andrew lang

999 Pages·2010·31.08 MB·English

AIJKSUNIVERSITENT BMY J
PACULTENT DER LETFEREN IN WIIG@EBEEATE
ACADEMIC YEAR 1982-1882

ANDREW LANG (1844-1912)

LATE VICTORIAN HUMANIST AND JOURNALISTIC CRITIC
WITH A DESCRIPTIVE CHECKLIST OF THE LANG LETTERS

VOLUME |

MARYSA DEMOOR

Dissertation submitted to proceed to the degreeof
Doctor in Germanit Pailology

Promotor : Prof. Dr. W. SCHAICKK
courewrs oP vOLUSE T

ACENOMLED@RENTS

INTRODUCTION .
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS, SHORT TITLES, AND SIGLA .

PART ONE

PART 70

10, HISTORY : A LATE VOCATION .

+ YOUTH AND EOUCATION

1. BOORMAN AND BORDERER - :
2. THE COLLEGE OF THE SCARLET GOWN
3. GLASGOW AND OXFORD .
4, AN ACADEMIC PRELUDE

{ ERTE VICTORIAN BUNANTST

5. AN ENGLISH PARNASSTAN .....
6. LANG AND HOWER + A LOVE STORY
7, BM ISHMAELITE AMONG ANTEROPOLOGISTS .
8. TELLER OF PATRY“TALES ...-5
3. MOVELISTIC EXPERIMENTS .

PRET THREE ¢ LATE VICTORIAN JOURWRLISTIC CRITIC

15, LEPERARY BIOGRAPHY, LITEAARY WISTORY
16. THE ZOURGALIST AT WORK
17. A WEP ANDEG WITS

LA. ANDREW LANG'S THEORY OF CRITICTSK
12. LANG ON CONTEMPORARY DRAMA
13. LANG ON CONTEMPORARY POETRY ...++.
Ag, THE aat OF PICTON .

All for Romance ++.
‘The Realist Bnemy
Young, Rew and "Unseasored” Authors

oz
aa
iw

168
vel
ea
23
229
263
230
303
222
3eB
PART FOUR + YOURS VERY TRULY,

CONCLUSION «2.

APPENDIX

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY «+++.

INDEX TO VOLUME T

AL LANG

361
366
m3
382
400
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

In the course of research and writing I have incurred
many obligations, personal and professional. T owe an inmense
debt to Professor by Willem Schrickx without whom thia werk might
never have been béought to completseritie offered me the past of avetetant
in hie depertnent and therehy enabled me to begin writing.
Professor Echrickx read the entire manuscript with a keen
eritieal eye and suggested many improvements.

Tt algo gives me much pleasure to acknowledge tha generous
halp of wr Roger Lancelyn Green. His encouragement, constructive
eritician, and useful auggeationa vere deeply appreciated.

A special debt of thanks 1s due to Professor Derek Roper
for his likeral aid and counsel. His interest in my work pravided ~
continual and invaluable stinulus.

For any helpful sugqastions T should like to thank my
culleague and friend Keietiaan Versluys, and for helping me embark
on this work Professor David Carroll. 1 wish also to expresa
thanka to Professor Dr H. Van Looy for reading the chapter on
Homer and for suggesting ways of improving it.

My colleagues at the Department of English and American
Literature at Ghent University were alvaya nore than tolerant of
ny absorption in Lang. I shall never be abla to thank them
properly for thair friendliness and thelz encouragement,

sratefvl acknowledgement ts algo due to the present ictders
of Lang letters who generously permitted their holdings to ba
copied for the purposes of tie checklist. Their names will be
found in Appendix B to volute IK and i hope that these owners
will not regard it az discourtecus 1£, for convenience, T record
my gratitude to then collectively.

My parents and friends I must thank for hearing with it and
for helping by being patient.
Rot least am TI grateful to wre Nicole Persijn whose
cheerful patience at the typewriter went far beyond the bounds
of duty. My thanks ales go to %4 Philip van Ootegem for skilfully
azawing the genealogical chart.

Finally, f doubt if T should have finished the work,
at all events so coon, without my Imshand's constant interest
and his help in practical matters. It 1s to him that I dedicate

this work.
oe

ra
x

"a pyndicate of literary gentienan”

RT

no ta Andrew Lang"?

‘But T have seen photographs of hin‘?
“they were composite photographs"
"yon mean to say he really doesn't exist"?
“ie couldn't. Mo man could do ae

much as he”.

“How mach"?

"Re writes Leading articles for

the ‘Daily News’. We reviews

novels for ‘The Times’, He

gossips ia ‘Longnan'é’.’ He is the

new historian of Seotiand. fe is the
first authority on the "45. He edits
fairy tales, and Dickens, and Valter
Scott, He translated Homer and
‘Theocritus. e knows Hdnund Gosse~'
steady on".

“He can preface anything —
Coleridge's poems, Australian
folk tales, or Rittite inseriptions.
He is a poot, and pasodist, and a
dcterminad Latter-writer. ‘He knows all
abgue cricket. fe plays golf, We oxtehon

-Ysny ! 1 say"!
cto 48 the biosrapher of Lord 1ddlesleigh

and J.G. Lockhart. He fs an authority on
religion and epirit-rappirg. Ue discovered
Rider Waggard. He-".

sghat'll do. Have it” your own way".

= s¥es, I thought 1 could convince you.

There ig no Andrew Lang. Tt is only
a tame for trade purposes, Andeew
Lang is really a Koneington secret,
society that existe co make good

(rrom 2 preas-cutting kept in Selkirk rree

Dibrary)
INTRODUCTION

andrew Lang wad one of the most influential critics of his
tine speaking with a voice the authority of which was only equalled,
perhaps, by that of the two other giants of his day, George
Saintsbury and Bdnund Gosse. As this short study of his work
emphasizes, he algo was a leading English Parnaseian post, an
authoritative anthropologist and folklorist, 2 proficient student
and translater of classics] Literature and the author of historical
monngzaphs and of a history of Scotland. He became one of the
most prolific correspondents of modern times, compiler and author
of fairy-tales, an oditor, a biogtapher, an unsuccessful novelist,

a Literary historian and a combative essayist. ‘the multifariousness
of his gemfus was such that it greatly confused ats contemporaries.
hey even began to wonder vhat bis actual cecupation was, as
Gilzert Murray's awusing anecdote about the meeting of Andrew Lang
and Theodore Roosevelt aptly illustrates.

‘Theodore Roosevelt had heen invited to Oxford to give the
Roftanes Lecture. Before the lecture, the president came up to
wurcay and asked to be introduced to Andrew Lang, and so they went
to where Lang “wae leaning abseat-nuindedty against the wall",

tie. Tang’, he [Roosevelt] sata) ‘7 have done you
a wiong, {have Jet Gilbert Murray convert me about
Toner’ i ‘Never mind", said Lang weartiy, ‘I converted
aan onea’. ‘Sut that 18 not the worst’, said Roosevelt.
Trihave taken one of your most ardent disciples and
Geatroyed his faith in you, When T vas exploring the
Razor ve hag with us aran, a hard-headed, altra~scientifie
Scotchman, who was always quoting Andrew Lang to we

Ridrew tang the historian, Andrew lang the anthropologist,
Andres Lang who knew the seally scientific explanation

Of all the problens that ve came across in ovr travels.

Re last I couldn't stand Jt and seid to him + "Do you

1. Larg eupported the unitardan point of view with respect t6 the
flomerie question, whereas Murray Gas a confirmed “analyst™ ; see
below, chapter 6.
mean Andrew Lang the post? "Post "7, said he.
Mwonsense 7 he is great man of learning, not

one of your poets. iow, wien T travel’, Roosevelt
continued, ‘I travel very light, bot T take with we
Five or six really good books, just the few 1 admire
moat. "Not a post" T eaid, taking your poems out
of my pocket, "What do you call that*? Ne took 4¢
and ha set to work to read tt, The first week he
read bard and got to page twenty. The second week
he fell hack sonehow, and only got to page fifteen.
Couldn’t bear it, € suppose. Sir, I fear I heve
destroyed you In‘that man's estimation for ever'.

80 saying, Roosevelt turned avay, Leaving Lang
quietly purring, with pleasure, and joined the
procession, which had been waiting for him mest of
the tine that he wae telling iis story.t

And yet, this victorian humanist is, today, neatly completely
forgotten, the reasons for this eclipse are manifold. Lang himself
always discouraged the ides of a posthumous biography and he
stipulated that hig papers be destroyed after his death. Besides,
the extraordinary number of books and articles to his name put

off many a student, if only because Lang's writings cover widely
different subjects. A last factor which certainly contributed to
the effacenant of Lang's name from people's memory, was the

rapidly changing society, inpatient with the sracthness and
urbanity of the Victorian era and not interested in gentlemen-
acholars Gf whom Lang wag the stock example. None the lesa, ever
since A{s death, seventy-one years ago, there have heon cenmendable
efforts to keep tang's name fron ainking into cblivion.

Sir Peter Redford Scott tang, Xt., Regine Orofesser af
Mathematics in the College of St. Salvator and St. Leonard, 1879~
1921, feiend and namesake of Lang, provided in his will for the
founding of an Andyew tang Lectureship.” The series, started

1. Andrew bang, The Poet, Andrew Lang Lecture (London, 1948}, pp. 4-5.

2. Erfornation based on a copy of tho St, Andrews University Court
Minute of Decenber 3, 1926, Rept in the J.B. Salnond Collection
at St. andrews University.
Barres

in 1927, was to be devoted te Andrew Lang and his work. since
L951, however, and with the sole exception of Roger Lancelya
Green's lacture in 1968, the lectures have loet all connection
with Lang apazt frou the fact that they deal with his subjects,

Rager Lancolyn Green is alao the author of the first full~
length atudy of Uarg. ayérey lang. A Ceittoal Blogeaphy (1946) ie
a thorough investigation of Lang’s imaginative writings as well
as a useful introduction te his pursuits in other fields of
Interest. This biography, together with a considerable nonber
of articles on Lang and a concise biography of 1962 established
vz Grean as the Lang authority, Ne is at present engaged upon
the apparently impossible task of compiling a complete bibliography
of Jang's works.*

Another noteworthy contribution te the revaluation of Andrew
hang’a work woe William R. Matthews's Ph.D. diasartation presented
at Witkenberg University, Ohio, in 1961. Matthews atcempted =
comparison of lang, Saintebury, Gosse and Churton Collins aa late
Victorian journalistic critics. ™e author's aim was twofold +
"to reconstruct @ fairly accurate picture of the kinds of criticism
publisned in magazines and newspapers at the end of Victoria's
reign and to daal with that part of it which has the most value
for the nodern reader".? The mass of material forced Matthews
to consider only those easaye reprinted in collected editions.
vet thie procedure, though in his work no doubt unavoidable, has
the geeat disadvantage, when 4t comes to discussing Lang's

The bibliographies completed during Lang's life, by Charles
M, Falconer, are but selections, in deference to the author's
wishes, A Sore complete bibliography is 09 be found ia an
appendix to Green's biography of 1946.

2, “Late Victorian Journalistic Criticism : & Study of Gosse,
Saintsbury, and Churton Collins’ (1961), Introductory Note:
sien

oritielen of giving false emphases and even leading ta wrong
conclusions,

A Inst tmportant work which needs to be mentioned here is
the Ph.D, dissertation of the Dutch scholar, Antonive De Coca,
published in 1968. sie atudy is an exhguative analysis of Lang's
achtievanent in the field of anthropology and an attanpt at
asternining Lang’ importance in this area particulmrly in
comparison with better-known anthropelogists such aa Janes ceorge
Frazer and Bdvard Burnett Tylor.”

Bagides these three large-scale studies, a great number of
articles on Lang appeared both during Ms lifetime and after his
death, But they have hecone more seldom with the lapse of tine,
Moreover, a searching dnquiry of Lang's journalistic criticism
ig etill miesing. Yet his critical essaye were exactly the
writings, witch, apart from providing hin with a Living, firet
made bin fanous. Lang's power as a Literary critic was such that
he could make or break the reputation of an author.? iis sesming2y

1. On p- 62, for instance, Matthews avers that to Lang Toriticiam
is feroly ono way of earning a living ; its importance to
saciety and to the world of Jetters ia practically nil", a
statement based on one of Lang's manifestly ironic pronouncenents
Swe are gL1 but Gonichonbukes” ("he Science of criticism", New,
IV, May 1891, p. 400)and sharply contradicted by the oritic’a
standpoint adopéed in the Tang-kowells controversy (sea below, pp.
272 €.}. On p. 64 the same author writes that "Lang also agréet
with Arnold that a stiqulating national and social environment
wus eevential fo good literary production". He does not, however,
adduce any evidence for such an assertion valle in several
articles oze finds Lang endoreing a totally different view +
*the conditions which regult in great literary productions are
ko obscure that lovers of literature should rover despair. In the
darkest hour there may arise sone ‘ney avatar’, just as tines of
leisure and cultivation vay he hopelessly barren of geniua”.
("victorian biterature”, Good Words, KiNVKL2, February 1837, p. 92).

2, Andyew Lang, A Winetecnth Century Anthropologist vas originally
gritten in butch, but De Cocq had it translated inte English for
pubhication.

More on thia in chapter 16.