Alfred Richard Orage

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Alfred Richard Orage (born January 22, 1873 in Dacre , Yorkshire , near Harrogate as Alfred James Orage, † November 6, 1934 in London ) was a British writer , literary critic and owner, managing director and editor of the most influential literary magazine in Great Britain, The New Age .

Life

Alfred James Orage was born on January 22nd, 1873 in Dacre , near Harrogate , in the West Riding of Yorkshire . He was the fourth child in a poverty stricken family. His mother, Sarah Anne McGuire, was Irish. His father, William Steverson Orage Sr, died shortly after he was born. At the age of fourteen his mother gave it to a local squire named Coote who employed him as a laborer. Coote's son Richard was his classmate, noticed his intellectual talent and subsidized his schooling. At the age of 19 Orage began a teacher training course at Culham College in Abington and changed his name to "Alfred Richard Orage". After graduation , he taught at Leylands School in Leeds . In 1894 he joined the socialist Independent Labor Party in Leeds and edited their propaganda sheet Forward . In 1895 he was a Labor Leader. In 1896 he married the art student Jean Walker in London.

He became generally known under the nickname Dick , or Dickie . His elementary school teacher, a supporter of the Independent Labor Party, motivated him to study Plato and the British poet, socialist and author Edward Carpenter . Orage was active in the British socialist intellectual movement Fabian Society . Finally, disaffected, he turned away from socialism and began to deal with philosophy , theosophy and Friedrich Nietzsche .

In 1903 he founded the Leeds Arts Club with Holbrook Jackson (1874–1948) , which promoted Nietzsche's philosophy and was devoted to the mystical socialism of the early labor movement and suffragette feminism as well as literary and artistic modernism.

Orage was a speaker for the Theosophical Society in England from the mid-1890s until he joined the Society around 1890. He later headed the Plato Group and the Leeds Arts Club , where he ventilated theosophical ideas and a well-known theosophical lecturer and author of the Theosophical Review was made. Orage rational and critical examination of modern theosophy resulted in an editorial in The Theosophical Review , in which one sought to refute it. In 1907 he ended his collaboration with the Theosophical Society .

In 1906 and 1907 Orage Orage published three books: Consciousness: Animal, Human and Superhuman , in which he processed his experiences with theosophy. This is followed by two books on Nietzsche which were the first systematic introductions to Nietzscheanism in Great Britain: Friedrich Nietzsche: The Dionysian Spirit of the Age and Nietzsche in Outline and Aphorism .

Orage had a love affair with the British poet , journalist and art critic Beatrice Hastings for many years . This broke up his marriage with his first wife Jean, from whom he divorced in 1927. He married his second wife, Jessie Richards Dwight, in September 1927. This marriage had two children, Richard and Ann.

He was a representative of the social credit movement.

In 1921 Orage moved to London and began a series of lectures on Fragments of an Unknown Teaching , based on Ouspensky's book In Search of the Wonderful . From then on, Orage's interest shifted from literature and art to mysticism . His correspondence with Harry Houdini in this regard inspired him to deal with mystical topics and ideas about the afterlife . His London office was at 38 Cursitor Street.

Orage died of a heart attack in London on November 6, 1934. When Georges I. Gurdjieff found out about it, he wiped his eyes and confessed to his group: "This man ... my brother."

editor

From 1908 to 1922 he was alongside Holbrook Jackson editor of the weekly magazine The New Age , the most influential literary magazine in Great Britain and influenced in literary circles by writers such as TS Eliot, Ezra Pound, ee cummings, Dylan Thomas and Katherine Mansfield . This resulted in a collaboration with Ezra Pound, Ramiro de Maeztu, George Bernard Shaw and the poet William Butler Yeats .

As editor he published the first works of Dylan Thomas , Clifford Hugh Douglas and Katherine Mansfield .

After returning from Paris in April 1932, he founded The New English Weekly magazine .

Gurdjieff's pupil

In 1914 he met Pyotr D. Ouspensky for the first time , whose ideas shaped him.

Orage met Ouspensky in 1921 and Gurdjieff a year later . At the age of 50, Orage gave up his previous life to follow Gurdjieff. In February 1922 he moved to Paris and joined Gurdjieff's Institute for the Harmonious Development of Man. In 1924 Gurdjieff authorized him to lead study groups in the United States.

In 1930 there was a break between Orage and Gurdjieff that no one could explain and Orage decided to resume his editorial work in England and founded the journal The New English Weekly .

Fonts (selection)

  • Friedrich Nietzsche , the Dionysian Spirit of the Age. AC McClurg & Company, 1911.
  • Nietzsche in Outline & Aphorism. Foulis, 1907.
  • Consciousness: Animal, Human, & Superman. Red Wheel, 1974.
  • National Guilds: An Inquiry into the Wage System and the Way Out (1914) editor; a collection of articles from The New Age
  • An Alphabet of Economics (1918)
  • Readers and Writers (1917-1921) (1922) as RHC
  • Psychological Exercises and Essays (1930)
  • The Art of Reading (1930)
  • On Love: Freely Adapted form the Tibetan. Unicorn Press 1932.
  • Selected Essays and Critical Writings (1935) edited by Herbert Read and Denis Saurat
  • Political and Economic Writings from 'The New English Weekly', 1932-34, with a Preliminary Section from 'The New Age' 1912 (1936), edited by Montgomery Butchart , with the advice of Maurice Colbourne, TS Eliot , Philip Mairet , Will Dyson and others.
  • Essays and Aphorisms (1954)
  • The Active Mind: Adventures in Awareness (1954)
  • Orage as Critic (1974), edited by Wallace Martin
  • AR Orage's Commentaries on Gurdjieff's "All and Everything" , edited by CS Nott
  • With Douglas, Clifford Hugh: Credit-power and Democracy: With a Draft Scheme for the Mining Industry. Cecil Palmer, 1921.
  • Orage's Commentary on Gurdjieff's Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson: New York Talks 1926-1930. Two Rivers Press, 1985.
  • The Force of Gurdjieff, Vol. 3: Oragean Version by C. Daly King. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform.

literature

  • Philip Mairet : AR Orage: a memoir. JM Dent & Sons First Edition 1936
  • Wallace Martin: The New Age under Orage. Manchester University Press 1967. ISBN 978-071900286-1

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Paul Beekman Taylor: Gurdjieff and Orage: Brothers in Elysium. Prologue xi
  2. ^ Tom Steele: Alfred Orage and the Leeds Arts Club 1893-1923 . Orage Pr 2009.
  3. ^ A b Johanna Petsche: Gurdjieff and Music: The Gurdjieff / de Hartmann Piano Music and Its Esoteric Significance. Brill, 2015. p. 253.
  4. ↑ James Moore: Georg Iwanowitsch Gurdjieff. Scherz, 1992, ISBN 3-502-18450-X , p. 173.
  5. ^ Johanna Petsche: Gurdjieff and Music: The Gurdjieff / de Hartmann Piano Music and Its Esoteric Significance. Brill, 2015. p. 254.
  6. ^ Alfred Richard Orage. ( Memento of January 5, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Introductory essay by Fabrizio Ponzetta for encounters with Gurdjieff di Alfred Orage.
  7. ^ A b Johanna Petsche: Gurdjieff and Music: The Gurdjieff / de Hartmann Piano Music and Its Esoteric Significance. Brill, 2015. pp. 253f.
  8. ^ Friedrich Nietzsche, the Dionysian spirit of the age
  9. ↑ Nietzche in Outline and Aphorism
  10. ↑ Readers and Writers (1917-1921)
personal data
SURNAME Orage, Alfred Richard
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Orage, Alfred James
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British writer, literary critic, editor, teacher
DATE OF BIRTH January 22, 1873
PLACE OF BIRTH Dacre
DATE OF DEATH November 6, 1934
Place of death London