Evelyn Waugh

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Evelyn Waugh 1940, photograph by Carl van Vechten

Arthur Evelyn St. John Waugh [ ˈɑːθə ˈiːvlɪn ˈsɪndʒən wɔː ] (born October 28, 1903 in London , † April 10, 1966 in Taunton ) was a British writer .

Several of his novels are considered classics of 20th century English literature. The Time magazine chose Brideshead Head and A Handful of Dust the top 100 English-language novels , published between 1923 and of 2005. In 2015, 82 international literary critics and scholars voted the satirical novels Scoop and Decay and Fall among the most important British novels .

Life

Family and childhood

Evelyn Waugh was the younger son of the publisher and writer Arthur Waugh and his wife Catherine Charlotte. Both parental families were originally from Scotland. Arthur Waugh had become the head of the Chapman & Hall publishing house the year before Evelyn was born , which had once published the works of Charles Dickens . The publishing house had shrunk since then, and the family had limited financial resources.

Lancing College, the boarding school Evelyn Waugh attended

Arthur Waugh had previously been a student at the Sherborne School , as was Alec Waugh (1898–1981), Evelyn's brother five years older, who also became a writer. Alec had been expelled before he graduated from boarding school and processed his school days in the 1917 novel The Loom of Youth . The work, the location of which Sherborne School was easy to identify, sparked a scandal because Alec had hinted at homosexual relationships among students in it. The boarding school then refused to accept his younger brother. Therefore, Evelyn Waugh eventually attended Lancing College boarding school after having previously been a day pupil at a preparatory school in the London borough of Hampstead . At Lancing College, where he wanted to test his inclination to study theology, he felt very unhappy at first. The restrictions due to the First World War were clearly noticeable, and it was customary at boarding schools at that time to be particularly rough with new students. However, Lancing College gave him the opportunity to pursue his interests in painting and calligraphy, and Waugh became editor of the school magazine, among other things. He completed his school years by winning a scholarship to Hertford College in Oxford .

Studies and first publications

Waugh began studying at Hertford College in January 1922. He found the years there extremely happy. Although he initially suffered from the dubious reputation of his older brother, he soon found numerous friends in the various colleges of the university town. Life with friends and the associated alcohol consumption often played a bigger role than studying. After its end, Waugh worked as a teacher at various boarding schools and day schools. Although he was not unpopular with his students, he often got into conflicts with the respective school principals. In his autobiography, A Little Learning , he said he found himself so unsuitable for the teaching profession that he even made a half-hearted suicide attempt while at a boarding school in Denbighshire .

While still a teacher, Waugh wrote an essay on the Pre-Raphaelites , which appeared in private print in 1926 and drew the attention of the Duckworth publishing house to him. The publisher suggested that he write a book about Dante Gabriel Rossetti . In April 1927, Waugh gave up his teaching career and seriously considered becoming a cabinet maker. In December 1927 he became engaged to Evelyn Gardner, the youngest daughter of the late Lord Burghclere. The engagement met with fierce opposition from the bride's mother, as Evelyn Waugh had neither income nor employment. His book on Rossetti was published in 1928 and received some good reviews, but did not solve his financial problems. In this situation, wrote Waugh the satirical novel Decline and Fall (engl. Original title: Decline and Fall ), who was strongly influenced by his experiences as a student of Lancing College, a student at Oxford and as a teacher. The Duckworth publisher requested some revisions and the Chapman and Hall novel was eventually accepted. His father was not involved in this decision. He would probably have hesitated to publish his son's work in his own publishing house.

The novel was an instant hit and received numerous positive reviews, including from Arnold Bennett , who was a very influential critic and writer at the time. The success of the book put an end to Waugh's financial troubles. In June 1928 he and Evelyn Gardner married without informing their mother. Since Waugh and his wife had the same first name, friends called them He-Evelyn and She-Evelyn ("Er-Evelyn" and "She-Evelyn"). The marriage is described as short and unhappy. While Waugh was working on the novel Lust und Laster (Vile Bodies) , a caricaturing representation of the English party society of the 1920s, which was published in 1930 and became a huge sales success, his wife began affairs with other men. The marriage ended in divorce in 1930. The separation from Evelyn Gardner was described by Waugh in A Handful of Dust (1934).

After the separation he traveled to some Mediterranean countries in 1929, including a. also Egypt . He reported on this in Labels (1930).

Conversion and establishment as a writer

Coronation of Haile Selassies . Waugh's stay in Abyssinia was the inspiration for the two novels Black Mischief and Scoop

In 1930 Waugh converted to Catholicism , although he feared that this would prevent him from marrying a second time. However, in 1936 the Church granted his request three years earlier to annul his first marriage. This enabled him to marry Laura Herbert, who was also a Catholic, in 1937. His marriage to her, which lasted until his death, had seven children, one of whom died in childhood. His eldest son, Auberon Waugh (1939-2001), would later become a well-known journalist and columnist .

After the divorce from his first wife and conversion, Waugh became increasingly socially isolated. One of his few friends was the writer Graham Greene , also a Catholic convert whose first marriage was annulled. Waugh had established himself as a writer by then, but also worked as a correspondent in the 1930s. In 1930 he reported from Abyssinia about the coronation of Haile Selassie and in August 1935 he was there as a correspondent for the Daily Mail to report on the impending war of aggression and conquest by fascist Italy . In his preface to Scoop , Waugh writes about his work there:

“I had little talent for it, but I enjoyed studying the quirks and debauchery of my colleagues. The geographical location of Ishmaelia, but not the state, corresponds to that of Abyssinia, and the life of journalists in Jacksonburg roughly corresponds to that of Addis Ababa in 1935. "

He processed his experiences in Africa in the novels Schwarzes Unheil ( Black Mischief , 1932) about a fictional African state in which the dubious blessings of modern civilization are to be introduced, and Scoop (1938). His travel experiences flowed into several reports: in Strange Peoples, Strange Morals ( Remote People , 1931), Waugh in Abyssinia (1936) and Ninety-Two Days. The Account of a Tropical Journey Through British Guiana and Part of Brazil (1934). The latter was based on a trip to South America in 1932/1933. In these books he describes bizarre, incomprehensible worlds.

R. Laycock in 1943. Laycock was temporary superior officer for Waugh

When the war broke out in 1939, Waugh, along with Henry Green and Virginia Woolf, was one of the most respected British authors. His biography of Edmund Campion (1935) had earned him the Hawthornden Prize . He owned a country house in Gloucestershire and had started a family. But since he was still young enough for military service and he knew that a civilian task would provide little material for literary works, he immediately tried to find an officer. With great difficulty he succeeded in joining the Royal Marines and he was transferred to the Middle East in 1941. During the airborne battle for Crete , he served as the personal adjutant to Robert Laycock , the commander of a commando unit. Towards the end of the war he was a liaison officer to the Yugoslav partisans. His biographer Douglas Woodruff noted that his superiors found him difficult to deal with because of his skepticism and that Waugh was never very popular with the soldiers who served under him.

The war experience shapes the satirical novel with flying colors ( Put out more flags , 1942), whose protagonist Basil Seal uses all the possibilities of the early war years, to secure his own advancement. During the war, the novel Wiedersehen mit Brideshead (1945) was written, which became a bestseller and now made it very well known in the USA. The tone in this book has become more serious; instead of the earlier amoral, firmly anarchist attitude, the importance of religion now emerges more clearly. In 1947 Evelyn Waugh visited Hollywood to discuss a film version of the book. That didn't happen because Waugh wasn't ready to make the changes the studio wanted. However, the trip inspired Waugh to write another novel. Fascinated by the way California dealt with the dead and the funeral industry there, he wrote the novel Death in Hollywood ( The Loved One , 1948), a very cheerful and also very successful novel that was inspired by the Forest Lawn Memorial Park cemetery . The British publicist Cyril Connolly dedicated an entire issue of his monthly magazine Horizon to the preprint of the work .

The last years of life

From 1956, Waugh lived with his family in the Somerset village of Combe Florey

As a decidedly conservative, Waugh found the post-war period in Great Britain barely bearable because of the food and foreign exchange management, the nationalization of important industries and the expansion of the welfare state. How much he opposed the restructuring of British society, he made clear in his 1946 essay What to Do with the Upper Classes (What to do with the upper class). In it he ironically suggested that the British aristocracy and the most incorrigible members of the middle class should be locked up on reservations. Similar views shape the novel ... and new life blooms from the ruins ( Love Among the Ruins , 1953), a dystopia in whose society incompetent politicians, unproductive workers and incompetent bureaucrats set the tone. The state has become a substitute for God, man has been reduced to a mere number. Love no longer exists and the most popular service of the welfare state is euthanasia , which many people choose because they want to escape the boredom of their lives. The conditions in the USA were also caricatured by Waugh: The Loved One (1948) is a macabre satire on the excesses of the American funeral industry and the infantilism that he recognizes everywhere in this country.

In 1950, Waugh's only historical novel was published. Its theme is the life of the heroine Helena , mother of the Roman emperor Constantine the Great . Waugh took great care in this book. According to Douglas Woodruff, many passages in this novel are among the stylistically best that Waugh ever wrote. Evelyn Waugh stated about this novel that a reader should read it at least three times in order to fully grasp the content.

The trilogy without fear and blame ( Sword of Honor ), which was shaped by his war experiences, appeared between 1952 and 1961. The first volume Men At Arms is based on Waugh's experiences with the Royal Marines and was awarded the James Tait Black Memorial Prize . Officers and Gentlemen was shaped by his commitment during the Battle of Crete. The last volume, Unconditional Surrender, on the other hand, is shaped by Waugh's experiences in Yugoslavia: The deployment there alongside Randolph Frederick Churchill was one of his last during the Second World War: Waugh found it a bitter irony in the fight against fascist Germany and its allies To have to work with Tito's partisans and thus contribute to the fact that Catholic Croats and Slovenes came under the rule of an intolerant communist regime.

Although Waugh considered emigrating to Ireland with his family for a while, in 1956 he bought Combe Florey House near Taunton in Somerset, a large country estate which he furnished in the style of the Victorian era . It remained his home until the end of his life, of which he was very proud. In 1957 his long-time friend, the theologian Ronald Knox, died after a long and serious illness. Waugh was his executor and took it upon himself to write a biography about Knox, for the research of which he traveled to what was then Rhodesia , among other places . This led, among other things, to his last travel report A Tourist in Africa (1960), in which Waugh noted:

“Just as happier people watch birds, so I watch people. They are less attractive, but much more different. "

He went on trips abroad less and less often, but in 1961/1962 he traveled to South America again, accompanied by his daughter Margaret. He suffered increasingly from deafness and even before his 60th birthday he felt like an old man. He took note of the internal church reforms of the Second Vatican Council with great sadness. Waugh died suddenly at the age of 62 on Easter Sunday in 1966, having recently attended an ancient rite Catholic mass.

plant

Waugh's grave

As a rapidly successful writer, Waugh was a member of the young, spoiled upper class in the 1920s. He had a particular interest in the fine arts (his first book was a biography of Dante Gabriel Rossetti , and he illustrated his novella Love Among the Ruins ).

Waugh had a special flair for dialogue, some of which stretched over two pages. His macabre humor was appreciated . In Black Mischief, the anti-hero accidentally devours his mistress, and The Loved One is set in the US funeral industry. Waugh influenced numerous writers such as Muriel Spark and the later Nobel Prize laureate V. S. Naipaul , who wanted to write like Waugh as a young man. British director Stephen Fry filmed Waugh's novel Vile Bodies under the title Bright Young Things , in which a gossip reporter fills his column in “Daily Excess” with fictional sensations and makes his marriage plans dependent on his situation, which often changes every hour. Nothing is stable in this society. Conventions are hollow, titles only decoration and exchange relationships dominate social and private life. Waugh describes these relationships with a “mixture of revulsion and amused fascination”.

Waugh gained international popularity through the film adaptation of his novel, Reunion with Brideshead . The 1981 miniseries of British television starring Jeremy Irons and Laurence Olivier became a global hit. Since then, Vile Bodies and A Handful of Dust have also been filmed - the latter starring Alec Guinness , who admired Waugh. There was an earlier film version of The Loved One with Rod Steiger and John Gielgud and directed by Tony Richardson .

In the lexicon of world literature he is described as a radical conservative cynic and cultural pessimist who “reveals the curiosities of modern life in cool, artful prose with wit and often overly clear, farce-like satire. Waugh would like to point out to modern man the futility of what he does, the questionability of an absurd, fantastic and chaotic existence. "

Works

Novels

  • 1928 Decline and Fall
  • 1930 Labels: A Mediterranean Journal
  • 1930 Vile Bodies
    • ... but the meat is weak , from Hermen von Kleeborn. Herold, Vienna 1951
    • New translation: Lust und Laster , German by Ulrike Simon. Diogenes, Zurich 1984, ISBN 3-257-21174-0
    • second new translation: Lust und Vices , German by Pociao . Diogenes, Zurich 2015, ISBN 978-3-257-24383-3
  • 1932 Black Mischief
    • Black calamity , German from Lucy von Wangenheim. Bastei, Berlin, Vienna 1938
    • The black majesty , same translation. Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne 1954
    • New translation: Black Disaster , German by Irmgard Andrae. Diogenes, Zurich 1986, ISBN 3-257-21402-2
  • 1934 A Handful of Dust
    • A handful of dust , from Lucy von Wangenheim. Bondi, Berlin 1936
    • New translation: A handful of dust, German by Matthias Fienbork. Diogenes, Zurich 1986, ISBN 3-257-21348-4
    • second new translation: A handful of dust, German by Pociao. Diogenes, Zurich 2014, ISBN 978-3-257-24382-6
  • 1938 Scoop . A Novel About Journalism
  • 1942 Put Out More Flags
    • With gloss and glory, German from Matthias Fienbork. Diogenes, Zurich 1987, ISBN 3-257-21465-0
    • New edition as: With waving flags, German by Matthias Fienbork. Diogenes, Zurich 2015, ISBN 978-3-257-24308-6
  • 1945 Brideshead Revisited
    • Goodbye to Brideshead. The sacred and profane memories of Captain Charles Ryder, German by Franz Fein. Amstutz & Herdeg, Zurich 1947
    • New translation: reunion with brideshead. The sacred and profane memories of Captain Charles Ryder, English of Pociao. Diogenes, Zurich 2013, ISBN 978-3-257-24319-2
  • 1946 Scott King's Modern Europe (also as: A Sojourn in Neutralia)
    • Holidays in Europe, German by Ossip Kalenter. The Ark, Zurich 1950
    • New translation: Scott-King's modern world. Story, German by Otto Bayer. Diogenes, Zurich 2014, ISBN 978-3-257-24275-1
  • 1947 Wine in Peace and War
  • 1948 The Loved One
    • Death in Hollywood, German by Peter Gan. The Ark, Zurich 1950
    • New translation: Death in Hollywood. An Anglo-American tragedy, German by Andrea Ott. Diogenes, Zurich 2015, ISBN 978-3-257-24421-2
  • 1950 Helena
    • Helena, German by Peter Gan. Die Arche, Zurich 1951; New edition: Diogenes, Zurich 2016, ISBN 978-3-257-24339-0
  • 1952–1961 Sword of Honor trilogy about World War II: Men At Arms (1952), Officers and Gentlemen (1955) and Unconditional Surrender (1961).
  • 1953 Love Among the Ruins. A Romance of the Near Future
    • ... and new life blooms from the ruins. A love story from the near future, German by Elisabeth Schnack. Die Arche, Zurich 1955
  • 1957 The Ordeal of Gilbert Pinfold
    • Gilbert Pinfold's Descent into Hell. A genre picture, German by Helmut Hilzheimer. Desch, Vienna 1958
    • New translation: Gilbert Pinfolds Höllenfahrt, German by Irmgard Andrae. Diogenes, Zurich 1987; New edition 2016, ISBN 978-3-257-24340-6

Travel literature

  • 1930 labels. A Mediterranean Journal
  • 1931 Remote People
  • 1934 Ninety-Two Days. The Account of a Tropical Journey Through British Guiana and Part of Brazil
  • 1936 Waugh in Abyssinia
  • 1939 Robbery Under Law (US title: Mexico: an Object-Lesson )
  • 1946 When the Going Was Good
    • When traveling was still nice, by Rose Grässel. Claassen & Goverts, Hamburg 1949
  • 1952 The Holy Places
  • 1960 A Tourist in Africa

Biographical and autobiographical

  • 1928 Rosetti: His Life and Works
  • 1953 Edmund Campion. Jesuit and Martyr
    • Seed in the storm. Life picture of Edmund Campion from the time of Elisabeth of England, German by HH von Vogt, Kösel-Pustet, Munich 1938
    • Edmund Campion. Jesuit and martyr, German by Heinrich Fischer. Kösel, Munich 1954
  • 1959 The Life of the Right Reverend Ronald Knox
    • Ronald Knox. Biography, German by Hugo Maria Kellner. Echter, Würzburg 1965
  • 1964 A Little Learning. The First Volume of an Autobiography
  • 1979 The Diaries of Evelyn Waugh 1919-1965
  • 1980 The Letters of Evelyn Waugh 1914-1966

German-language collections of the stories

  • Small evening stroll. Stories, German by Elisabeth Schnack and Ursula von Wiese. Sanssouci, Zurich 1959
  • First come, first served, by Otto Bayer. Diogenes, Zurich 1985, ISBN 3-257-21277-1
  • Charles Ryder's days before Brideshead, German by Otto Bayer. Diogenes, Zurich 1985, ISBN 3-257-21276-3
  • Real life excursion and other master tales. Diogenes, Zurich 2013, ISBN 978-3-257-24436-6

Film adaptations

literature

  • Frederick L. Beaty: The Ironic World of Evelyn Waugh: A Study of Eight Novels . Northern Illinois University Press, DeKalb 1992, ISBN 0-87580-171-4 .
  • Philip Eade: Evelyn Waugh: a life revisited , London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2016, ISBN 978-0-297-60948-3
  • Selina Hastings: Evelyn Waugh. A biography . Sinclair-Stevenson, London 1994, ISBN 1-85619-223-7 .
  • Manfred Orlick: A culture pessimist and brilliant satirist. On the 50th anniversary of the death of the English writer Evelyn Waugh . literaturkritik.de, No. 4, April 2016.
  • Douglas Lane Patey: The life of Evelyn Waugh. A critical biography . Blackwell, Oxford 1998, ISBN 0-631-18933-5 .
  • Kurt Schlueter: Evelyn Waugh. In: Horst W. Drescher (Hrsg.): English literature of the present in individual representations. Kröner, Stuttgart 1970, pp. 22-46.
  • David Wykes: Evelyn Waugh. A literary life . Macmillan, Basingstoke 1999, ISBN 0-333-61138-1 .
  • Douglas Woodruff: Waugh, Evelyn Arthur St. John in John Sutherland (Eds.): Literary Lives - Intimate Biographies of the Famous by the Famous . Oxford University Press, Oxford 2002, ISBN 0-19-860642-7 .

Web links

Commons : Evelyn Waugh  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ The Guardian: The best British novel of all times - have international critics found it? , accessed June 9, 2016
  2. ↑ Woodruff: Waugh, Evelyn Arthur St. John in John Sutherland (Ed.): Literary Lives - Intimate Biographies of the Famous by the Famous . P. 328.
  3. ↑ a b c Woodruff: Waugh, Evelyn Arthur St. John in John Sutherland (ed.): Literary Lives - Intimate Biographies of the Famous by the Famous . P. 329.
  4. ↑ a b c Woodruff: Waugh, Evelyn Arthur St. John in John Sutherland (ed.): Literary Lives - Intimate Biographies of the Famous by the Famous . P. 330.
  5. ^ Foreword by the author to Scoop. Translation by Elisabeth Schnack
  6. ↑ a b c Woodruff: Waugh, Evelyn Arthur St. John in John Sutherland (ed.): Literary Lives - Intimate Biographies of the Famous by the Famous . P. 331.
  7. ^ HW Drescher: Lexicon of English literature. Stuttgart 1979, p. 495.
  8. ↑ a b c d Woodruff: Waugh, Evelyn Arthur St. John in John Sutherland (Ed.): Literary Lives - Intimate Biographies of the Famous by the Famous . P. 332.
  9. ^ Beaty: The Ironic World of Evelyn Waugh: A Study of Eight Novels. Pp. 19-22.
  10. ↑ a b Woodruff: Waugh, Evelyn Arthur St. John in John Sutherland (ed.): Literary Lives - Intimate Biographies of the Famous by the Famous . P. 333.
  11. ↑ Waugh: A Tourist in Africa, 1960, p. 12. The original quote is As happier men watch birds, I watch men. They are less attractive, but more various.
  12. ↑ Woodruff: Waugh, Evelyn Arthur St. John in John Sutherland (Ed.): Literary Lives - Intimate Biographies of the Famous by the Famous . P. 334.
  13. ↑ Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul: One way in the world . Hoffmann and Campe, Hamburg 1995, ISBN 3-455-05371-8 , pp. 97 and 111.
  14. ↑ JNS: Evelyn Waugh: Vile Bodies. In: Kindler's new literary lexicon. Vol. 17, Munich 1996, p. 443.
  15. ^ Gero von Wilpert (Ed.): Lexicon of world literature . Volume 2. dtv, Munich 1997, ISBN 3-423-59050-5 , p. 1608.
personal data
SURNAME Waugh, Evelyn
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Waugh, Arthur Evelyn St. John (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British writer
DATE OF BIRTH October 28, 1903
PLACE OF BIRTH London
DATE OF DEATH April 10, 1966
Place of death Taunton