
    • Volume 1: First Series, Milton and the Augustan Age, 1930
    • Volume 2: Second Series, The Romantic Revival, 1931
    • Volume 3: Third Series, The Victorian Age, 1932; New York: Norton, 1934.
  •  Edith Sitwell's Anthology. Gollancz, 1940.
  • Look! The Sun. Gollancz, 1941.
  • Planet and Glow-Worm: A book for the sleepless, London: Macmillan, 1944.
  • A Book of the Winter (poems and prose). London: Macmillan, 1950; Vanguard, 1951.
  • The American Genius. John Lehmann, 1951.
  • A Book of Flowers, Macmillan, 1952.
  • The Atlantic Book of British and American Poetry, Boston: Little, Brown, 1958.
  • Algernon Charles Swinburne, Swinburne: A selection Harcourt, 1960.

Collected editions[]

  • Edith Sitwell: A Fire of the Mind: An anthology (compiled by Elizabeth Salter and Allanah Harper). Joseph, 1976.

Letters[]

  • Selected Letters, 1919-1964 (edited by John Lehmann & Derek Parker). London: Macmillan, 1970, Vanguard, 1971.


Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy the Poetry Foundation.[3]

See also[]

Edith_Sitwell_"Still_Falls_the_Rain"_Poem_animation

Edith Sitwell "Still Falls the Rain" Poem animation

Sitwell_and_Walton_--_Facade_with_Edith_Sitwell_and_Peter_Pears

Sitwell and Walton -- Facade with Edith Sitwell and Peter Pears

References[]

  • R. Greene, Edith Sitwell: Avant-Garde Poet, English Genius (2011)
  • S. Bradford [et al.], The Sitwells and the Arts of the 1920s and 1930s [exhibition catalogue, National Portrait Gallery, London] (1994)
  • V. 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)
  • J. Pearson, Facades, Edith, Osbert and Sacheverell Sitwell (1978)
  • R. Fifoot, A Bibliography of Edith, Osbert and Sacheverell Sitwell (1971)
  • J. Lehmann, A Nest of Tigers, Edith, Osbert and Sacheverell Sitwell in their Times (1968)

Fonds[]

Notes[]

  1. ↑ Tim Harris, Eccentric patriarch with slender grip on reality, The Age, January 2003, accessed March 2010.
  2. ↑ Edith Sitwell, The Poetry Archive. Web, Feb. 18, 2014.
  3. ↑ Edith Sitwell1887-1964, Poetry Foundation. Web, Dec. 5, 2012.

External links[]

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