Our hero today is the poet Richard Aldington. His biography will be discussed in detail below. This man is of English descent and is also known as a critic and prose writer. He was born in 1892, July 8.
Biography
Richard Aldington was born into the family of a lawyer in Portsmouth. He studied at the University of London and Dover College. Due to financial difficulties, he did not manage to become an owner of a degree. Thus began Richard Aldington. His work since 1912 is associated with a circle of imagists. He joined the association with Francis Stuart Flint, Thomas Ernest Hume and Hilda Doolittle.
Ezra Pound joined them later
. Our hero took part in all imaginary anthologies. He was editing The Egoist. He was considered one of the representatives of Imagism as a literary movement. In 1914, representatives of this association published an anthology of their own poetry Des Imagistes. The collection includes 37 poems, 10 of which belonged to the authorship of our hero. During this period he translated Greek and Roman poets. Together with John Kurnos, a writer who was close to the Imagist circle, our hero for the first time in 1916 translated the novel The Little Demon by Fedor Sologub into English.
World War I
Richard Aldington was a member of the hostilities. In 1916, he began to serve in the army as an ordinary. He was seconded to the Royal Sussex Regiment. He was later promoted to officer. He served on the Western Front. In 1917 he was wounded. He was treated in a hospital. The war radically changed the attitude of our hero. She left an imprint of hopelessness and severe bitterness on his work. The book of poems “Images of War” created during this period was recognized as one of the best collections of English poetry in history.
After the war, our hero suffered from post-traumatic stress, which was then little studied. In the twenties, this creative person, who was previously mostly known as a poet, began to pay more attention to prose. His novel, entitled “The Death of a Hero,” is partly autobiographical. This book is today included in the list of the most famous anti-war works of this genre and is on a par with the work of Hemingway and Remarque.
A collection of short stories called “Mild Answers” ​​appeared in 1932. This book continues the above line in the work of our hero. The next novel, entitled “All People Are Enemies,” appeared in 1933. He is imbued with a complete rejection of militarism. Moreover, it is a lighter and, in a sense, life-affirming book, if we compare it with the work "The Death of a Hero."
Forties and Fifties
Richard Aldington went to the USA during this period. There he took up writing biographies. He received the prestigious British Literary Prize of James Tight Black. Thus, the biography of the Duke of Wellington, written by him in 1946, was noted. He also published books on writers R. L. Stevenson and D. G. Lawrence. In 1955, a revelatory work about
Lawrence of Arabia, which was considered a model of the English establishment, was published. In Britain, this book was adopted very hostilely. Therefore, our hero decided not to return to his homeland. Closer to the sunset of his life, he moved from the USA to Europe. He lived in France. He visited the USSR. There, the writer was warmly greeted by admirers of his talent.
Personal life
Above, we have already revealed who Richard Aldington is. His personal life will be described later. In 1911, he met his future wife Hilda Doolittle. She was a poet. They got married two years later. The baby that appeared with this couple was stillborn. Since 1915, they lived separately. In 1919, they tried to save the marriage. At this point, Hilda had a daughter from Cecil Gray. She lived with them while her husband was at the front. It was not possible to save the marriage. They broke up. The divorce was formalized only in 1938. They were on friendly terms.
Heritage
According to contemporaries, Richard Aldington was the most "English" writer of the twentieth century. The name of our hero is engraved in stone at Westminster Abbey, where sixteen "poets of the great war" are mentioned. His early military and Imagist poetry became part of the golden fund of English poetry. At the same time, anti-war novels are hushed up by English literary criticism today.
Bibliography
So we described the life and career that Richard Aldington followed. The bibliography of the writer will be given below. In 1915, the book Images was published. In 1919, the work “War and Love: Poems 1915-1918” appeared. In 1923, our hero published the book "Link and Other Poems." In 1929, the Death of a Hero was published. In 1931, the book "Colonel's Daughter" was written. In 1932, a collection of five novels appeared, entitled “Mild Responses”. In 1933, the work “All People Are Enemies” appeared. In 1934, a book was published entitled "Women Must Work." In 1938, the work Seven Against Reeves appeared. A satirical novel. " In 1939, our hero wrote the book “An Outcast Guest”. In 1946, the work “Duke” appeared, dedicated to the life of Wellington. In 1950, the book "Raptized" was published, which tells about D. G. Lawrence. In 1954, a work was published entitled "The Impostor Lawrence: A Man and a Legend." In 1957, the book Rebel Portrait: The Life and Works of Robert Lewis Stevenson was published. The translation of this book into Russian was done by G. A. Ostrovskaya. Also, our hero owns the work "Images of desire." The poet not only wrote about others, he was also devoted to research papers. In particular, M.V. Urnov published a book called Richard Aldington.