Christopher Brennan

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Christopher Brennan (born November 1, 1870 in Sydney , † October 5, 1932 there ) was an Australian poet.

Life

Christopher Brennan was the son of a brewer and was educated in Catholic schools. When he is in the 1888 Sydney University enrolled , he gave up his faith and studied instead the classic. He won a scholarship in Berlin , where he met his future wife and the poetry of Stéphane Mallarmé . It was around this time that he decided to become a poet. On his return to Australia he took a job as a librarian in the public library before he was given a job at the University of Sydney. In 1914 he wrote his main work Poems: 1913 . He later had an affair with Violet Singer in the 1920s, which appeared as Vie in his later poems . Due to his divorce and increasing alcoholism , he was fired from the university. Vie's accidental death left him in despair and spent the rest of his life in poverty.

Brennan died in 1932 after developing cancer and returning to the beliefs of his childhood.

Artistic creation

Brennan was not an actual lyric poet and should not be criticized for it. His work was not driven by emotions , but showed an excellent architectural and mythological response. His main work should be read as a whole as a single poem, although it was also composed of smaller parts. It includes not only the basic details of his life such as the mourning for his wife (in the first sections), but also human depth through mythology (in the central Lilith passage and in the Wanderer sequence). As such, it is among the most intensely debated works of Australian poetry, given the prominence of criticism of the work and Brennan.

Brennan cannot be clearly assigned to a group. He is neither a balladist nor a member of the emerging “Vision” school. He is closest to the generation of the 1890s like Victor Daley . This is not surprising as he produced most of the lyrics during this period. His importance in Australian literature is based on the seriousness with which he approached his role as a poet and his influence on some later poets such as Vincent Buckley . That is why Brennan is considered Australia's greatest poet.

Works

  • XXI poems: MDCCCXCIII-MDCCCXCVII. Towards the source , 1897
  • Poems: 1913 , 1914
  • A chant of doom: and other verses , 1918
  • The burden of Tire , 1953
  • The verse of Christopher Brennan ed. By AR Chisholm and JJ Quinn, 1960
  • The prose of Christopher Brennan ed. By AR Chisholm and JJ Quinn, 1962
  • Christopher Brennan ed. By Terry Sturm, 1984

literature

  • Katherine Barnes: The higher self in Christopher Brennan's Poems. Esotericism, romanticism, symbolism. Brill, Leiden 2006. (= Aries book series; 2) ISBN 90-04-15221-0
  • Alan R. Chisholm: A Study of Christopher Brennan's 'The forest of night'. Univ. Pr., Melbourne 1970.
  • Simone Kadi: Christopher Brennan. Introduction suivie de 12 poèmes - textes et traductions - avec commentaires. L'Harmattan, Paris 2005. (= Poètes des cinq continents; 399) ISBN 2-7475-8000-8
  • Noel Macainsh: The Pathos of Distance . Lang, Bern a. a. 1992. (= German-Australian studies; 7) ISBN 3-261-04586-8
  • James MacAuley: Christopher Brennan. Oxford Univ. Pr., Melbourne a. a. 1973. ISBN 0-19-550406-2

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Brennan, Christopher
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Brennan, Christopher John
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Australian writer
DATE OF BIRTH November 1, 1870
PLACE OF BIRTH Sydney , Australia
DATE OF DEATH October 5, 1932
Place of death Sydney , Australia