ChatterBank1 min ago
Do Any 'ordinary' Artists, Writers, Poets, Come To Mind?
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Most British writers (mainly the men) seem to have been awful husbands or partners, deserting them, having them locked up in asylums, whatever. None (if any) led 'ordinary' lives - caring for their families, loving their wives or children, etc.
Did ANY of them lead ordinary lives, and just happen to write?
BB
Did ANY of them lead ordinary lives, and just happen to write?
BB
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Well rosie, we DO know bits and pieces about the 'famous' writers to know they were wrong 'uns.
Dickens tried to get his first wife committed, so he could take up with the newer model.
TS Elliot DID get his poor sick wife confined to a lunatic asylum for many years, when it is possible that her 'madness' was brought on by PMT.
Virginia Woolf DID treat her servants abominably, claiming that she could only write if they were quiet and diligent (i.e. did the work while she ponced about).
Thomas Hardy DID live with his first wife Emma for many years, leading separate lives in the same house, only regretting it when she died.
What you DON'T seem to hear is that so-and-so did his work every day, collected the children from school, did his share of cooking and cleaning, and liberated his wife from the drudgery of day-to-day chores.
But maybe you do? Hence my question about the names people here are putting forward as being decent blokes. A bit more biographical information would help.
BB
Dickens tried to get his first wife committed, so he could take up with the newer model.
TS Elliot DID get his poor sick wife confined to a lunatic asylum for many years, when it is possible that her 'madness' was brought on by PMT.
Virginia Woolf DID treat her servants abominably, claiming that she could only write if they were quiet and diligent (i.e. did the work while she ponced about).
Thomas Hardy DID live with his first wife Emma for many years, leading separate lives in the same house, only regretting it when she died.
What you DON'T seem to hear is that so-and-so did his work every day, collected the children from school, did his share of cooking and cleaning, and liberated his wife from the drudgery of day-to-day chores.
But maybe you do? Hence my question about the names people here are putting forward as being decent blokes. A bit more biographical information would help.
BB
You really need to read a few biographies... the books I have read about Gertrude Stein and James Joyce, for example, suggest that they were very loving to their partners.....and that love was reciprocated. I can't some up whole biographies for you....you need to read them yourself if you are really interested. Was Shakespeare foul to his wife....not at all sure that he was. In order to respond to your statement one needs to have read an awful lot! Oh and I am aware of the birthplaces of the people I have mentioned.
I have the impression rightly or wrongly that 'good' or prolific authors or artists etc were too self absorbed with their talents . When not actually painting or writing they were attending reviews, first nights book signing ceremonies etc etc.and had little time to be 'ordinary' family men/women. Obviously a few exceptions but they never will be lauded for that I would imagine.
Retrocop ("I have the impression rightly or wrongly that 'good' or prolific authors or artists etc were too self absorbed with their talents.")
That might be the point - not that I WANT it to be true, but maybe it's that to be a 'great' writer/poet/etc., you have to be a self-absorbed individual. Not a pleasant conclusion.
BB
That might be the point - not that I WANT it to be true, but maybe it's that to be a 'great' writer/poet/etc., you have to be a self-absorbed individual. Not a pleasant conclusion.
BB
Peter: yes to some of it.
Bronte sisters seem to have been fairly ‘normal’, as was Austen.
But the blokes you list, another matter.
GB Shaw’s affairs were the stuff of newsprint - might have been normal for the 1890s, but still aberrant behaviour.
Shakespeare? Maybe, although if half his sonnets WERE addressed to a geezer, maybe not.
Do we know anything of Chaucer’s private life?
You write: “Trollope, thackeray, galsworthy werent noted for abnormality.” But that’s the point. Dickens’ behaviour, too, wasn’t ‘abnormal’ - he was behaving like many middle-class Englishmen in the mid-19th century. Wrong, but normal.
I want RIGHT, and normal!
BB
Bronte sisters seem to have been fairly ‘normal’, as was Austen.
But the blokes you list, another matter.
GB Shaw’s affairs were the stuff of newsprint - might have been normal for the 1890s, but still aberrant behaviour.
Shakespeare? Maybe, although if half his sonnets WERE addressed to a geezer, maybe not.
Do we know anything of Chaucer’s private life?
You write: “Trollope, thackeray, galsworthy werent noted for abnormality.” But that’s the point. Dickens’ behaviour, too, wasn’t ‘abnormal’ - he was behaving like many middle-class Englishmen in the mid-19th century. Wrong, but normal.
I want RIGHT, and normal!
BB
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