Charles Olson

Charles Olson

Charles Olson (born December 27, 1910 in Worcester ( Massachusetts ), † January 10, 1970 in New York City ) was an American poet.

Life

Charles Olson was the only child of Karl (named Charles) Joseph Olson and Mary Theresa Olson (nee Hines). The mother was from Irish immigrants, the father, a postman, from Swedish immigrants. The family had been spending their summer holidays since 1915 in the old fishing town of Gloucester on Cape Ann , which was to become the mythical location of Olson's major work, the Maximus Poems .

Olson studied English at Wesleyan University in Middletown from 1928 to 1932 , earning his master's degree with a thesis on the writer he admired, Herman Melville . After teaching English for two years, he enrolled at Harvard University in 1936 . In 1938, a Guggenheim grant enabled him to continue his research on Melville. He did his doctorate that year, but without submitting a dissertation.

In 1940 he moved to New York, where he held senior positions for various public institutions, including the Office of War Information . From that year he lived with Constance (Connie) Wilcock. The connection resulted in a daughter in 1951.

In 1944 he was on Franklin D. Roosevelt's campaign team . After Roosevelt's death in 1945, Olson, who had been writing poetry since 1940, decided to pursue a career as a writer. He visited the poet Ezra Pound , who was then interned in the St. Elizabeth mental institution in Washington, a total of 24 times, but broke off contact in 1948 after a political controversy with him.

In 1951, Olson traveled to Yucatán with Connie Wilcock . It was there that the “Mayan Letters” were written to his lifelong friend and correspondent, the poet Robert Creeley .

At the invitation of the painter Josef Albers , Olson had repeatedly taught as a guest lecturer at Black Mountain College , a meeting place for the artistic avant-garde, since 1948 . From 1951 he was there as a teacher, from 1954 until the college was closed in 1957 as rector. During his time at college, a brief but intense correspondence with the German poet Rainer Maria Gerhardt developed .

In 1954, Olson met Elizabeth (Betty) Kaiser, a 28-year-old student at college. The following year their son Charles Peter Olson was born.

In 1957, Olson moved to Gloucester, where he worked on his Maximus Poems until his death . In 1964, Betty Olson was killed in a car accident. In 1966 Olson stayed in Berlin. In December 1969 he was diagnosed with liver cancer. He succumbed to the disease a few weeks later.

plant

In addition to his poems, Olson has published important essays. His Melville study Call Me Ishmael (1947) began in 1945 , in which he not only explains Shakespeare's influences on Moby Dick , but also declares unlimited space to be the fundamental category of American thought. His essay on the "Projective Verse" (1950) was much more influential. Based on physical field theory , Olson describes the poem as a dynamic, open act and thus turns against academic and contemplative poetics . This pragmatic , physical, eventful, reality-based conception of poetry must have a direct impact on its content. “The moment the projective intention of the act of a verse is grasped, the content changes - inevitably -. When breath is the beginning and the end, voice in the broadest sense, then the material of the verse shifts. It must. It starts with the one who writes. "

In his lectures and theoretical statements, Olson is strongly influenced by Alfred North Whitehead , especially by his main work Process and Reality (1927/28). Reality, so Olson after Whitehead, should no longer be understood as a factual context, but must be understood as a context of action.

In his “Maya letters” and in his lectures, Olson shows the will to overcome western thinking (“western box”), which appears metaphysical and rigid to him, in the direction of a pragmatic, open, relativistic philosophy. He sees not only the poet, but the human being in general as an actor. History is the practice of space in time. In this context he used the term “ postmodern ” as early as the 1950s .

His accuracy-minded poetry shows the influence of Ezra Pound and the objectivists, especially William Carlos Williams , but is much more dynamic. In his best-known poem "The Kingfishers", the bold interweaving of different areas of meaning can be observed in the manner of a literary montage . However, the montage is always related to the here and now of poetic speaking - the "stance" (the attitude, the attitude, the access).

The title of his main work The Maximus Poems (1950–1969) goes back, among other things, to the Sophist Maximos von Tire , but also refers to (physical) size (“maximus”, Latin “the tallest”; Olson measured 204 cm). The work, consisting of over 600 individual poems, is a determination of Gloucester as a new polis, inspired by facts and mythological associations .

Fonts (selection)

• Poems . Transferred by Klaus Reichert. Frankfurt am Main 1965
• Selected Writings . Edited by Robert Creeley. New York 1966
• Call Me Ishmael. A Study of Melville . London 1967 (German edition: Call me Ismael. A study on Herman Melville. Translated by Klaus Reichert. Munich 1979)
• West . Translated and annotated by Klaus Reichert. Berlin 1969
• The Special View of History . Edited by Ann Charters. Berkeley 1970
• The Post Office. A memoir of his father. Introduction by George F. Butterick. Bolinas 1975 (German edition: Das Postamt. A reminder. Translated by Michael Mundhenk . Maro, Augsburg 1997)
• Muthologos. The Collected Lectures & Interviews. Edited by George F. Butterick. Bolinas 1978
• Charles Olson, Robert Creeley: The Complete Correspondence. Edited by George F. Butterick and Richard Blevins. 10 volumes. Berkeley 1980-1990
• The Maximus Poems . Edited by George F. Butterick. Berkeley / Los Angeles / London 1983
• The Collected Poems. Excluding the Maximus Poems. Edited by George F. Butterick. Berkeley / Los Angeles / London 1987
• I hunt between stones. Letters and essays. Edited by Rudolf Schmitz, Bern / Berlin 1998
• Selected letters . Edited by Ralph Maud. Berkeley / Los Angeles / London 2000

Literature on Charles Olson (selection)

• Sherman Paul: Olson's Push. Origin, Black Mountain and Recent American Poetry. Baton Rouge, London 1978
• George F. Butterick: A Guide to the Maximus Poems of Charles Olson. Berkeley / Los Angeles / London 1978
• Don Byrd: Charles Olson’s Maximus. Urbana, Chicago, London 1980
• Gerd Schäfer: “ Verses , Janus-headed forward, backward. The American poet Charles Olson was born 100 years ago ”, Deutschlandradio Kultur , December 27, 2010
• Norbert Lange, Gerd Schäfer, Norbert Wehr (eds.): “Charles Olson. Gloucester, Massachusetts. The Maximus Poems ", copybook , 77/2011

Web links

• Literature by and about Charles Olson in the catalog of the German National Library
• Peter Grant: Chronology of Charles Olson's life and work
• Pennsound, sound recordings by Olson
• "Polis is this. Charles Olson and the Persistence of the Place “ , documentary by Henry Ferrini (2007)

Individual evidence

1. ^ Ralph Maud: A Chronology of Charles Olson's Life and Correspondence. In: Charles Olson: Selected Letters. Edited by Ralph Maud. Berkeley / Los Angeles / London 2000, pp. XXVII ff. Olson wrote about his father, who died early, in 1948 in the stories Stocking Cap , Mr. Meyer and The Post Office , published posthumously . Published in The Post Office. A memoir of his father. Introduction by George F. Butterick. Bolinas 1975 (also in German).
2. ↑ Peter Grant: Chronology of Charles Olson's life and work ( Memento of the original from April 5, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. .  
3. ↑ Peter Grant: Chronology of Charles Olson's life and work ( Memento of the original from April 5, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. .  
4. ↑ The immigrant son Olson was outraged, among other things, by a derogatory remark by Pound about William Carlos Williams' "mixed blood". Ralph Maud: "Olson and Pound", in: Ders .: Charles Olson at the Harbor . Vancouver 2008, pp. 59-69, especially p. 68.
5. ↑ See the presentation on the website “ridden in some languages. ( Memento of the original from October 24, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. On the work and impact of the poet and mediator Rainer Maria Gerhardt ”. 
6. ↑ See Don Byrd: Charles Olson’s Maximus. Urbana / Chicago / London 1980, p. 38.
7. ^ Charles Olson: "Projective verse", in: Ders .: Gedichte . Transferred by Klaus Reichert . Frankfurt am Main 1965, pp. 105–120, here p. 117.
8. ↑ Stefan Ripplinger : “Roll over Plato. 100 years ago Charles Olson was born, who re-measured the space of poetry ”, specifically , 12/2010, p. 48 f., Here p. 49. See also Robin Blaser :“ The Violets. Charles Olson and Alfred North Whitehead “, in: Ders .: The Fire. Collected essays . Edited by Miriam Nichols. Berkeley / Los Angeles / London 2006, pp. 196–228.
9. ^ "Man is, He Acts," Charles Olson, The Special View of History. Edited by Ann Charters. Berkeley 1970, p. 34.
10. ^ "History is the practice of space in time," Charles Olson: The Special View of History . Edited by Ann Charters. Berkeley 1970, p. 27.
11. ↑ See Charles Olson: The Special View of History . Edited by Ann Charters. Berkeley 1970, p. 25.
12. ↑ German "The kingfishers", in: Charles Olson: poems . Transferred by Klaus Reichert. Frankfurt am Main 1965, pp. 7-14.
13. ↑ See Charles Olson: The Special View of History . Edited by Ann Charters. Berkeley 1970, p. 19. Cf. also Don Byrd: Charles Olson’s Maximus. Urbana, Chicago, London 1980, p. 54 ff.
14. ↑ "I compell Gloucester / to yield, to / change / Polis / is this," Charles Olson "Maximus to Gloucester, Letter 27 (withheld)", trans .: The Maximus Poems . Edited by George F. Butterick. Berkeley / Los Angeles / London 1983, p. 185. For example: "I urge Gloucester / to submit, / to change / This is / Polis". On the term “polis”, see also Charles Olson: The Special View of History . Edited by Ann Charters. Berkeley 1970, p. 25: "History is the new localism, a polis to replace the one which was lost in various stages all over the world from 490 BC on (...)" (Historicity refers to the new localism, a polis, which replaces the one that has been lost in various stages around the world since 490 BC).