Angus Wilson

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Sir Angus Wilson ( born Angus Frank Johnstone-Wilson on August 11, 1913 in Bexhill , East Sussex ; died on May 31, 1991 in Bury , Suffolk ) was an English writer.

Contemporary Wilson was considered one of the most important English novelists after the end of the Second World War . In his works he took up - often with satirical exaggeration - conflicts in English civil society in the second half of the 20th century.

Life

Wilson was born the sixth child of William and Maud Johnstone-Wilson, the father was of English, the mother of South African descent. He attended Westminster School in London from 1927 to 1931 , then studied history at Merton College , Oxford. From 1936 onwards, Wilson worked as an archivist at the British Museum . During the Second World War, Wilson was employed from 1942 onwards as an employee of the State Department in Bletchley Park , deciphering enemy communications. After a mental breakdown, he began writing short stories, initially as a form of therapy.

After the war ended, Wilson returned to the British Museum as a librarian in the reading room in 1946, where he made the acquaintance of Anthony ("Tony") Garrett, his future secretary, collaborator, and lifelong partner. Wilson finally left his job at the museum in 1955 after his first publications had been very well received by literary critics and the general public.

In the following decades he wrote his best-known novels and worked as a literary scholar at universities in Great Britain and the USA: From 1966 to 1978 he was Professor of English Literature at the University of East Anglia , where he - together with Malcolm Bradbury - founded the creative writing program there; he has also held visiting professorships at the University of Cambridge , Yale University , Johns Hopkins University and many other universities.

1985 Wilson moved together with his partner Anthony Garrett from Great Britain to France, he justified this with the dissatisfaction with the politics of Margaret Thatcher . The British literary critic DJ Taylor analyzed this surprising emigration in an essay in 2013, however, to the effect that Wilson had increasingly suffered from the loss of his own importance, and that emigration could be understood as a “scarifying parable of what happens when a once-celebrated writer somehow loses touch with the tenor of his time “(creepy parable of what happens when a once celebrated writer somehow loses contact with the mood of his time). The emigration was not permanent, a few years later Wilson was forced to return to England due to illness and financial problems, where he spent the last years of his life in a nursing home - supported by aid from his friends and a pension from the Royal Literary Fund - mentally and become physically frail. On May 31, 1991, Wilson died after suffering a stroke.

Almost all of Wilson's written papers are archived at the University of Iowa .

Work and reception

Wilson's first publications, two volumes of short stories ( The Wrong Set 1949, Such Darling Dodos 1950), made the author famous in Great Britain and the USA, from then on he was perceived as a clairvoyant and sharp-tongued observer of the frustrations and problems of the English bourgeoisie during the war - and post-war years. Wilson's biographer Margaret Drabble remembers that her first, overwhelming reading of the stories was based on the fact that Wilson on the one hand showed no respect for anything or anyone, on the other hand he could be cruel and empathetic towards his characters at the same time.

Wilson was one of the first English-language writers to openly and completely unspectacularly thematize homosexuality in their works, as in his first novel Hemlock and After from 1952, a representation of homosexual life in post-war Great Britain. The novel explores sexual moral concepts based on the experiences of a bisexual protagonist between failed marriage and homosexual affairs. In the USA, where the earlier stories had been celebrated, the work was initially rejected by the American publisher Wilsons, William Morrow , because of this content, but the novel was then reprinted several times after it was published by Viking , the author was named the new “guardians of a liberal conscience”.

This "gloomy parable" was followed in 1956 by Anglo-Saxon Attitudes , a satirical social criticism of English university life, reminiscent of Charles Dickens in the abundance of characters and the undisguised harshness of the presentation . In the third novel, The Middle Age of Mrs Eliot (1958), Wilson tells of the painful self-discovery processes of his eponymous heroine, a middle-class English woman who, after the seemingly pointless death of her husband, falls into a sudden deep crisis and at the same time experiences social decline facing. The novel was awarded the James Tait Black Memorial Prize . Wilson had reached a new readership with this novel, the "middle class in the middle ages", and gained further international reputation; On the occasion of the German translation in 1960, Rudolf Walter Leonhardt expected Wilson to become a successful author in Germany too. With these works, the author was internationally regarded as one of the most important English storytellers of the post-war period; In an editorial note from Spiegel on the occasion of the German-language first publication of a collection of short stories entitled What for lovely birds , Wilson was described as "the most famous social critic in England today" as early as 1959.

Wilson's good reputation in literary criticism was initially retained, but the audience success waned with the next, narrative, experimental, allegorical science fiction, The Old Men at the Zoo (1961), a political satire about a military conflict between England and other European powers. Wilson also continued to talk about the following novels Late Call (1964) and especially No Laughing Matter (1967), the works were highly praised by literary critics - but they no longer sold. The last two novels As If By Magic (1973) and Setting the World on Fire (1980) are characterized by Margaret Drabble as "uncompromising new beginnings" - but she also states that the works were hardly noticed.

Little remained of Wilson's formerly high esteem by readers and literary criticism in the last years of his life. When Wilson in 1985 embittered emigrated to France, he was still a respected member of the British literary establishment - 1980, he had been elevated to the English literature in the personal nobility grounds of merit and since 1982 he was president of the Royal Society of Literature , also was Wilson was accepted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters as an Honorary Foreign Fellow in 1980 - but his poetry was no longer in demand and was no longer published. An edition of the collected works that friends had put to print after his death was unsuccessful. Wilson fell into oblivion, became a "great but unknown novelist".

Awards

The selection of the listed honors follows the presentation of the University of Iowa.

Publications (selection)

stories

  • The Wrong Set and Other Stories , short stories, 1949
  • Such Darling Dodos and Other Stories , 1950s
  • A Bit Off the Map and Other Stories , short stories, 1957
    (A selection of Wilson's stories was published in German under the title: What for lovely birds. Stories from England , stories. Translated from the English by Wolfgang von Einsiedel and Hilde Spiel , Insel, Wiesbaden 1958, and dtv, Munich 1963)

Novels

  • Hemlock and After , Roman, 1952
  • Anglo-Saxon Attitudes , Roman, 1956
    (German: Late discoveries , Roman. Translated from the English by Alexander Koval , Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1984, ISBN 3-518-01837-X .)
  • The Middle Age of Mrs Eliot , novel, 1958
    (German: Meg Eliot . [Translated from English] Transfer by Helmut Lindemann . Insel-Verlag, Wiesbaden 1960.)
  • The Old Men at the Zoo , Roman, 1961
    (German: The old men in the zoo . Roman. [Translated from English] Transferred by Peter Stadelmayer. Insel-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1962.)
  • Late Call , Roman, 1964
    (German: Later call . Roman. Translated from the English by Ursula von Zedlitz. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1988, ISBN 3-596-28276-4 .)
  • No Laughing Matter , Roman, 1967
    (German: No reason to laugh . Roman. Translated into German by Maria Dessauer, Droemer-Knaur, Munich, Zurich 1973, ISBN 3-426-00299-X .)
  • As If By Magic , Roman, 1973
    (German: Wie durch Magie . Roman. German by Werner Peterich , Droemer-Knaur, Munich, Zurich 1975, ISBN 3-426-08871-1 .)
  • Setting the World on Fire , Roman, 1980
    (German: Brittle ice . Roman. Translated from English by Werner Peterich, Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt 1986, ISBN 3-518-37836-8 .)

Dramas

  • The Mulberry Bush , play, 1955

Literary criticism and literary studies

  • Émile Zola: An Introductory Study of His Novels , 1952
  • The World of Charles Dickens , 1970
  • The Strange Ride Of Rudyard Kipling , 1977

literature

Web links

Unless otherwise noted: All web links were last accessed on March 14, 2015.

Remarks

Unless otherwise noted: All web links in the notes were last accessed on March 14, 2015.

  1. ^ Guide to the Angus Wilson Papers. Biographical Note. The University of Iowa Libraries, Iowa City, Iowa; for the activities in Bletchley Park cf. the entry in the Bletchley Park Role of Honor .
  2. ↑ Malcolm Bradbury's chronological résumé , malcolmbradbury.com 5.
  3. ^ Guide to the Angus Wilson Papers. Biographical Note. The University of Iowa Libraries, Iowa City, Iowa.
  4. ^ Guide to the Angus Wilson Papers. Biographical Note. The University of Iowa Libraries, Iowa City, Iowa.
  5. ↑ David John Taylor : Angus Wilson: From darling to dodo , The Guardian , 23 Aug 20135.
  6. ^ Guide to the Angus Wilson Papers. Biographical Note. The University of Iowa Libraries, Iowa City, Iowa.
  7. ↑ Collection number MSC0199 of the University of Iowa Special Collections , Collection Overview , The University of Iowa Libraries, Iowa City, Iowa.
  8. ↑ Frederick PW McDowell: The Angus Wilson Collection , Web presence of the University of Iowa Libraries. Originally in: Books at Iowa April 10, 19695.
  9. ↑ Margaret Drabble: Angus Wilson: Cruel-Kind Enemy of False Sentiment and Self-Delusion , The New York Times , January 29, 1995.
  10. ↑ Margaret Drabble: Angus Wilson: Cruel-Kind Enemy of False Sentiment and Self-Delusion , The New York Times , January 29, 1995.
  11. ↑ Frederick PW McDowell: The Angus Wilson Collection , Web presence of the University of Iowa Libraries. Originally in: Books at Iowa April 10, 1969.
  12. ↑ Frederick PW McDowell: The Angus Wilson Collection , Web presence of the University of Iowa Libraries. Originally in: Books at Iowa April 10, 1969.
  13. ^ University of Edinburgh , James Tait Black Prizes, Fiction Winners .
  14. ↑ Margaret Drabble: Angus Wilson: Cruel-Kind Enemy of False Sentiment and Self-Delusion , The New York Times , January 29, 1995.
  15. ^ Rudolf Walter Leonhardt: Love is in great demand. Our booksellers' forecasts for the Christmas book trade. In: Die Zeit, September 23, 1960.
  16. ^ Gero von Wilpert (Ed.): Lexicon of world literature. Volume 2. Deutscher Taschenbuchverlag, Munich 1997, ISBN 3-423-59050-5 , p. 1633 f.
  17. ↑ Der Spiegel : Angus Wilson: What For Lovely Birds , May 20, 1959.
  18. ↑ Margaret Drabble: Angus Wilson: Cruel-Kind Enemy of False Sentiment and Self-Delusion , The New York Times , January 29, 1995.
  19. ^ The London Gazette , June 13, 1980, Supplement, p. 2 .
  20. ↑ American Academy of Arts and Letters: Honorary Members: Angus Wilson (search mask) ; accessed March 29, 2019.
  21. ↑ David John Taylor: Angus Wilson: From darling to dodo , The Guardian , Aug. 23, 2013.
  22. ↑ Mark Davies: Profile: author Angus Wilson - 'The great unknown novelist' , The Oxford Times, November 21, 2013.
  23. ^ Guide to the Angus Wilson Papers. Biographical Note. The University of Iowa Libraries, Iowa City, Iowa.
personal data
SURNAME Wilson, Angus
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Wilson, Angus Frank Johnstone
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British writer
DATE OF BIRTH August 11, 1913
PLACE OF BIRTH Bexhill-on-Sea
DATE OF DEATH May 31, 1991
Place of death Bury St Edmunds