116-502: John Cowper Powys ( / ˈ k uː p ər ˈ p oʊ ɪ s / KOO -pər POH -iss ; 8 October 1872 – 17 June 1963) was an English novelist, philosopher, lecturer, critic and poet born in Shirley, Derbyshire , where his father was vicar of the parish church in 1871–1879. Powys appeared with a volume of verse in 1896 and a first novel in 1915, but gained success only with his novel Wolf Solent in 1929. He has been seen as
232-595: A Scottish Presbyterian family and petitioned the Court of Chancery to set aside a provision in Amberley's will requiring the children to be raised as agnostics. Despite her religious conservatism, she held progressive views in other areas (accepting Darwinism and supporting Irish Home Rule ), and her influence on Bertrand Russell's outlook on social justice and standing up for principle remained with him throughout his life. Her favourite Bible verse, "Thou shalt not follow
348-500: A US partner, Phyllis Playter. In 1935 they moved to Corwen , Merionethshire , Wales, where he set two novels, and in 1955 to Blaenau Ffestiniog , where he died in 1963. Powys was born in Shirley, Derbyshire , in 1872, the son of the Reverend Charles Francis Powys (1843–1923), and Mary Cowper Johnson, granddaughter of Dr John Johnson , the cousin and close friend of the poet William Cowper . He came from
464-528: A book by Cambridge University Press with a foreword by C. D. Broad —in which he gave an authoritative account of Russell's 1916 dismissal from Trinity College, explaining that a reconciliation between the college and Russell had later taken place and gave details about Russell's personal life. Hardy writes that Russell's dismissal had created a scandal since the vast majority of the Fellows of the College opposed
580-690: A collection of articles on the CCNY affair in The Bertrand Russell Case . Russell soon joined the Barnes Foundation , lecturing to a varied audience on the history of philosophy; these lectures formed the basis of A History of Western Philosophy . His relationship with the eccentric Albert C. Barnes soon soured, and he returned to the UK in 1944 to rejoin the faculty of Trinity College. Russell participated in many broadcasts over
696-439: A collection of literary essays, Visions and Revisions . This was published by the manager of his lecture tours, Arnold Shaw, as were the subsequent Suspended Judgements: Essays on Books and Sensations (1916) and One Hundred Best Books (1916). Visions and Revisions went through four impressions in 16 months. In the next 30 years he published essay collection, The Enjoyment of Literature (1938) ( The Pleasures of Literature in
812-525: A family of eleven children, many of whom were also talented. The family lived in Shirley between 1871 and 1879, briefly in Dorchester, Dorset and then they moved to Montacute , Somerset, where Charles Powys was vicar for thirty-two years. John Cowper Powys's two younger brothers Llewelyn Powys (1884–1939) and Theodore Francis Powys were well-known writers, while his sister Philippa Powys published
928-496: A foreword to Words and Things by Ernest Gellner , which was highly critical of the later thought of Ludwig Wittgenstein and of ordinary language philosophy . Gilbert Ryle refused to have the book reviewed in the philosophical journal Mind , which caused Russell to respond via The Times . The result was a month-long correspondence in The Times between the supporters and detractors of ordinary language philosophy, which
1044-465: A founder of analytic philosophy , along with his predecessor Gottlob Frege , his friend and colleague G. E. Moore , and his student and protégé Ludwig Wittgenstein . Russell with Moore led the British "revolt against idealism ". Together with his former teacher A. N. Whitehead , Russell wrote Principia Mathematica , a milestone in the development of classical logic and a major attempt to reduce
1160-866: A historian and one of the leading figures in the Liberal Democrat party. Russell returned in 1937 to the London School of Economics to lecture on the science of power. During the 1930s, Russell became a friend and collaborator of V. K. Krishna Menon , then President of the India League , the foremost lobby in the United Kingdom for Indian independence. Russell chaired the India League from 1932 to 1939. Russell's political views changed over time, mostly about war. He opposed rearmament against Nazi Germany . In 1937, he wrote in
1276-556: A house for 20 years with Russell's old friend Lucy Donnelly . Edith remained with him until his death, and, by all accounts, their marriage was a happy, close, and loving one. Russell's eldest son John suffered from mental illness , which was the source of ongoing disputes between Russell and his former wife Dora. In 1962 Russell played a public role in the Cuban Missile Crisis : in an exchange of telegrams with Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev , Khrushchev assured him that
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#17327876586551392-519: A manner that would not do if generally adopted". Russell merely smiled, but afterwards claimed that the reply "That's right, just like your brother " immediately came to mind. In 1950, Russell attended the inaugural conference for the Congress for Cultural Freedom , a CIA -funded anti-communist organisation committed to the deployment of culture as a weapon during the Cold War . Russell was one of
1508-501: A multitude to do evil", became his motto. The atmosphere at Pembroke Lodge was one of frequent prayer, emotional repression and formality; Frank reacted to this with open rebellion, but the young Bertrand learned to hide his feelings. Russell's adolescence was lonely and he contemplated suicide. He remarked in his autobiography that his interests in "nature and books and (later) mathematics saved me from complete despondency;" only his wish to know more mathematics kept him from suicide. He
1624-577: A necessary "lesser of two evils". In the wake of World War II , he welcomed American global hegemony in preference to either Soviet hegemony or no (or ineffective) world leadership, even if it were to come at the cost of using their nuclear weapons . He would later criticise Stalinist totalitarianism , condemn the United States' involvement in the Vietnam War , and become an outspoken proponent of nuclear disarmament . In 1950, Russell
1740-562: A novel and some poetry. Another sister Marian Powys was an authority on lace and lace-making and published a book on this subject. His brother A. R. Powys was Secretary of the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings , and published a number of books on architectural subjects. Powys was educated at Sherborne School and graduated from Corpus Christi College, Cambridge , June 1894. On 6 April 1896 he married Margaret Lyon. They had
1856-542: A number of Labour Members of Parliament (MPs), including Ramsay MacDonald and Philip Snowden , as well as former Liberal MP and anti-conscription campaigner, Professor Arnold Lupton . After the event, Russell told Lady Ottoline Morrell that, "to my surprise, when I got up to speak, I was given the greatest ovation that was possible to give anybody". His conviction in 1916 resulted in Russell being fined £100 (equivalent to £7,100 in 2023), which he refused to pay in
1972-896: A part of the Kingdom of Powys . There Powys immersed himself in Welsh literature, mythology and culture, including learning to read Welsh. The move inspired two major historical novels with Welsh settings, Owen Glendower (1941) and Porius (1951). Margaret Powys died in 1947, and his son Littleton Alfred in 1954. In May 1955 they moved, for the last time, to Blaenau Ffestiniog in North Wales. John Cowper Powys died in 1963 and Phyllis Playter in 1982. Powys's first published works were poetry: Odes and Other Poems (1896), Poems (1899), collections which have "echoes […] of Tennyson , Arnold , Swinburne , among contemporaries, and of Milton and Wordsworth and Keats ". These were published with
2088-547: A permanent threat to democracy. In 1943, he adopted a stance toward large-scale warfare called "relative political pacifism": "War was always a great evil, but in some particularly extreme circumstances, it may be the lesser of two evils." Before World War II, Russell taught at the University of Chicago , later moving on to Los Angeles to lecture at the UCLA Department of Philosophy . He was appointed professor at
2204-458: A personal letter: "If the Germans succeed in sending an invading army to England we should do best to treat them as visitors, give them quarters and invite the commander and chief to dine with the prime minister." In 1940, he changed his appeasement view that avoiding a full-scale world war was more important than defeating Hitler. He concluded that Adolf Hitler taking over all of Europe would be
2320-532: A section by his brother Llewelyn, Powys writes about his personal philosophy, something he elaborated on in The Complex Vision (1920), his first full length work of popular philosophy. He also published three collections of poetry between 1916 and 1922. Politically, Powys described himself as an anarchist and was both anti-fascist and anti-Stalinist : "Powys already regarded fascism and Stalinism as appalling, but different, totalitarian regimes". It
2436-468: A son, Littleton Alfred, in 1902. Powys's first employment was teaching in girls' schools in Brighton , and then Eastbourne . His first published works were two highly derivative collections of poetry published in the 1890s. He worked from 1898 as an Extension lecturer throughout England, for both Oxford and Cambridge Universities . Then from 1905 to the early 1930s, he lectured in the United States for
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#17327876586552552-581: A successor to Thomas Hardy , and Wolf Solent , A Glastonbury Romance (1932), Weymouth Sands (1934), and Maiden Castle (1936) have been called his Wessex novels. As with Hardy, landscape is important to his works. So is elemental philosophy in his characters' lives. In 1934 he published an autobiography . His itinerant lectures were a success in England and in 1905–1930 in the United States, where he wrote many of his novels and had several first published. He moved to Dorset , England, in 1934 with
2668-470: A work on the foundations of mathematics. It advanced a thesis of logicism , that mathematics and logic are one and the same. At the age of 29, in February 1901, Russell underwent what he called a "sort of mystic illumination", after witnessing Whitehead 's wife's suffering in an angina attack. "I found myself filled with semi-mystical feelings about beauty and with a desire almost as profound as that of
2784-516: A world of change like our own". The novel was conceived at a time when the " Spanish Civil War was a major topic of public debate" and completed on 24 December 1939, a few months after World War II had begun. Porius is set mainly in Corwen. The events take place in the week of "October 18, to October 25, A.D. 499", during a historical period when, Powys claims, "There appears to be an absolute blank, as far as documentary evidence goes, with regard to
2900-442: Is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Bertrand Russell Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell , OM , FRS (18 May 1872 – 2 February 1970) was a British philosopher, logician, mathematician, and public intellectual . He had influence on mathematics , logic , set theory , and various areas of analytic philosophy . He was one of the early 20th century's prominent logicians and
3016-521: Is a small village and civil parish in Derbyshire , 4 miles (6 km) south-east of Ashbourne . The population of the civil parish as taken at the 2011 Census was 270. It is situated in the countryside on top of a small hill. Shirley was mentioned in the Domesday book as belonging to Henry de Ferrers and being worth forty shillings. In the nineteenth century St Michael's Church, Shirley
3132-513: Is another possible influence. A central aspect of A Glastonbury Romance is the attempt by John Geard, an ex-minister now the Mayor of Glastonbury, to restore Glastonbury to its medieval glory as a place of religious pilgrimage. On the other hand, the Glastonbury industrialist Philip Crow, along with John and Mary Crow and Tom Barter, who are, like him, from Norfolk, view the myths and legends of
3248-537: Is clear from Powys's diaries that his new-found success was much helped by the stability that his relationship with Phyllis Playter gave him and her frequent advice on his work in progress. A Glastonbury Romance sold particularly well in its British edition, though this was of little avail as it was the subject of an expensive libel case brought by Gerard Hodgkinson , the owner of the Wookey Hole Caves , who felt himself identifiably and unfairly portrayed in
3364-400: Is concerned with is an ecstatic response to the natural world, epiphanies such as Wordsworth describes in his " Ode: Intimations of Immortality ", with an important difference that Powys believes that the ecstasy of the young child can be retained by an adult who actively cultivates the power of the imagination. Some have compared this to Zen and such contemplative practices, and for Powys, and
3480-426: Is dissatisfied with what Powys has done with it, seeing his approach to the novel as "so alien to the temper of the age as to be impossible for many people to take seriously". Yet Annie Dillard sees Powys as "a powerful genius, whose novels stir us deeply." Notable throughout his career is the admiration of novelists as diverse as Theodore Dreiser , Henry Miller , Iris Murdoch , Margaret Drabble , James Purdy , and
3596-593: Is distinctive in their culture". In a speech in 1948, Russell said that if the USSR 's aggression continued, it would be morally worse to go to war after the USSR possessed an atomic bomb than before it possessed one, because if the USSR had no bomb the West's victory would come more swiftly and with fewer casualties than if there were atomic bombs on both sides. At that time, only the United States possessed an atomic bomb, and
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3712-810: The BBC , particularly The Brains Trust and for the Third Programme , on various topical and philosophical subjects. By this time Russell was known outside academic circles, frequently the subject or author of magazine and newspaper articles, and was called upon to offer opinions on a variety of subjects, even mundane ones. En route to one of his lectures in Trondheim , Russell was one of 24 survivors (out of 43 passengers) of an aeroplane crash in Hommelvik in October 1948. He said he owed his life to smoking since
3828-714: The British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection . Powys was also associated with the National Anti-Vivisection Society , where he met Evalyn Westacott, author of A Century of Vivisection and Anti-Vivisection (1949), who cited Powys arguments against vivisection, which Powys came to see as the worst of all crimes. There then followed two major historical novels set in Wales, Owen Glendower (1941) and Porius (1951). The first deals with
3944-470: The British aristocracy . His parents were Viscount and Viscountess Amberley . Lord Amberley consented to his wife's affair with their children's tutor, the biologist Douglas Spalding . Both were early advocates of birth control at a time when this was considered scandalous. Lord Amberley was a deist , and even asked the philosopher John Stuart Mill to act as Russell's secular godfather. Mill died
4060-544: The Buddha to find some philosophy which should make human life endurable", Russell would later recall. "At the end of those five minutes, I had become a completely different person." In 1905, he wrote the essay " On Denoting ", which was published in the philosophical journal Mind . Russell was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) in 1908 . The three-volume Principia Mathematica , written with Whitehead,
4176-468: The Cambridge Apostles . He distinguished himself in mathematics and philosophy, graduating as seventh Wrangler in the former in 1893 and becoming a Fellow in the latter in 1895. Russell began his published work in 1896 with German Social Democracy , a study in politics that was an early indication of his interest in political and social theory. In 1896 he taught German social democracy at
4292-605: The City College of New York (CCNY) in 1940, but after a public outcry the appointment was annulled by a court judgment that pronounced him "morally unfit" to teach at the college because of his opinions, especially those relating to sexual morality , detailed in Marriage and Morals (1929). The matter was taken to the New York Supreme Court by Jean Kay who was afraid that her daughter would be harmed by
4408-765: The London School of Economics . He was a member of the Coefficients dining club of social reformers set up in 1902 by the Fabian campaigners Sidney and Beatrice Webb . He now started a study of the foundations of mathematics at Trinity. In 1897, he wrote An Essay on the Foundations of Geometry (submitted at the Fellowship Examination of Trinity College) which discussed the Cayley–Klein metrics used for non-Euclidean geometry . He attended
4524-603: The Paris Exhibition of 1889 and climbed the Eiffel Tower soon after it was completed. Russell won a scholarship to read for the Mathematical Tripos at Trinity College, Cambridge , and began his studies there in 1890, taking as coach Robert Rumsey Webb . He became acquainted with the younger George Edward Moore and came under the influence of Alfred North Whitehead , who recommended him to
4640-574: The University of Wales at Swansea , as "patriarch of the literature of these islands". He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature by Enid Starkie in 1958 and by G. Wilson Knight in 1959 and 1962. Powys's works have been translated into French, German, Swedish, Japanese, and other languages. Numerous books, etc. by, or about Powys, can be read online at "John Cowper Powys" Internet Archive Shirley, Derbyshire Shirley
4756-528: The Volga on a steamship. His experiences destroyed his previous tentative support for the revolution. He subsequently wrote a book, The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism , about his experiences on this trip, taken with a group of 24 others from the UK, all of whom came home thinking well of the Soviet regime, despite Russell's attempts to change their minds. For example, he told them that he had heard shots fired in
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4872-598: The peerage with the rise of the Tudor dynasty (see: Duke of Bedford ). They established themselves as one of the leading Whig families and participated in political events from the dissolution of the monasteries in 1536–1540 to the Glorious Revolution in 1688–1689 and the Great Reform Act in 1832. Lady Amberley was the daughter of Lord and Lady Stanley of Alderley . Russell often feared
4988-539: The 1961 Macdonald edition of the novel Powys states: " Wolf Solent is a book of Nostalgia, written in a foreign country with the pen of a traveller and the ink-blood of his home". Wolf Solent is set in Ramsgard, based on Sherborne , Dorset, where Powys attended school from May 1883, as well as Blacksod, modelled on Yeovil , Somerset, and Dorchester and Weymouth , both in Dorset, all places full of memories for him. In
5104-527: The 3rd Earl Russell . Russell's marriage to Dora grew tenuous, and it reached a breaking point over her having two children with an American journalist, Griffin Barry. They separated in 1932 and finally divorced. On 18 January 1936, Russell married his third wife, an Oxford undergraduate named Patricia ("Peter") Spence , who had been his children's governess since 1930. Russell and Peter had one son, Conrad Sebastian Robert Russell , 5th Earl Russell, who became
5220-626: The American Society for the Extension of University Teaching, gaining a reputation as a charismatic speaker. He spent his summers in England. During this time he travelled the length and breadth of the US, as well as into Canada. Powys's marriage was unsatisfactory, and Powys eventually lived a large part of each year in the USA, and had relationships with various women. An important woman in his life
5336-461: The UK), three studies of writers, Dorothy Richardson (1931), Dostoievsky (1947), and Rabelais (1948), and journal essays on various writers such as Theodore Dreiser , Marcel Proust , James Joyce , and D. H. Lawrence . There is also a work on John Keats , part of which was published posthumously, and a study of Aristophanes that Powys was working on in his later years. Powys's literary criticism
5452-525: The USSR was pursuing an aggressive policy towards the countries in Eastern Europe which were being absorbed into the Soviet Union's sphere of influence . Many understood Russell's comments to mean that Russell approved of a first strike in a war with the USSR, including Nigel Lawson , who was present when Russell spoke of such matters. Others, including Griffin , who obtained a transcript of
5568-462: The United States possessed them and before the USSR did. In September 1949, one week after the USSR tested its first A-bomb, but before this became known, Russell wrote that the USSR would be unable to develop nuclear weapons because following Stalin's purges only science based on Marxist principles would be practised in the Soviet Union. After it became known that the USSR had carried out its nuclear bomb tests , Russell declared his position advocating
5684-662: The academic critics George Painter , G. Wilson Knight , George Steiner , Harald Fawkner and Jerome McGann . The film director John Boorman wrote in his autobiography of contemplating a movie adaptation of A Glastonbury Romance early in his career. In 1958, "Powys was presented with the Bronze Plaque of the Hamburg Free Academy of Arts in recognition of his outstanding services to literature and philosophy". Then on 23 July 1962, aged 90, he gained an honorary degree of Doctor of Letters in absentia from
5800-537: The academic sense; in a bookstore the appropriate section might be self-help . Powys describes A Philosophy of Solitude (1933) as a "short textbook of the various mental tricks by which the human soul can obtain […] comparative happiness beneath the normal burden of human fate". Powys's various works of popular philosophy may seem mere potboilers, written to help his finances as he worked on his novels, but critics like Denis Lane, Harald Fawkner and Janina Nordius see in them insight into "the intellectual structures that form
5916-547: The ancestral title of Prince of Powys at his manor house of Glyndyfrdwy , then in the parish of Corwen. In September 1935, Phyllis Playter had suggested he should write a historical novel about Owain Glyndŵr. An important aspect of Owen Glendower are historical parallels between the beginning of the 15th century and the late 1930s and early 1940s: "A sense of contemporataneousness is ever present in Owen Glendower . We are in
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#17327876586556032-439: The appointment, though her daughter was not a student at CCNY. Many intellectuals, led by John Dewey , protested at his treatment. Albert Einstein 's oft-quoted aphorism that "great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds" originated in his open letter, dated 19 March 1940, to Morris Raphael Cohen , a professor emeritus at CCNY, supporting Russell's appointment. Dewey and Horace M. Kallen edited
6148-579: The assistance of his cousin Ralph Shirley, who was a director of William Rider and Son the publisher of them. In the summer of 1905 Powys composed "The Death of God" an epic poem "modelled on the blank verse of Milton, Keats, and Tennyson" that was published as Lucifer in 1956. There were three further volumes of poetry: Wolf's Bane (1916), Mandragora (1917) and Samphire (1922). The first two collections were published by Powys's manager G. Arnold Shaw. An unfinished, short narrative poem "The Ridge"
6264-490: The autobiography of US feminist and anarchist, Emma Goldman . Powys would later share Goldman's support for the Spanish Revolution . His first novel Wood and Stone , which Powys dedicated to Thomas Hardy , was published in 1915. This was followed by two collections of literary essays Visions and Revisions (1915) and Suspended Judgment (1916). In Confessions of Two Brothers (1916), a work that also contains
6380-604: The basis for one of Russell's best-received books according to Hardy: The Analysis of Matter , published in 1927. In the preface to the Trinity pamphlet, Hardy wrote: I wish to make it plain that Russell himself is not responsible, directly or indirectly, for the writing of the pamphlet.... I wrote it without his knowledge and, when I sent him the typescript and asked for his permission to print it, I suggested that, unless it contained misstatement of fact, he should make no comment on it. He agreed to this... no word has been changed as
6496-528: The care of Victorian paternal grandparents, who lived at Pembroke Lodge in Richmond Park . His grandfather, former Prime Minister Earl Russell , died in 1878, and was remembered by Russell as a kind old man in a wheelchair. His grandmother, the Countess Russell (née Lady Frances Elliot), was the central family figure for the rest of Russell's childhood and youth. The Countess was from
6612-693: The case of Eric Chappelow , a poet jailed and abused as a conscientious objector. Russell played a part in the Leeds Convention in June 1917, a historic event which saw well over a thousand "anti-war socialists" gather; many being delegates from the Independent Labour Party and the Socialist Party, united in their pacifist beliefs and advocating a peace settlement. The international press reported that Russell appeared with
6728-432: The character of Philip Crow. According to Powys, this novel's "heroine is the Grail ", and its central concern is with the various myths, legends and history associated with Glastonbury. Not only is A Glastonbury Romance concerned with the legend that Joseph of Arimathea brought the Grail, a vessel containing the blood of Christ, to the town, but the further tradition that King Arthur was buried there. Furthermore one of
6844-445: The couple visited Japan on their return journey, Dora took on the role of spurning the local press by handing out notices reading "Mr. Bertrand Russell, having died according to the Japanese press, is unable to give interviews to Japanese journalists". Apparently they found this harsh and reacted resentfully. Russell supported his family during this time by writing popular books explaining matters of physics , ethics, and education to
6960-456: The crowning achievement of Powys's maturity, but others are repelled by its obscurity. It was originally cut severely for publication, but in recent years two attempts have been made to recreate Powys's original intent. It is not surprising that John Cowper Powys, after he moved to Corwen, decided to begin a novel about Owain Glyndŵr, as it was in Corwen that Glyndŵr's rebellion against Henry IV began on 16 September 1400, when he formally assumed
7076-508: The decision. The ensuing pressure from the Fellows induced the Council to reinstate Russell. In January 1920, it was announced that Russell had accepted the reinstatement offer from Trinity and would begin lecturing in October. In July 1920, Russell applied for a one-year leave of absence; this was approved. He spent the year giving lectures in China and Japan. In January 1921, it was announced by Trinity that Russell had resigned and his resignation had been accepted. This resignation, Hardy explains,
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#17327876586557192-441: The end of the conflict. During World War I , Russell was one of the few people to engage in active pacifist activities . In 1916, because of his lack of a fellowship, he was dismissed from Trinity College following his conviction under the Defence of the Realm Act 1914 . He later described this, in Free Thought and Official Propaganda , as an illegitimate means the state used to violate freedom of expression. Russell championed
7308-491: The first International Congress of Philosophy in Paris in 1900 where he met Giuseppe Peano and Alessandro Padoa . The Italians had responded to Georg Cantor , making a science of set theory ; they gave Russell their literature including the Formulario mathematico . Russell was impressed by the precision of Peano's arguments at the Congress, read the literature upon returning to England, and came upon Russell's paradox . In 1903 he published The Principles of Mathematics ,
7424-405: The history of Britain". This was in fact a time of major transition in the history of Britain, with the replacing of Roman traditions with Saxon rule and the conversion of the British to Christianity. There are again, as with Owen Glendower , parallels with contemporary history: "The Dark Ages and the 1930s are the periods of what Powys, in Yeatsian phrase calls 'appalling transition'." and there
7540-475: The hope that he would be sent to prison, but his books were sold at auction to raise the money. The books were bought by friends; he later treasured his copy of the King James Bible that was stamped "Confiscated by Cambridge Police". A later conviction for publicly lecturing against inviting the United States to enter the war on the United Kingdom's side resulted in six months' imprisonment in Brixton Prison (see Bertrand Russell's political views ) in 1918 (he
7656-537: The known patrons of the Congress until he resigned in 1956. In 1952, Russell was divorced by Spence, with whom he had been very unhappy. Conrad, Russell's son by Spence, did not see his father between the time of the divorce and 1968 (at which time his decision to meet his father caused a permanent breach with his mother). Russell married his fourth wife, Edith Finch , soon after the divorce, on 15 December 1952. They had known each other since 1925, and Edith had taught English at Bryn Mawr College near Philadelphia, sharing
7772-730: The landscape of Dorset and Somerset and the characters' deep personal relationships with it had been of importance in the great Wessex novels, so the landscape of Wales was now significant, especially that of the Corwen region. The landscape and the intimate relations that characters have with the elements, including the sky, wind, plants, animals, and insects, have great significance in all Powys's works. These are linked to another major influence: Romanticism , especially William Wordsworth and writers influenced by Wordsworth such as Walter Pater . Powys also admired Goethe and Rousseau . Words such as mysticism and pantheism are sometimes used in discussing Powys's attitude to nature, but what he
7888-506: The layman. From 1922 to 1927 the Russells divided their time between London and Cornwall , spending summers in Porthcurno . In the 1922 and 1923 general elections Russell stood as a Labour Party candidate in the Chelsea constituency , but only on the basis that he knew he was unlikely to be elected in such a safe Conservative seat, and he was unsuccessful on both occasions. After the birth of his two children, he became interested in education, especially early childhood education . He
8004-458: The metaphysics of both Hegel and Marx plain nonsense—Marx's claim to be 'science' is no more justified than Mary Baker Eddy 's. This does not mean that I am opposed to socialism." In 1943, Russell expressed support for Zionism : "I have come gradually to see that, in a dangerous and largely hostile world, it is essential to Jews to have some country which is theirs, some region where they are not suspected aliens, some state which embodies what
8120-421: The metastructures of the great novels". These works were frequently bestsellers, especially in the United States. The Meaning of Culture (1929) went through 20 editions in Powys's lifetime. In Defence of Sensuality , published at the end of the following year, was yet another bestseller, as was A Philosophy of Solitude (1933). Taking advantage of his reputation as an itinerant lecturer, Powys published in 1915
8236-445: The middle of the night and was sure that these were clandestine executions, but the others maintained that it was only cars backfiring. Russell's lover Dora Black , a British author, feminist and socialist campaigner, visited Soviet Russia independently at the same time; in contrast to his reaction, she was enthusiastic about the Bolshevik revolution . The following year, Russell, accompanied by Dora, visited Peking (as Beijing
8352-525: The minor novel Morwyn or The Vengeance of God (1937). Another important element in Morwyn , is condemnation of animal cruelty, especially vivisection , a theme also found in Weymouth Sands (1934). As a result, some writers have seen Powys as a forebear of the modern animal rights movement. In 1944, Powys wrote an anti-vivisection article for Leo Rodenhurst's The Abolitionist , a paper published by
8468-417: The mode of science fiction, although science has no part in them". One of Powys's most important works, his Autobiography (1934), describes his first 60 years. While he sets out to be totally frank about himself, and especially his sexual peculiarities and perversions, he largely excludes any substantial discussion of the women in his life. The reason for this is now much clearer because we now know that it
8584-614: The novel's main characters, the Welshman Owen Evans, introduces the idea that the Grail has a Welsh (Celtic), pagan, pre-Christian origin. The main sources for Powys's ideas on mythology and the Grail legend are Sir John Rhys 's Studies in the Arthurian Legend , R. S. Loomis 's Celtic Myth and Arthurian Romance , and the works of Jessie Weston , including From Ritual to Romance . T. S. Eliot 's The Waste Land
8700-490: The novels written after Porius as "the spontaneous fairy tales of a Rabelaisian surrealist enchanted with life", and finds Atlantis (1954) "the richest and most sustained" of them. Atlantis is set in the Homeric world. The protagonist is Nisos, the young son of Odysseus , who plans to voyage west from Ithaca over the drowned Atlantis . Powys final fiction, such as Up and Out (1957) and All or Nothing (1960) "use
8816-531: The people who drowned were in the non-smoking part of the plane. A History of Western Philosophy (1945) became a best-seller and provided Russell with a steady income for the remainder of his life. In 1942, Russell argued in favour of a moderate socialism , capable of overcoming its metaphysical principles. In an inquiry on dialectical materialism , launched by the Austrian artist and philosopher Wolfgang Paalen in his journal DYN , Russell said: "I think
8932-527: The posthumous After my Fashion (1980), which was written around 1920, and Ducdame (1925). Wolf Solent was the first of the so-called Wessex novels, which include A Glastonbury Romance (1932), Weymouth Sands (1934) and Maiden Castle (1936). Powys was an admirer of Thomas Hardy, and these novels are set in Somerset and Dorset, parts of Hardy's mythical Wessex. The American scholar Richard Maxwell described these four novels "as remarkably successful with
9048-718: The potential to snowball into another controversy. Although Russell did the right thing, in Hardy's opinion, the reputation of the College suffered with Russell's resignation since the 'world of learning' knew about Russell's altercation with Trinity but not that the rift had healed. In 1925, Russell was asked by the Council of Trinity College to give the Tarner Lectures on the Philosophy of the Sciences; these would later be
9164-634: The protagonists of his novels who usually resemble him, the cultivation of a psycho-sensuous philosophy is as important as the Christian religion was for an earlier generation. More minor in scale, the novels that followed Porius are marked by elements of fantasy. The Inmates (1952) is set in a madhouse and explores Powys's interest in mental illness, but it is a work on which Powys failed to bestow sufficient "time and care". Glen Cavaliero, in John Cowper Powys: Novelist , describes
9280-699: The reading public of his time". Maiden Castle , the last of the Wessex novels, is set in Dorchester , Thomas Hardy's Casterbridge . Powys intended it to be a rival of Hardy's The Mayor of Casterbridge . All the same, despite his indebtedness to the Victorian novel and his enthusiasm for Hardy, Walter Scott and such lesser figures as Ainsworth , Powys was clearly a modernist . He has affinities also with Fyodor Dostoevsky , Friedrich Nietzsche , Walter Pater , Marcel Proust , Carl Jung , Sigmund Freud , D. H. Lawrence , James Joyce and Dorothy Richardson . It
9396-595: The rebellion of the Welsh Prince Owain Glyndŵr (1400–1416 CE), while Porius takes place in the time of the mythic King Arthur (499 CE). However, Arthur is a minor character compared with the Welsh Prince Porius and the King's magician Myrddin ( Merlin ). In both works, but especially Porius , Powys makes use of the mythology found in the Welsh classic The Mabinogion . Porius is, for some,
9512-417: The rest of the population, though they were on the whole slightly below the usual level of intelligence as was shown by their having been caught. While he was reading Strachey 's Eminent Victorians chapter about Gordon he laughed out loud in his cell prompting the warder to intervene and reminding him that "prison was a place of punishment". Russell was reinstated to Trinity in 1919, resigned in 1920,
9628-624: The result of any suggestion from him. In August 1920, Russell travelled to Soviet Russia as part of an official delegation sent by the British government to investigate the effects of the Russian Revolution . He wrote a four-part series of articles, titled "Soviet Russia—1920", for the magazine The Nation . He met Vladimir Lenin and had an hour-long conversation with him. In his autobiography, he mentions that he found Lenin disappointing, sensing an "impish cruelty" in him and comparing him to "an opinionated professor". He cruised down
9744-407: The ridicule of his maternal grandmother, one of the campaigners for education of women . Russell had two siblings: brother Frank (seven years older), and sister Rachel (four years older). In June 1874, Russell's mother died of diphtheria , followed shortly by Rachel's death. In January 1876, his father died of bronchitis after a long period of depression . Frank and Bertrand were placed in
9860-403: The same year The Meaning of Culture was published and it, too, was frequently reprinted. In Defence of Sensuality , published at the end of the following year, was yet another best seller. First published in 1933, A Philosophy of Solitude was another best seller for Powys in the USA. Before Wolf Solent there had been four earlier apprentice novels: Wood and Stone (1915), Rodmoor (1916),
9976-506: The school in 1932, Dora continued it until 1943. In 1927 Russell met Barry Fox (later Barry Stevens) , who became a known Gestalt therapist and writer in later years. They developed an intense relationship, and in Fox's words: "... for three years we were very close." Fox sent her daughter Judith to Beacon Hill School. From 1927 to 1932 Russell wrote 34 letters to Fox. Upon the death of his elder brother Frank, in 1931, Russell became
10092-416: The second half. As the old gods were departing then, so the old gods are departing now. And as the future was dark with the terrifying possibilities of human disaster then, so, today, are we confronted by the possibility of catastrophic world events. Powys also saw Glyndŵr's rebellion taking place at the time of "one of the most momentous and startling epochs of transition that the world has known". Just as
10208-423: The speech, have argued that he was explaining the usefulness of America's atomic arsenal in deterring the USSR from continuing its domination of Eastern Europe. Just after the atomic bombs exploded over Hiroshima and Nagasaki , Russell wrote letters, and published articles in newspapers from 1945 to 1948, stating clearly that it was morally justified and better to go to war against the USSR using atomic bombs while
10324-581: The total abolition of atomic weapons. In 1948, Russell was invited by the BBC to deliver the inaugural Reith Lectures —what was to become an annual series of lectures, still broadcast by the BBC. His series of six broadcasts, titled Authority and the Individual , explored themes such as the role of individual initiative in the development of a community and the role of state control in a progressive society. Russell continued to write about philosophy. He wrote
10440-488: The town with contempt. Philip's vision is of a future with more mines and more factories. John Crow, however, as he is penniless, takes on the task of organising a pageant for Geard. At the same time an alliance of Anarchists , Marxists , and Jacobins try to turn Glastonbury into a commune. While Welsh mythology was already important in A Glastonbury Romance and Maiden Castle it became still more so after he and Phyllis Playter moved to Corwen , Wales, in 1935, first in
10556-459: The validity of Christian religious dogma , which he found unconvincing. At this age, he came to the conclusion that there is no free will and, two years later, that there is no life after death. Finally, at the age of 18, after reading Mill's Autobiography , he abandoned the " First Cause " argument and became an atheist . He travelled to the continent in 1890 with an American friend, Edward FitzGerald , and with FitzGerald's family he visited
10672-420: The whole of mathematics to logic (see logicism ). Russell's article " On Denoting " has been considered a "paradigm of philosophy". Russell was a pacifist who championed anti-imperialism and chaired the India League . He went to prison for his pacifism during World War I , and initially supported appeasement against Adolf Hitler 's Nazi Germany , before changing his view in 1943, describing war as
10788-462: The year after Russell's birth, but his writings later influenced Russell's life. His paternal grandfather, Lord John Russell, later 1st Earl Russell (1792–1878), had twice been prime minister in the 1840s and 1860s. A member of Parliament since the early 1810s, he met with Napoleon Bonaparte in Elba . The Russells had been prominent in England for several centuries before this, coming to power and
10904-502: Was Tarner Lecturer in 1926 and became a Fellow again in 1944 until 1949. In 1924, Russell again gained press attention when attending a "banquet" in the House of Commons with well-known campaigners, including Arnold Lupton , who had been an MP and had also endured imprisonment for "passive resistance to military or naval service". In 1941, G. H. Hardy wrote a 61-page pamphlet titled Bertrand Russell and Trinity – published later as
11020-423: Was a clear possibility of another "Saxon" invasion , when Powys began writing Porius in 1942. In prefatory comments probably written about 1949, as the Cold War began, Powys suggests: As we contemplate the historic background to [...] the last year of the fifth century [sic], it is impossible not to think of the background of human life from which we watch the first half of the twentieth century dissolve into
11136-530: Was a drain on Russell's energy, but Russell continued to be fascinated by him and encouraged his academic development, including the publication of Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus in 1922. Russell delivered his lectures on logical atomism , his version of these ideas, in 1918, before the end of World War I . Wittgenstein was, at that time, serving in the Austrian Army and subsequently spent nine months in an Italian prisoner of war camp at
11252-469: Was a famous lecturer and published a variety of both fiction and non-fiction regularly from 1915, it was not until he was in his early fifties, with the publication of Wolf Solent in 1929, that he achieved critical and financial success as a novelist. This novel was reprinted several times in both the United States and Britain and translated into German in 1930 and French in 1931. In the Preface he wrote for
11368-550: Was a prolific writer of letters, many of which have been published, and kept a diary from 1929; several diaries, including this one, have been published. Among his correspondents were the novelists Theodore Dreiser , James Purdy , James Hanley , Henry Miller and Dorothy Richardson , but he also replied to the many ordinary admirers who wrote to him. Periodically, over almost 50 years, starting with Confessions of Two Brothers in 1916, Powys wrote works that present his personal philosophy of life. These are not works of philosophy in
11484-595: Was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature "in recognition of his varied and significant writings in which he champions humanitarian ideals and freedom of thought ". He was also the recipient of the De Morgan Medal (1932), Sylvester Medal (1934), Kalinga Prize (1957), and Jerusalem Prize (1963). Bertrand Arthur William Russell was born at Ravenscroft , a country house in Trellech , Monmouthshire , on 18 May 1872, into an influential and liberal family of
11600-492: Was considered for a fellowship, which would give him a vote in the college government and protect him from being fired for his opinions, but was passed over because he was "anti-clerical", because he was agnostic. He was approached by the Austrian engineering student Ludwig Wittgenstein , who became his PhD student. Russell viewed Wittgenstein as a successor who would continue his work on logic. He spent hours dealing with Wittgenstein's various phobias and his bouts of despair. This
11716-734: Was educated at home by a series of tutors. When Russell was eleven years old, his brother Frank introduced him to the work of Euclid , which he described in his autobiography as "one of the great events of my life, as dazzling as first love". During these formative years, he also discovered the works of Percy Bysshe Shelley . Russell wrote: "I spent all my spare time reading him, and learning him by heart, knowing no one to whom I could speak of what I thought or felt, I used to reflect how wonderful it would have been to know Shelley, and to wonder whether I should meet any live human being with whom I should feel so much sympathy." Russell claimed that beginning at age 15, he spent considerable time thinking about
11832-556: Was ended when the paper published an editorial critical of both sides but agreeing with the opponents of ordinary language philosophy. In the King's Birthday Honours of 9 June 1949, Russell was awarded the Order of Merit , and the following year he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature . When he was given the Order of Merit, George VI was affable but embarrassed at decorating a former jailbird, saying, "You have sometimes behaved in
11948-497: Was generally well received by reviewers. Morine Krissdottir in her recent biography describes the essays in Suspended Judgements as "fine criticism". As for The Pleasures of Literature , the writer Kenneth Hopkins states that "[i]f ever there was a book of criticism for the general reader, this is it." In the 1940s Powys wrote books on two of his favourite authors: Dostoievsky (1946) and Rabelais (1948). The latter
12064-645: Was led by the Rev. Charles Francis Powys who had a number of literary children. Rev. Charles Francis Powys was the great nephew of Thomas Powys , created the first Lord Lilford in 1797, and the Powys' were also cousins of the Shirley family who held the living of the parish of Shirley in Derbyshire and were direct descendants of Earl Ferrers, the first Sheriff of the County. This Derbyshire location article
12180-656: Was not satisfied with the old traditional education and thought that progressive education also had some flaws; as a result, together with Dora, Russell founded the experimental Beacon Hill School in 1927. The school was run from a succession of different locations, including its original premises at the Russells' residence, Telegraph House, near Harting , West Sussex. During this time, he published On Education, Especially in Early Childhood . On 8 July 1930, Dora gave birth to her third child Harriet Ruth. After he left
12296-494: Was not until 1929, with the novel Wolf Solent , that Powys achieved any critical or financial success. In 1930 Powys and Phyllis moved from Greenwich Village in New York City to Hillsdale in rural upstate New York . One of Powys's most admired novels, A Glastonbury Romance , published in 1932, sold well, though he made little if any money from it because of a libel lawsuit. Another important work, Autobiography ,
12412-653: Was particularly praised by some reviewers. The Rabelais scholar Donald M. Frame, for example, in the Romantic Review , December 1951, describes Powys's translation (only of one fourth of Rabelais) "the best we have in English". A French translation of Rabelais , by Catherine Lieutenant, was published in 1990. Powys is a controversial writer, "who evokes both massive contempt and near idolatry." While Walter Allen in Tradition and Dream recognises Powys's genius, he
12528-572: Was prosecuted under the Defence of the Realm Act ) He later said of his imprisonment: I found prison in many ways quite agreeable. I had no engagements, no difficult decisions to make, no fear of callers, no interruptions to my work. I read enormously; I wrote a book, "Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy"... and began the work for "The Analysis of Mind". I was rather interested in my fellow-prisoners, who seemed to me in no way morally inferior to
12644-542: Was published between 1910 and 1913. This, along with the earlier The Principles of Mathematics , soon made Russell world-famous in his field. Russell's first political activity was as the Independent Liberal candidate in the 1907 by-election for the Wimbledon constituency , where he was not elected. In 1910, he became a lecturer at the University of Cambridge , Trinity College, where he had studied. He
12760-492: Was published in 1934. Then in June 1934 Powys and Phyllis left America and moved to England, living first in Dorchester , the setting for the final Wessex novel, Maiden Castle , before eventually moving in July 1935 to Corwen , Denbighshire North Wales , with the help of the novelist James Hanley , who lived nearby. Corwen was historically part of Edeirnion or Edeyrnion and an ancient commote of medieval Wales , once
12876-794: Was published in January 1963, shortly before Powys's death that June. In 1964 Kenneth Hopkins published John Cowper Powys: A Selection from his Poems and in 1979 the Welsh poet and critic Roland Mathias thought this side of Powys worthy of critical study and published The Hollowed-Out Elder Stalk: John Cowper Powys as Poet . Belinda Humfrey, suggests that "[p]erhaps Powys's best poems are those given to Jason Otter in Wolf Solent and Taliessin in Porius ." The Oxford Book of Twentieth Century English Verse (1973) edited by English poet Philip Larkin contains "In A Hotel Writing-Room" by Powys. While he
12992-638: Was the American poet Frances Gregg, whom he first met in Philadelphia in 1912. He was also a friend of the famous dancer Isadora Duncan . Another friend and an important supporter in America was the novelist Theodore Dreiser . In 1921 he met Phyllis Playter, the twenty-six-year-old daughter of industrialist and business man Franklin Playter. Eventually they established a permanent relationship, though he
13108-603: Was then known outside of China) to lecture on philosophy for a year. He went with optimism and hope, seeing China as then being on a new path. Other scholars present in China at the time included John Dewey and Rabindranath Tagore , the Indian Nobel-laureate poet. Before leaving China, Russell became gravely ill with pneumonia , and incorrect reports of his death were published in the Japanese press. When
13224-420: Was unable to divorce his wife Margaret, who was a Catholic. However, he diligently supported Margaret and the education of their son. In the US he engaged in a public debate with the philosopher Bertrand Russell on marriage, and he also debated with the philosopher and historian Will Durant . Powys was also a witness in the obscenity trial of James Joyce 's novel Ulysses , and was mentioned with approval in
13340-401: Was voluntary and was not the result of another altercation. The reason for the resignation, according to Hardy, was that Russell was going through a tumultuous time in his personal life with a divorce and subsequent remarriage. Russell contemplated asking Trinity for another one-year leave of absence but decided against it since this would have been an "unusual application" and the situation had
13456-482: Was written while he was still married to Margaret, though he was living in a permanent relationship with Phyllis Playter. It is one of his most important works and writer J. B. Priestley suggests that, even if Powys had not written a single novel, "this one book alone would have proved him to be a writer of genius." And it "has justly been compared to the Confessions of Jean-Jacques Rousseau . John Cowper Powys
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