Robert H. Barlow

Robert Hayward Barlow (born May 18, 1918 in Leavenworth ; † January 1-2 , 1951 in Azcapotzalco ) was an American author, avant-garde poet, historian of early Mexico , anthropologist and expert on the Nahuatl language .

Life

Barlow spent much of his youth in Fort Benning ( Georgia ), where his father, Colonel ED Barlow, was stationed. Around 1932 went Col. Barlow health reasons retired and settled with his family in the small town of DeLand ( Florida down). Later it forced family problems to be after Washington, DC , and finally to Leavenworth ( Kansas draw).

Friendship with HP Lovecraft and RE Howard

At the age of 13, RH Barlow became a friend of the writers HP Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard, who were also friends . Young Barlow wrote six stories together with Lovecraft, and Lovecraft paid him several extended visits to DeLand.

Since Lovecraft thought little of many of his own works, the young Barlow tried, among other things, to reproduce, bind and publish Lovecraft's story The Shunned House (1928, The Shunned House ) using office printing techniques , but was only able to complete a few bound copies. It was not until the 1970s that Arkham House published a few hardback versions of the original Barlow project.

Barlow was instrumental in the preservation of Lovecraft's manuscripts by typing Lovecraft's handwritten texts. Lovecraft's last will made Barlow his literary administrator. Shortly after Lovecraft's funeral in Providence ( Rhode Iceland ) Barlow transferred most manuscripts and some printed material to the nearby John Hay Library of Brown University .

Literature and Publishing

Printing technology was Barlow's hobbyhorse. After first getting involved in the early fantasy , horror and sci-fi fan scene of that time, he published several relevant magazines such as The Dragon-Fly (two issues: October 15, 1935, May 15, 1936) and Leaves (two issues: summer 1937 , Winter 1938/39). He also owned his own publishing house called Dragon-Fly Press (in Cassia, Florida), in which he published two important works by members of the growing Lovecraft circle: The Goblin Tower ( Frank Belknap Long's first collection of poetry - Lovecraft helped Barlow on typesetting ) and The Cats of Ulthar (a short story by HP Lovecraft ).

Barlow's literary career was cut short in 1937 when the early cancer death of his friend and mentor Lovecraft and family annoyances made him leave Florida. But as early as 1938 Barlow at least published Lovecraft's Notes and Commonplace Book and found reconnection to various other literature projects. In 1943 he made first-hand contributions to the first Lovecraft bibliography (by Francis T. Laney and William H. Evans). His poignant reminiscence of Lovecraft, The Wind That is in the Grass , is in Marginalia (Arkham House, 1944). Barlow wrote the introduction to the 1944 Arkham House edition Jumbee and Other Uncanny Tales des Weird Tales author Henry S. Whitehead (also a personal friend of Lovecrafts).

poetry

In addition to his academic writing activities as a linguist and an excellent anthropologist for Mexican-Indian culture, Barlow's love was also for poetry ; he wrote both formalistic and experimental poetry in the spirit of the Activist group or Activist school founded by Lawrence Hart . On the occasion of Barlow's suicide, the MCC university newspaper quoted his poem From this Tree :

From this tree No further fruit. Search the boughs, look where the ant looks; Only as cold-veined snakes knotting on the mud, Daggering their bird heads at a shadow, Will they respond. A fire has bounded past And the bark is blistered.

From this tree No more fruit. Search the branches, see where the ant is looking; Just like cold-veined snakes, knotting themselves in the mud, With the tips of their heads flicking at shadows, Mute them. A fire passed over it And the bark is burned out.

Honors

• 1941: Ina Galbraith Award for Poetry
• 1942: 26th Emily Chamberlain Cook Prize in Poetry (first place)

 

anthropology

At the University of California, Berkeley , Barlow completed a linguistics degree, begun in 1941, as a Bachelor of Arts and worked there at the same time as a lecturer. Around 1943 Barlow moved permanently to Mexico, where he taught as an anthropologist and English, Spanish and Nahuatl linguist at several universities. After a trip to Europe in the summer of 1948, during which he researched rare Mexican material in museums and libraries in Paris and London, he became chairman of the anthropology department at Mexico City College that same year . There he published in 1950 Mexihkatl itonalama ( Aztec for The Mexican Calendar ), a newspaper in the Nahuatl language. Barlow's scientific research reports and technical articles on Central American anthropology are of pioneering significance, and his collected anthropological records are being revised in Mexico into an annotated complete edition.

suicide

As early as 1944 Barlow wrote that he had a feeling that his unusual and difficult life was not destined to last longer ( a subtle feeling that my curious and uneasy life is not destined to prolong itself ). He died by suicide on January 1 or 2, 1951, apparently after fear of exposure of his homosexuality by an angry student. William S. Burroughs , a student at Barlow, briefly described his death in a letter dated January 11, 1951 to Allen Ginsberg : A queer Professor from KC, Mo., head of the Anthropology dept. here at MCC where I collect my $ 75 per month, knocked himself off a few days ago with overdose of goof balls . Vomit all over the bed. I can't see this suicide kick. [German: “A gay professor from KC, Mo., head of the anthropology faculty. here at the MCC, which is where I collect my $ 75 a month, slammed into an overdose of sleeping pills a few days ago. Puking all over the bed. I don't understand the thrill of this suicide. "]

bibliography

prose

• A Dim-Remembered Story , Necronomicon Press, West Warwick (RI) 1980. - With foreword by HP Lovecraft .
• Annals of the Jinns , in: NN: The Fantasy Fan , anthology 1933–35, Necronomicon Press, West Warwick (RI) 1978.
• Crypt of Cthulhu (special issue), No. 60, Necronomicon Press, West Warwick (RI) 1988. - Special edition dedicated to Robert H. Barlow.
• On Lovecraft and Life , Necronomicon Press, West Warwick (RI) 1992. Contains Barlow's autobiography from 1940 and the notes of Lovecraft's 1934 visit.
• With HP Lovecraft: The Battle That Ended the Century & Collapsing Cosmoses , Necronomicon Press, West Warwick (RI) 1992.
• With HP Lovecraft: The Hoard of the Wizard-Beast and One Other , Necronomicon Press, West Warwick (RI) 1994. - One Other is the story The Slaying of the Monster .
• With HP Lovecraft: The Night Ocean , Necronomicon Press, West Warwick (RI) 1978 a. 1982 (2nd edition) and 1989 (3rd edition).

Poetry

• Poems for a Competition , The Fugitive Press, Sacramento (CA) 1942. - Barlow received the 26th Emily Chamberlain Cook Prize for poetry for these poems.
• View from a Hill (volume of poetry), n.v., Azcapotzalco 1947.
• RH Barlow et al .: Six California Poets , in: Lawrence Hart (Ed.): Quarterly Review of Literature , No. 4.1, Princeton University Press, Princeton (NJ) 1947.
• RH Barlow et al .: Activists, 1951 , in: Lawrence Hart (ed.): Poetry: A Magazine of Verse 78, No. 2 (May 1951), pp. 63-119, The Poetry Foundation, Chicago (IL) 1951.
• RH Barlow et al .: Accent on Barlow , Lawrence Hart Institute, San Rafael (CA) 1962. - A posthumous anthology.
• As editor: After Sunset (42 poems by George Sterling ), Verlag John Howell, San Francisco (CA) 1939. - Limited edition (only 250 copies).

additional

• The Extent of the Empire of the Culhua Mexico , Ibero-Americana 28, University of California Press, Berkeley 1949.
• Eyes of the God: The Weird Fiction and Poetry of Robert H. Barlow , Hippocampus Press, New York (NY) 2002. - Comprehensive collection that only leaves out Barlow's non-fictional works.

Secondary literature

• Lawrence Hart (ed.): Accent on Barlow A Commemorative Anthology , Lawrence Hart, San Rafael (CA) 1962.
• Massimo Berruti: Dim-Remembered Stories A Critical Study of RH Barlow , Hippocampus Press, New York (NY) 2012.
• Mexico City College (Red.): Students and faculty mourn passing of Professor Barlow , in: dies .: Mexico City Collegian (newspaper), Jan. 18, 1951, p. 3. - Online: PDF (ges. 2012-0611- 1455).
• H. Leon Abrams: Insights Into the Creative Genius of Robert Hayward Barlow . S. 17-23 .
• H. Leon Abrams: Robert Hayward Barlow: An Annotated Bibliography with Commentary . In: Katunob Occasional Publication in Mesoamerican Anthropology . No. 16, 1981, pp. 1-32.
• William S. Burroughs: The Letters of William S. Burroughs: Volume I, 1945-1959 , ed. By Oliver Harris, Penguin Books, 1993, ISBN 0-14-009452-0 .
• Charles E. Dibble: Robert Hayward Barlow - 1918–1951 . In: American Antiquity . 16, No. 4, April 1951, p. 347.
• ST Joshi, and David E. Schultz: Robert H. Barlow . In: An HP Lovecraft Encyclopedia . Greenwood Press, Wesport, Ct., Pp. 15-16.
• ST Joshi, and David E. Schultz (Eds.): O Fortunate Floridian: HP Lovecraft's Letters to RH Barlow . University of Tampa Press, Tampa, Florida 2007, ISBN 978-1-59732-034-4 .
• McQuown, Norman A. Robert Hamilton [ sic ] Barlow, 1918-1951 . In: American Anthropologist . 53, No. 4, 1951, p. 543.
• The historian Robert H. Barlow . In: The Americas . 8, No. 2, 1951, pp. 223-224.

Footnotes

1. ↑ See LawrenceHart.org (ed.): The "Activist" Poets , sat. 2012-0610-2255, Paragraph 4 and passport.
2. ↑ ^{a b c} cf. MCC (Red.): Students and faculty mourn passing of Professor Barlow , in: dies .: Mexico City Collegian (newspaper), Jan. 18, 1951, p. 3. - Online: PDF (ges. 2012-0611-1455).
3. ^ RH Barlow: Poems for a Competition , The Fugitive Press, Sacramento (CA) 1942. - For these poems Barlow received the 26th Emily Chamberlain Cook Prize for poetry.
4. ↑ Joshi & Schultz (2007): p. 408.
5. ↑ Joshi & Schultz (2007): ibid.
6. ↑ L. Sprague de Camp: Lovecraft: a Biography 1975, ISBN 0-385-00578-4 , p. 432: "... he was being blackmailed for his relations with Mexican youths."
7. ↑ Burroughs (1993): pp. 77-78.

Web links

Wikisource: Robert Hayward Barlow  - Sources and full texts (English)

• Robert H. Barlow in nndb (English)
• Robert Hayward Barlow in Project Gutenberg (English)