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The Criticism:- Complete Works of John Galsworthy - Delphi Classics, by John Galsworthy.
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This is remaining part of Complete Works of John Galsworthy - Delphi Classics, by John Galsworthy, after having finished with writings of John Galsworthy. .
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JOHN GALSWORTHY: AN APPRECIATION by Peter Thomason
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"AN outstanding feature of Galsworthy’s work, both as novelist and playwright, is his sense of balance and of form; linked with this is a profound and shrewd power of penetration."
"A large part of Galsworthy’s work deals with people of leisure, their drama being essentially psychological, not so much the struggle of character against circumstance as the inner strife and reaction of human relationships. But he has also handled working-class characters with remarkable success, not only village types but city crowds and downtrodden, out-of-sight, submerged souls like Mrs. Jones, the charwoman, in his play The Silver Box, or Mrs. Hughes in Fraternity. Still, his work as a whole is chiefly a masterly unveiling of the people we see in the stalls of a theatre. In this respect he fills a place of his own among the writers of to-day."
"As an artist Galsworthy has made an extraordinary advance. Some writers produce a vivid personal work, a masterpiece perhaps quite early, and never reach that level of expression again. Galsworthy is not among these, he found himself gradually."
"In The Man of Property we have the perfectly balanced work of an artist who has found himself, mastered his tools, and come into his own. The book has backbone, its theme and its characters depend on each other and make each other. The writing of it has the fine restraint of real mastery, and also that pervading subtle sense of “personality” which hall-marks a great artist. The novel portrays the upper middle class in England towards the end of the last century, a protected class whose prosperity was founded on its sense of property. Into this close circle he introduces the intangible spirit of beauty — a woman, Irene, Soames Forsyte’s wife. It is her drama, caught and caged by the man of property, and his — trying to possess what he cannot possess, trying to own the heart and soul of another as he owns his dividends, and in despite trying to hold a body when love has fled."
" ... In Chancery, a continuation to The Man of Property, we have the artist in full perfection again, on his own ground, in his own particular vein, and rendering his story as no one else could render it, because it issues, as it were, from the very spirit of his art.
"There follow To Let and the two short studies, Indian Summer of a Forsyte and Awakening, making up the work named The Forsyte Saga.
"Indian Summer of a Forsyte (first published in “Five Tales”) is written with a special tenderness and charm; it epitomises the passing of an age, the age of balance and form and golden leisure. With the death of old Jolyon, the best of that age seems to pass.
"In Chancery is vigorous and exciting and full of fine touches of satire. The “man of property,” Soames Forsyte, and his wife, Irene, have been living apart; but now Soames wants a child to inherit his property; he would marry again. We see his efforts to obtain what he feels to be justice, and the painfulness of our system of rendering justice; and then we see that deep-rooted instinct to hold what is his, mastering even his own interest. He comes in contact with Irene (whom he is seeking to divorce) and, seeing her, wants her back: why should she escape and go to his cousin, who loves her and is willing to rescue her?
"Awakening is a study of a child’s mind. The Forsyte Saga has advanced another step on its march; this is the child of Irene and young Jolyon, and it is the “awakening” to beauty of this gay yet thoughtful little boy; a child’s crisis that is caught and crystallised for us.
"To Let gives the next generation on the threshold of life; the little boy grown to a shy, loving-hearted, sensitive young man, not in the least a prig but really and truly human, one of the most lovable characters in fiction; and we see the child of Soames’ second marriage, a girl, fascinating, provocative, full of the restless longings of modern youth, but with the fundamental Forsyte instinct of possession, and the added hardness of a new age with its self-will and egoism. To Let is the poignant love-story of these two young people separated by the family feud.
"The White Monkey, which continues the Forsyte chronicles with the life of Soames’ daughter to-day, is a very wonderful instance of the way in which a great artist assimilates the spirit of the times. One critic was grieved to find “modern slang” in a Galsworthy novel, but the very fact that this same writer who caught the measured pulse of the last days of the Victorian era so truly, has also caught the rapid pulse of modernism, and has given us a novel reflecting the very heart and mind and mood of youth among a certain class in post-war London, is an immense achievement.
"The Forsyte books as a whole make an epic in English fiction. They are full of humorous and satirical (as well as tragic and beautiful) character studies. Who can forget the portly “Swithin,” or the anxious, long-legged “James,” or the old Aunts, for that matter? And who can forget “Montague Dartie,” the very human “bounder” who married “Winifred,” Soames’ sister? One sees “Monty” for ever with that carnation in his buttonhole, and one doesn’t forget that homecoming, after his wild flutter, or the revealing touch of the cracked shoe! There are also young people besides the two I have mentioned at length: serious, grey-eyed “Holly” with a special charm of her own, and “Jolly” who perished in the South African war; and then “Val Dartie,” and “Michael Mont” — a character who “develops” very considerably."
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August 04, 2021 - August 04, 2021.
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JOHN GALSWORTHY by Joseph Conrad
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" ... And the reader of Mr. Galsworthy’s latest volume of fiction, whether in accord or in difference with the author’s view of his subject, would feel that he had read a book.
"Beyond that impression one perceives how difficult it is to get critical hold of Mr. Galsworthy’s work. He gives you to opening. Defending no obvious thesis, setting up no theory, offering no cheap panacea, appealing to no naked sentiment, the author of “The Man of Property” disdains also the effective device of attacking insidiously the actors of his own drama, or rather of his dramatic comedy. This is because he does not write for effect, though his writing will be found effective enough for all that. This book is of a disconcerting honesty, backed by a discouraging skill. There is not a single phrase in it written for the sake of its cleverness. Not one. Light of touch, though weighty in feeling, it gives the impression of verbal austerity, or a willed moderation of thought. The passages of high literary merit, so uniformity sustained as to escape the notice of the reader, expose the natural and logical development of the story with a purposeful progression which is primarily satisfying to the intelligence, and ends by stirring the emotions. In the essentials of matter and treatment it is a book of today. Its critical spirit and its impartial method are meant for a humanity which has outgrown the stage of fairy tales, realistic, romantic or even epic. F
or the fairy tale, be it not ungratefully said, has walked the earth in many unchallenged disguises, and lingers amongst us to this day wearing, sometimes, amazingly heavy clothes. It lingers; and even it lingers with some assurance. Mankind has come of age, but the successive generations still demand artlessly to be amazed, moved and amused. Certain forms of innocent fun will never grow old, I suppose. But the secret of the long life of the fairy tale consists mainly in this, I suspect: that it is amusing to the writer thereof."
" ... Mr. Galsworthy selects for the subject-matter of his book the Family, an institution which has been with us as long, I should think, as the oldest and the least venerable pattern of fairy tale. As Mr. Galsworthy, however, is no theorist but an observer, it is a definite kind of family that falls under his observation. It is the middle-class family; and even with more precision, as we are warned in the sub-title, an upper middle-class family anywhere at large in space and time, but a family, if not exactly of today, then of only last evening, so to say. Thus at the outset we are far removed from the vagueness of the traditional “once upon a time in a far country there was a king,” which somehow always manages to peep through the solemn disguises of fairy tales masquerading as novels with and without purpose. The Forsytes walk the pavement of London and own some of London’s houses.
"They wish to own more; they wish to own them all. And maybe they will. Time is on their side. The Forsytes never die — so Mr. Galsworthy tells us, while we watch them assembling in old Jolyson Forsyte’s drawing room on the occasion of June Forsyte’s engagement of Mr. Bosinney, incidentally an architect and an artist, but, by the only definition that matters, a man of no property whatever.
"A family is not at first sight an alarming phenomenon. But Mr. Galsworthy looks at the Forsytes with the individual vision of a novelist seeking his inspiration amongst the realities of this earth. He points out to us this family’s formidable character as unit of society, as a reproduction in miniature of society itself. It is made formidable, he says, by the cohesion of its members (between whom there need not exist either affection or even sympathy) upon a concrete point, the possession of property."
" ... In their sense of property the Forsytes establish the consciousness of their right and the promise of their duration. It is an instinct, a primitive instinct. The practical faculty of the Forsytes has erected it into a principle; their idealism has expanded it into a sort of religion which has shaped their notions of happiness and decency, their prejudices, their piety, such thoughts as they happen to have and the very course of their passions. Life as a whole has come to be perceptible to them exclusively in terms of property. Preservation, acquisition — acquisition, preservation. Their laws, their morality, their art and their science appear to them, justifiably enough, consecrated to that double and unique end. It is the formula of their virtue.
"In this world o’f Forsytes (who never die) organized in view of acquiring and preserving property, Mr. Galsworthy (who is no inventor of didactic fairy tales) places with the sure instinct of a novelist a man and a woman who are no Forsytes, it is true, but whom he presents as in no sense the declared adversaries of the great principle of property. They only happen to disregard it. And this is a crime. They are simply two people to whom life speaks imperatively in terms of love. And this is enough to establish their irreconcilable antagonism and to precipitate their unavoidable fate. Deprived naturally and suddenly of the support of laws and morality, of all human countenance, and even, in a manner of speaking, of the consolations of religion, they find themselves miserably crushed, both the woman and the man. And the principle of property is vindicated. The woman being the weaker, it is in her case vindicated with consummate cruelty. For a peculiar cowardice is one of the characteristics of this great and living principle. Strong in the worship of so many thousands and the possession of so many millions, it starts with affright at the slightest challenge, it trembles before mere indifference, it directs its heaviest blows at the disinherited who should appear weakest in its sight. Irene’s fate is made unspeakably atrocious, no less — but nothing more. ... "
" ... I myself, for instance, am not so sure of Bosinney’s tragedy. But this hesitation of my mind, for which the author may not be wholly responsible after all, need only be mentioned and no more, in the face of his considerable achievement."
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August 04, 2021 - August 04, 2021.
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A GLANCE AT TWO BOOKS by Joseph Conrad
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"I have been reading two books in English which have attracted a good deal of intelligent attention, but neither seems to have been considered as attentively as they might have been from this point of view. The one, The Island Pharisees,” by Mr. John Galsworthy, is a very good example of the national novel; the other, “Green Mansions,” by Mr. W.H. Hudson, is a proof that love, the pure love of rendering the external aspects of things, can exists side by side with the national novel in English letters.
"Mr. Galsworthy’s hero in ‘The Island Pharisees,” during his pilgrimage right across the English social system, asks himself: “Why? Why is not the world better? Why are we all humburgs? Why is the social system so out of order?” And he gets no answer to his questions, for, indeed, in his mood no answer is possible, neither is an answer needed for the absolute value of the book. Shelton is dissatisfied with his own people, who are good people, with artists, whose “at homes” he drops into, with marriage settlements and wedding services, with cosmopolitan vagabonds, with Oxford dons, with policemen — with himself and his love."
" ... Shelton distinctly does not couch his lance against a windmill. He is a knight errant, disarmed and faithful, riding forlorn to an inevitable defeat; his adversary is a giant of a thousand heads and a thousand arms, a monster at once perfectly human and altogether soulless. Though nobody dies in the book, it is really the record of a long and tragic adventure, who tragedy is not so much in the event as in the very atmosphere, in the cold moral dusk in which the hero moves as if impelled by some fatal whisper, without a sword, corselet or helmet.
"Amadis de Gaul would have struck a head off and counted it a doughty deed; Dickens would have flung himself upon pen and paper and made a caricature of the monster, would have flung at him an enormous joke vibrating with the stress of cheap emotions; Shelton, no legendary knight and being no humorist (but, like many simpler men, impelled by the destiny he carries within his breast), goes forth to be delivered, bound hand and foot, to the monster by his charming and limited Antonia. He is classed as an outsider by men in the best clubs, and his prospective mother-in-law tells him not to talk about things. He comes to grief socially, because in a world, which everyone is interested to go on calling the best of all possible worlds, he has insisted upon touching in challenge all the shields hung before all the comfortable tents; the immaculate shield of his fiancee, of his mother-in-law, of the best men in the best clubs. He gets himself called and thought of as Unsound; and there in his social world the monster has made an end of him."
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August 04, 2021 - August 04, 2021.
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GALSWORTHY: A SURVEY by Leon Schalit
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" ... Galsworthy had the good fortune to be “born with a silver spoon in his mouth”; he grew up, too, in full freedom, and has the most enjoyable recollections of his youth. For four years he was educated at a private school in Bournemouth. From 1881-1886, he was at Harrow, where he distinguished himself in games, and fairly well in work. Later he went to New College, Oxford, and in 1889 took an honour degree in Law. In 1890 he should have begun active work at the Bar — like his father he was destined for the Law — but the dryness of that profession was deeply repugnant to him, and appears to be so to the present day.
"Instead of practising Law, Galsworthy made a trip round the world and was roving from 1891 to 1893. These years were of supreme importance to his evolution. On the sailing ship “Torrens,” voyaging from Australia to South Africa, he met Joseph Conrad, then a sailor. A friendship arose between the two which was only interrupted by Conrad’s death in 1924. Conrad, the Pole who wrote in the English language, is a phenomenon in Anglo-Saxon literature; but although Conrad and Galsworthy were so dissimilar in every way, they had a great understanding of each other.
"It was not until the year 1895 that Galsworthy — then nearly twenty-eight — almost in spite of himself, began to write. ... "
" ... 1901 bestows on us four characteristic long-short tales: “A Man of Devon”, “A Knight”, “The Silence”, and “Salvation of a Forsyte”, the last of which is certainly the most important. Here, for the first time, a Forsyte (Swithin) makes his appearance; and Galsworthy, the ironist and satirist, begins to emerge."
"“The Island Pharisees” is important, chiefly for its disclosure of the author as a social critic.
"Considering Galsworthy’s work from “Villa Rubein” on, we now discern two spirits within him: that of a lyric poet, wizard of atmosphere, worshipper of beauty, and that of a reasoning, disintegrating critic, ironist and satirist. In the constant blending of these two spirits lies the main charm of his art.
"During 1904 and 1905 Galsworthy made further rapid development, and the social critic becomes the social philosopher. For him, the year 1906 was perhaps the most vitally important of all his writing years, because in it appeared “The Man of Property”, which brought him sudden fame and (though the writer was then unaware of it) was the opening volume of that national epic, “ The Forsyte Saga “, and its continuation, “A Modern Comedy.” It is probably the most powerful novel he ever wrote or will write, and in it he definitely revealed his technique and his individuality. He may have extended his technique in later works, but he has not changed it.
"But the year 1906 also marked his appearance as a dramatist, with his first play, a social comedy, “The Silver Box”, which from the start strikes the keynote of his stage work. It treats of social contrasts and the conflicts arising therefrom. As in the novel, from “The Man of Property” on, so in the drama, from “The Silver Box” on, Galsworthy has, with hardly an exception, remained faithful to a technique rich in contrasts, in restraint, and in the ironic treatment of his subject. Success in the theatre, in spite of plentiful misunderstandings by the public and his critics, has remained true to him; with his increasing maturity it has increased greatly, just as his fame as a novelist assumed very vast proportions after the appearance of “The Forsyte Saga.” In his work generally novelist and dramatist are closely interwoven; whole chapters of the novels and short stories are pervaded with the spirit of the dramatist, while many of the plays have a strain of the novel in them, without thereby losing their dramatic effect."
"Transition to the great novel “Fraternity”, published in 1909, is through the volume “A Commentary”, 1908, a collection of sketches and studies, in which Galsworthy, by his moving descriptions of social misery, stands out as an indicter of Society. Social contrasts are inexorably worked out, with an inflexibly truthful fanaticism. The book foreshadows the despair which overcomes and often threatens to crush us in “Fraternity.” This novel, which exposes the hopelessness of social fraternity owing to the deeply-rooted and unbridgeable contrasts in human nature, is impregnated with a unique and overwhelming melancholy, and obsessed by social conscience; but its characters are constructed with rare plasticity, presented profoundly, and charged with such deliberate irony, that the book is certainly one of the climaxes in Galsworthy’s creative career; while in the handling of contrasts it is, technically, a masterpiece.
"1909 is another important milestone on the road of Galsworthy’s dramatic evolution. In “Strife” he gave us his most powerful and most impartial stage work. The whole play is a great fight and has a certain compelling and fatalistic force. In the following year Galsworthy proclaimed his credo of humanity from the stage through the poignant and accusing drama “Justice.” ... The practical result of this drama in England, a reform in prison life, showed the great impression that it made."
" ... In 1917 appeared his masterly short story, “Indian Summer of a Forsyte”, in continuation of “The Man of Property”, an exquisite poem in prose which alone would assure his immortality. While the imagination of many writers was lamed by the War, or devoted to “war journalism” of doubtful quality, Galsworthy, at this period, penned some of his finest stories, as though he had taken refuge from the brutal reality in the realms of fancy. The “Five Tales”, which appeared in 1918, just before the end of the war, are among his finest inspirations."
"In the meantime a plan for continuing the Forsyte Chronicles had been maturing in the writer, and, in the autumn of 1920, the appearance of the second book, “In Chancery”, was everywhere acclaimed. In this book and in “Awakening”, the brief story of little Jon Forsyte, published shortly afterwards, the fate of the Forsytes is developed in a crescendo of interest. Scarcely a year later, the third volume, “To Let”, followed. With this, Galsworthy completed that monumental edifice, “The Forsyte Saga,” which stands unique in contemporary literature, and has been followed since by a second Forsyte trilogy, “A Modem Comedy.” The “Saga” was — so far — his best and boldest work, and, on its appearance in a single volume in 1922, founded his fame throughout the world. In this gigantic cycle, the action of which is spread over three-and-a-half decades, all the qualities of its writer are fused: the social-philosopher, the ironist, the symbolist, the painter of character, the wizard of atmosphere, the pursuer of truth and beauty, novelist, and dramatist, man and poet. In this brief survey I restrict myself to these remarks on a colossal work which is fully discussed in the following chapters."
" ... Next year gave us that fine character comedy, “A Family Man”, followed in 1922 by Galsworthy’s most successful drama, up to the present, “Loyalties.” No other play of this playwright’s has been performed so frequently in England, America, and Germany. There have been many arguments over this work, and even to-day, perhaps no final verdict can be pronounced. But it is certainly not only the most brilliant of his plays, but that which best reveals all his merits and individuality as a dramatist. Construction, conflict, climax, catastrophe, characterisation, ironic treatment, humour in grave situations — are all masterly. It is again a duel with unbuttoned foils; again as in so many of his dramas, a rebellion of the weaker, of the individual against the closed phalanx of Society. Remarkable that Galsworthy’s two great successes in the novel and the play should so coincide in point of time."
" ... The leading characters of the “Saga” forced the pen into the author’s hand again, with novel developments and a wonderfully lucid humour. “The White Monkey” not only begins the new Forsyte trilogy, “A Modem Comedy,” in which the troubled and complex post-war period is portrayed almost up to date, but in a sense it inaugurates a new style, a light and subtly humorous treatment of serious matters. The delicate ironist has regained the upper hand. “The White Monkey,” and its sequel, “The Silver Spoon,” which appeared in 1926, have a subtler texture, and still more amazing technique; and we are, of course, in closer contact with these two pictures of our own period and culture, and with the last book, “Swan Song”, than we are with “The Forsyte Saga.”
"Towards the end of 1927 appeared two short Interludes of the new cycle, “A Silent Wooing”, and “Passers by”, charming little ironic masterpieces. And then in July, 1928, we have “Swan Song” itself, crowning volume of the “Forsyte” Chronicles, in which all the resources of Galsworthy’s art have been summoned to the formation of a specially subtle and original whole. For the moment it is not possible to compare the merits of “A Modem Comedy” with those of “The Forsyte Saga.” Too short a time has elapsed for the formation of mature judgment. But it may be safely said that with the second trilogy the author has achieved another masterpiece. These two trilogies, complete each in itself — six novels and four short stories all linked together — form a work unique in modern literature, which, moreover, to the Continental reader gives a special insight not only into English character, but into English life and culture."
"Influence on Galsworthy’s work is primarily Russian and French. In his early years he steeped himself particularly in Turgeniev and de Maupassant. Something of Turgeniev’s technique and of de Maupassant’s irony, polish, and reserve, is to be found in Galsworthy’s style of narration. Except Dickens and perhaps Thackeray a little, no English writer has influenced him, unless it be Shakespeare. At any rates Galsworthy’s maturer style and technique is quite novel of its kind; and in drama, too, he has gone his own way, and still goes it, quite uninfluenced by Ibsen, Strindberg, Hauptmann, few of whose works he knows."
" ... With few exceptions his characters are drawn from everyday life, are not heroes, not exceptions, not shadows or figments of the brain, but beings of flesh and blood. Most of them belong to the prosperous middle class, some to the aristocracy; there are also plenty of proletarians, and some creative artists. Galsworthy does not aim at producing something “novel,” something “which has never yet been seen,” at all costs; he simply says what he has to say. He has never done homage to a fashion, or to a “trend”; with infallible confidence and calm he has gone on his way recking nothing of “opinions.” ... "
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" ... Most people mistake his reserved manner for dryness and lack of enthusiasm. His great modesty, too — he talks little of himself and his work — has frequently been completely misunderstood. He hates all strong language, the loud, the declamatory, bravado. But I can hardly recall one visit or meeting when Galsworthy did not “thaw.” He is, too, like very few other writers, a past master in the art of listening."
"The world war interrupted all work and efforts to introduce Galsworthy to the German stage and German publishers. It was long before the work of destruction could be made good. And it is significant — that as before the war — it was again Vienna whence Galsworthy’s fame went forth to the German stage and the German publishing world. In the year 1923, “The Dark Flower” appeared; in 1924, the collection of short stories, “A Fisher of Men”, and when, in 1925, “Windows”, and — in particular—” Loyalties”, were produced in Vienna with conspicuous success, the spell was broken. Since 1924, within four years, in rapid succession thirteen large and six smaller volumes have been published in the German language, and nine dramas produced in many theatres.
"It was not until 1923 that I had the opportunity of once more meeting Galsworthy and his wife at Innsbruck, and of that meeting I have retained some of my most delightful recollections. (He loves the Tyrol, and once wrote me that when he was a boy of six, he “read himself almost blind” over the story of Andreas Hofer and the War of Liberation.) He and his wife had done Red Cross work in a French hospital, and felt the war most acutely, but though when I met him again he was nearly fifty-six, he appeared to have grown younger. His tall figure seemed to have become more elastic, his dark blue eyes deeper still; something serene, relieved, harmonious, emanated from him, and the kindliness of his nature radiated a more comforting warmth than ever. A man fully mature, who, although standing above life and its happenings, yet takes an active interest in all human affairs and is in their midst — such was the writer who had finished “The Forsyte Saga”, and had experienced the great success of his plays.
"In the summer of 1925, I was fortunate enough to get to know the place where Galsworthy had formerly lived and worked at the remote village of Manaton in the lovely county of Devonshire, and to pass about ten days with him at “Grove Lodge,” his London home. A great part of his earlier work was written at the farm “Wingstone” at Manaton. (The edition de luxe of his works, published in 1923 and 1924, is called the “Manaton Edition.”) Great peace and seclusion, charm and wealth of colour of the hilly moor, nature inviolate! And not very far away, a deep blue sea, with dark red cliffs. It is there that one understands so well the infinite variety of moods in “The Patrician”, “The Dark Flower”, in the tale “The Apple Tree”, the drama “A Bit o’ Love”, and in a whole series of short stories, sketches and studies; and one feels that — thus — and in no other way could they have been achieved.
"The friendly farmer told me of Galsworthy’s readiness to help — so often abused; of his great love for dogs and horses, of his pleasure in riding, of Mrs. Galsworthy’s particular predilection for flowers and music. Except for the absence of a piano, the rooms in the granite farmhouse which Galsworthy occupied with his wife, the garden, the lawn, and the surroundings of the farm are in much the same condition as the writer left them a few years ago. There, too, stands the “lime tree” to which we owe one of his loveliest sketches. ... "
" ... Chopin is also one of his favourite composers; he loves to be lulled into dreams. For Wagner he has no real sympathy. As to his opinion on the hyper-modems, one has but to peruse the chapter in the “White Monkey” entitled “Music.” During his pre-war wanderings he liked to see and listen to Offenbach’s Operettas. “They take one out of oneself,” he said to me.
"Galsworthy is also an excellent speaker. And, as President of the “ Pen Club,” (which he helped to found) that international society of authors and editors, he presides over the meetings with great tact and skill, smoothes out differences, and works practically for the object of the society — the creation of such a conciliatory atmosphere, mutual understanding, and spiritual peace between the nations, as shall prevent or at least make difficult, the atmosphere of war. Galsworthy would certainly have made a brilliant barrister (vide “Justice”) but for two considerable impedimenta: the fact that he can never speak impromptu, and would hate the life of a lawyer. One can easily imagine him as a statesman, but for those same reasons.
"I have never heard him utter a harsh or intolerant word about anyone, not even about those who have attacked him unjustly or spitefully: their number grows less from day to day. He never attacks anyone personally. He nearly always expresses tolerant and understanding opinions on his colleagues, and he hates scandal, “That miserable, mean thing, the human tongue,” he makes Courtier say in “The Patrician.” And only gross cruelty, barbarity, particularly towards helpless animals, can rouse his anger. He treats dependants with the greatest courtesy and consideration. He has equipoise and mental balance, and applies them both practically and in his writings. ... "
"In conclusion I would like to say something of the consistent way in which the writer works, and of his versatility. Where another would rest on his laurels, Galsworthy, in his exceptional diligence, writes almost every day when not travelling. He works in every place, every weather, in the train — best of all, indeed, in the sun. “Escape” was written in the sun of California. He enjoys, as a rule, the most perfect health, and is, like his work, the picture of latent strength; but owing to a bronchial affection of his wife’s — now happily relieved — they spend the late autumn, winter and early spring, which are so hurtful in England, abroad in the South. In latter years they have been to Sicily, Portugal, Morocco, Arizona, California, South Africa. Accustomed from youth to travel, Galsworthy has seen, observed, experienced much, and come into contact with numberless people. In this way, despite his strongly pronounced Englishry, the international trend in him originated, though most of his works treat exclusively of England and English problems. When one considers that he only began to write, hesitatingly and tentatively, at the age of twenty-eight — so that he has not spent much more than thirty years in literary activity — the extent of his Work is amazing. Twenty-six volumes of novels, stories, sketches, studies, satires, essays, speeches; two volumes of poetry, eighteen full-length dramas, an allegory and six one-act plays (several new short stories have not yet appeared in book form)! And withal, most of them bear the stamp of perfection, of most exhaustive treatment. At the same time he follows all the questions of the day, and studies his problems very conscientiously. He has exceptional poetic imagination, and, in spite of his vast achievement, he is never in haste, and allows everything to mature quietly. His mental steadiness, in conjunction with great faculty for work, and creative instinct, have produced a harvest in all the fields of literary art. That a great novelist should be an almost equally great dramatist, and at the same time have mastery over the lesser forms, is unique in the present day."
" ... As soon as he becomes ironically moved he wants to write. But he forces nothing, he waits till the inspiration comes. He never knows in advance how he is going to end. He says he will wake at night, involuntarily begin to think, and then see a certain way ahead. When walking alone or shaving, plot and characters will “jolt forward.” Helpless as he is to stem such inspirations, he is just as unable to work on beyond the end. The end is there when inspiration ceases. He believes that the whole imaginative process is far more subconscious than conscious, at least in his own case. ... "
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August 04, 2021 - August 04, 2021.
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INTRODUCTION TO GALSWORTHY'S PLAYS by Leon Schalit
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" ... The chief characteristic of the author is his ironical perception of the enmeshment of personality in Society’s institutions; the struggle of the individual against the mass, or overwhelming majority. The individual of to-day is so dependent on his surroundings, “ so much a part of the warp and woof of complicated Society”, that Society becomes his or her fate, such a fate, as, in the ancient Greek Dramatists, the Gods meted out to mortal man. In most of Galsworthy’s works the conflict arises from the rebellion of the individual against Society, some particular case being taken for a typical example."
"For him the task lies in the unrolling of the problem, not in its solution. The unrolling of the problem should serve to make us think and reflect, to make us realise, to awaken our interest in what is hitherto unknown to us, or viewed in a wrong light. W ... "
" ... From the very outset he surrounds his play with a peculiar atmosphere of its own, and maintains it throughout, and this, in each case, has something fateful, something inevitable about it. He does not invent a plot for its own sake, but builds it of the varying human attitudes, towards incident, or event, revealing the characters by argument and contest, from which the central idea emerges sharply defined."
" ... He uses, often with marked effect, the indirect method; unexpressed feeling is incessantly present — simmering under an apparently calm surface. This reserve is sometimes driven to extremes. Reserve, however, is a deeply rooted characteristic of the English, rendering it impossible for them to voice their feelings easily. “The English man and woman of to-day have almost a genius for under-expression,” he says. And in most cases Galsworthy’s plays, when read before being seen, leave a strange impression on the reader, owing to the unusual brevity of expression; it is as though one were faced with a bare framework, and lay figures for characters."
" ... The rehearsing of the plays, naturally, requires a minute study of the psychology of the characters, an ardent diligence, and devotion. Every nuance is important in itself. The deeper sense must be drawn out of the apparently dry-boned technique. At times, this is only to be achieved by an adequate expression, an appropriate gesture. Every dialogue Galsworthy writes is brimful of subtle suggestion, of things only to be read between the lines. Such plays must be interpreted in their own special style. The Producer who does not command a suitable ensemble, and has no enthusiasm for the subtle art of the author, would do better to leave these Dramas alone."
" ... He compresses into one or two sentences in a play what in a novel would be expressed in a number of pages. It is the duty of the actor to press out the last ounce from the sparse words in his performance. Galsworthy says in a Preface: “It might be said of Shaw’s plays that he creates characters who express feelings which they have not got. It might be said of mine, that I create characters who have feelings which they cannot express.” This suggestive manner of treatment, and the singular atmosphere exhaled by the characters themselves, bring something new to the stage. There is practically no single play of Galsworthy which is not a matured product, and, though naturally, all the works of this prolific author have not the same value, there is not one published play which does not bear his hall-mark."
"From the “Silver Box” (1906) to “Escape” (1926) is a considerable journey!"
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August 04, 2021 - August 04, 2021.
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February 2004 - November 07, 2020 -
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February 2004 - November 07, 2020 -
August 04, 2021 - August 04, 2021.
Purchased June 13, 2021.
Kindle Edition, 9300 pages
Published February 13th 2013
by Delphi Classics
ASIN:- B00BFJFTFQ
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