“By 1864 Charles Baudelaire (1821-67) was at the end of his tether. Depressed, humiliated, full of spleen, he was in Brussels – a place he despised. He had come to give lectures, having lost inspiration for writing poetry, tired by illness and poverty. As he struggled to gain contracts for his verse, he wrote notes venting his spleen about the Belgians. The glory and notoriety of his early years seemed long behind him. A new volume of translations brings us Baudelaire’s fragmentary ideas, full of anger and bitterness.
“The complicated publishing history of Les Fleurs du mal (first edition 1857; second edition 1861), the primary volume of verse by Baudelaire, does not need to be elaborated much here. It was essentially the core body of his verse from his early maturity to close to his death, published in two editions, with a third one planned. The first version was prosecuted for blasphemy and outraging public morals. The judge ordered that six poems be banned and these had to be left out of the second (expanded) edition. The third edition was never realised (nor its contents fixed by the poet) in Baudelaire’s lifetime. His book of Belgian people and culture (under the title La Pauvre Belgique! (Poor Belgium!))remained in note form only. Quite reasonably, without publication offers, Baudelaire had no incentive to write longer prose, so the Belgian material was not completed. Late Fragments: Flares, My Heart Laid Bare, Prose Poems, Belgium Disrobed brings together Baudelaire’s last writings in translation, with extensive commentary. This collection presents the late writing, omitting textual repetition that occurred in Baudelaire meandering stream-of-conscious notes.
Baudelaire lived under the humiliating restriction imposed by a conseil judiciaire, who controlled his finances…”
At the end of last year I published two articles on Substack entitled “Blood, Soil, Paint”, which examined the links between nationalism, Romanticism (as an artistic movement) and art. It covered German, Russian and Norwegian Romantic art. Although I was pleased with the articles, as soon as they appeared, I realised how they linked up to a number of ideas and historical strands I had had on my mind, namely: parallels between Edvard Munch’s painting and Knut Hamsun’s writing, Martin Heidegger’s thoughts on art, Anselm Kiefer’s delving into German nationalism and foundational myths. There were many overlaps – and I found more while conducting research – so it seemed that the subjects wove themselves into something more surprising and complicated than was initially presented in my articles.
I included Zionist art of the Jewish diaspora in Germany 1900-1920, which offered a template of a nationalist art movement with a nation but one without land. If you want to create a state, you need a unifying set of symbols and aspirational role models (heroes, warriors, poets, thinkers) which must be concretized and transmitted in visual art. How would the dispersed, multi-tradition Jewish people do it? Not least, how could a people whose religion forbad the worship of graven images, forge a fine art? In many ways, this was the ultimate case study because it could be seen as a distillation of the urge to form a nation through art, without all the complications of existing traditions, loyalties and regional ties that exist in every other case.
In a section on Norwegian nationalism, I examined the work of anthropologists 1900-1940 who sought to define the Nordic type. This work was taken up by the Nazis and the complicated (sometimes conflicting) work by Norwegian and German race scientists produced mixed results. Munch and Hamsun offered alternative responses to German occupation, one resisting, one supporting. This has impacted the reception of their work ever since.
Imperium Press were very supportive of my idea of publishing a full extended essay in book form, including illustrations. It was very satisfying to work on the book and tie together strands of thought and research, dig out detailed data and compile an index. Available now are copies in paperback and Kindle, with a hardback edition coming within a week or so.
To read the book Alexander Adams, Peggy Pacini (trans.), After/Après Francis Bacon (Golconda Fine Art Books, February 2022, 250 copies first edition, 60pp, 1 col. illus., English/French, 80gsm paper, A5 size, £10 + p&p (UK and worldwide shipping)) visit here: https://www.bournbrookmag.com/books/p/afteraprs-francis-bacon-alexander-adams-2022
The latest book in Princeton’s Ancient Wisdom for Modern Readers is advice from Aristotle to poets and dramatists. Aristotle (384-322 BC) was Plato’s most brilliant student and tutor to Alexander the Great. He is one of the great ancient thinkers, whose ideas have permeated philosophy, science and art for two thousand years, although his ideas come down to us in fragmented and diluted form. This volume takes extracts from the Poetics, an important statement of ancient aesthetics. Aristotle described all literature (and storytelling) as based in mimesis. He set out the importance of appropriate length of a story and that stories must have a beginning, middle and end. Spectacle must be subordinate to plot. Plot takes precedence over character. Conflict between allies and inside family is more compelling than that between strangers. Tragedy comes from a great man undone by weakness.
Translator and editor of this volume, Philip Freeman of Pepperdine University, explains the difficulties with Aristotle’s texts. “The Greek text of the Poetics as Aristotle wrote it consists of unpolished lecture notes, not a finished literary work like the dialogues of his teacher Plato. The text also has missing words and sentences, with other parts annotated, rearranged, and in general jumbled by copyists over the centuries more than most manuscripts from the ancient world. The result is a book that will leave even the best classical scholars at times scratching their heads in confusion.”[i]
Aristotle’s observations on fiction have been very influential and have become the rules that one must know, even if in order to subvert them. The idea that a story needs good and bad characters, acting to change a situation and a clear conclusion seems to be one thing that scriptwriters and financiers of Marvel and DC movies, and American television series, need to re-learn. The serial nature of high-budget cinematic and televisual drama has destroyed Aristotle’s recommendation and left us with a legacy of stories designed to be unended and ever ready for disappointing (but lucrative) prequels, sequels and reboots. In an age when scriptwriters do not believe in heroes and villains – except when they have politicians to champion or decry on Twitter – the power of essential elements of storytelling need to be reinforced. The terrible comic-book action-hero stories come from writers being ignorant (or defying) the advice to make a tragedy from “a serious error in a noble kind of person”[ii].
American comedy writers need reminding that “Comedy, as we have said, is an imitation of inferior people.”[iii] The most effective comedies explore the pitiful pathos and hubris of inferior people. Curb Your Enthusiasm presents the failings of a fictional Larry David character who cannot control his resentment, selfishness and worst instincts. The writers, directors and actors in that series are clear about the central character’s inferiority without sacrificing his humanity and relatability. In all failed comedies we find an unwillingness to expose weaknesses of character or to allow those characters to ultimately fail or remain disgraced. Aristotle warns us not to go too far. “Comic characters are not cruel or vicious, but laughable […] Being laughable is a shortcoming or disgrace that doesn’t involve serious pain or destruction.”
The comedy requires the incorporation of the morality tale and that means judging and being permitted to condemn flaws and types of person. In a mass-media world that fights shy of mocking oddity and absurdity – and refuses to accept traditional descriptions of sin and flaws as valid – the moral core of comedy becomes compromised or suppressed. It is regrettable that – contrary to his ideas on tragedy – Aristotle’s thoughts on comedy are mostly lost.
The tragedy is best when compact; the epic needs a greater space of time within the story. In some ways, Aristotle goes against the current fashion. Those brought up in an age of method acting will find foreign the observation, “[T]he goal of an actor on the stage is not to imitate character. Character is instead a by-product of action. Action and plot are what a tragedy is about.” We might differ on the need for characters to explicitly state their reasoning. This falls into the trap of exposition – telling not showing. It is often more stimulating and realistic for characters to conceal motivation or reveal it indirectly and against their will contra Aristotle’s assertion “speeches in a play in which the speaker doesn’t choose or make a clear choice do not express character”. The audience reading the subtext and inferring motivation is satisfying because it demands the audience use empathy, life experience and analysis rather than simply passively absorbing.
Other sections discussion language, grammar and speech and the Greek poetic metres. There is advise for writers and critics and comparisons between art and writing. The merits of epics and tragedies are weighed. The notes are thorough and informative. As usual in series, the introduction and notes are in English; the main text is in the original language (Greek) with parallel English translation. How to Tell a Story forms a worthy addition to Princeton’s classics library.
Aristotle, Philip Freeman (trans., introduction), How to Tell a Story, Princeton University Press, 2022, cloth spine hardback, 264pp, English/Greek text, $16.95/£12.99, ISBN 978 0 691 20527 4
First photographs of the new anthology “Sunken Island” have been released. The book presents my verse and illustrations and was edited by me. Here are details:
“As Great Britain emerges from pandemic lockdown and enters the post-Brexit era, British culture finds itself at a crossroads. On topics such as governance national independence, community, migration and the preservation of cultural heritage, profound questions are being asked with renewed urgency.
“This anthology of new poems brings together established and newly emerging poets in a rich collection. Using a variety of styles, the poets explore modern life, the recent experiences of lockdown and rioting and the changing faces of our cities and countryside. Verse here also delves into deep history, by addressing primordial themes of nature, the seasons and the struggle for life.
“Sunken Island: An Anthology of British Poetry contains new unpublished verse by Nicholas Murray, A Robert Lee, Alexander Adams, S D Wickett, Daniel Gustafson, Benjamin Afer, Columba and Rahul Gupta.
“Edited and illustrated by Alexander Adams, with a foreword by William Clouston, Sunken Island reaffirms that poetry can play an important role in illuminating essential subjects with wit, passion and erudition, formulating propositions about our existence in ways that are deeply personal as well as universal.”
Sunken Island: An Anthology of British Poetry, The Bournbrook Press, 2022, 60pp, mono illus., paperback, £12.50. The book is available for pre-order today here: https://www.bournbrookmag.com/press
If you would like to order previous books of verse by me, you can order from the same page. These other books are On Dead Mountain (2015), On Art (2018), On Art II (2020)and After/Apres Francis Bacon (2022). Each features unique poems and illustrations.
I am pleased to announce that for the first time, books of verse and art catalogues by AA will be available for sale internationally. Currently, the poetry books are available through the website of Bournbrook Press/Magazine here: https://www.bournbrookmag.com/books/ The art catalogues will be available on the same page by the end of July.
If there is sufficient demand, other publications by AA will become available through Bournbrook in future. Not available are Degas, Culture War, Iconoclasm and other books by AA through large presses.
Proceeds of purchases support the author and this website.
Today, the first volume by The Bournbrook Press is launched. Here are details.
“As Great Britain emerges from pandemic lockdown and enters the post-Brexit era, British culture finds itself at a crossroads. On topics such as governance national independence, community, migration and the preservation of cultural heritage, profound questions are being asked with renewed urgency.
“This anthology of new poems brings together established and newly emerging poets in a rich collection. Using a variety of styles, the poets explore modern life, the recent experiences of lockdown and rioting and the changing faces of our cities and countryside. Verse here also delves into deep history, by addressing primordial themes of nature, the seasons and the struggle for life.
“Sunken Island: An Anthology of British Poetry contains new unpublished verse by Nicholas Murray, A Robert Lee, Alexander Adams, S D Wickett, Daniel Gustafson, Benjamin Afer, Columba and Rahul Gupta.
“Edited and illustrated by Alexander Adams, with a foreword by William Clouston, Sunken Island reaffirms that poetry can play an important role in illuminating essential subjects with wit, passion and erudition, formulating propositions about our existence in ways that are deeply personal as well as universal.”
If you would like to order previous books of verse by me, you can order from the same page. These other books are On Dead Mountain (2015), On Art (2018), On Art II (2020)and After/Apres Francis Bacon (2022). Each features unique poems and illustrations.
“Never-before-seen handwritten poems by the late poet reveal his mental duress after his second partner’s suicide, just six years after his first wife Sylvia Plath killed herself.
“Coming up for auction on Tuesday, 19 July is a powerful piece of literary history. Sotheby’s London will be selling a treasure trove of unique and rare materials related to Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath. The cache includes poetry written by Hughes following the suicide of his lover Assia Wevill and the death of their daughter.
“In 1962, Hughes began an affair with Wevill in London. At the time, he was living in a home in rural Devonshire that he shared with his wife, poet Sylvia Plath. The infidelity contributed to the collapse of their marriage. Plath committed suicide in February 1963, leaving behind her two infant children. At the time, she was separated from Hughes and renting a flat in London…”
The ever-expanding field of Beat studies extends our knowledge and understanding of writers within the Beat Generation movement. I have previously reviewed the Routledge Handbook of International Beat Literature here. Beat Feminisms: Aesthetics, Literature, Gender, Activism, a new book from Beat scholar Dr Polina Mackay (University of Nicosia) in the Routledge Transnational Perspectives on American Literature series, examines the role played by women within the Beat Movement. Mackay adopts a division of women which splits up them into waves. Firstly, are the women (born in the 1910s and 1920s) close to the original generation of Beat writers William Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac; secondly, those born in the 1930s who joined (or were associated with the Beats as they reached a public stage; and thirdly, those who were born in the 1930s and were inspired by the Beats but not necessarily personally close to the original Beat Generation. Mackay takes one female writer from each wave and examines them in detail in relation to feminist ideas and practice.
Mackay starts by acknowledging that participation in the Beat Movement – certainly for those individuals not personally connected to original members – was a matter of affinity and allegiance rather than one of conformity of style, theme or content. As Mackay notes, many of the Beat women were isolated from one another, some not meeting until the 1990s. Whether such seclusion was primarily driven by external or internal factors (or both), the point is that male editors and publishers were being exposed to female Beat writings less often and it is therefore unsurprising that little of that material was reaching publication in the 1950s-1980s period. The female absence (in terms of early-era publishing) that could be attributed to male hostility could just as easily be assigned to lack of access to material, no doubt exacerbated by ignorance and indifference. Seeing hostility towards women and absence of interest in women writers as equivalent would be an unhelpful conflation.
There is a thoughtful discussion of the literary place of Joan Vollmer Adams’s death at the hands of her husband William Burroughs in Mexico City. Burroughs, drunk, accidentally shot his wife with his pistol during a game at a party. Mackay outlines the various treatments of the incident. These include a few references in Burroughs’s writings and interviews (he did not present a fictionalised version in his novels), those written by associates and the writings of later authors. It is true but not informative to state that Vollmer’s life is written in her absence, as this is always the case when a subject does not leave any substantial written legacy. The author analyses how Burroughs, Ginsberg and Kerouac used their memories and fantasies regarding Vollmer’s life and death in their writings. Mackay concludes, “A common thread in Burroughs, Ginsberg and Kerouac is the intertwining of female presence in Beat textuality with autobiographical discourses, such as the development of the writer as a process of freeing from the biographical past (Burroughs), the conflation of poetic topic and the author’s poetic self-consciousness (Ginsberg), or the reconstruction of the past in writerly terms (Kerouac).”[i]
The core of the book is a discussion of Diane di Prima, Ruth Weiss and Anne Waldman as key women writers within the Beat movement, whose work exemplifies issues highlighted as feminist and female-specific within literature of the time. In her book Recollections of my Life as a Woman (2001), Diane di Prima wrote of her relationship to the poetry and letters of John Keats, seeing her work as a writer in relation to the ground-breaking output of the Romantic poet. Mackay draws the obvious parallel between di Prima’s inspiration from Keats with the famous incident when Ginsberg had a vision of William Blake, in 1948. Mackay analyses di Prima’s poetics in Recollections and This Kind of Bird Flies Backwards (1958) and Dinners and Nightmares (1961) in terms of a response, extension and revision of Keats’s verse, writing both about him and through him, in a process of intertextuality. “Di Prima’s repurposing of Keatsian poetics [accentuates] Keatsian-like contemplative pieces with the Beat vernacular not only modernizes the meditative poem as a genre but also brings into it a new discourse created by the unique time and space of the work’s production, which was the New York countercultural scene of the 1950s.”[ii]
Ruth Weiss’s Desert Journal (1977) represents two Biblical narratives – of the journeys through the wilderness by Moses and Christ – in a book of 40 poems, symbolising the traditional length of the journeys of 40 days and 40 nights. A reinterpretation of theological stories provided Weiss with a space to explore her journey of spiritual self-understanding. The use of English, German and Hebrew adds to the multi-level sequence, which mirrors the double narrative of the journeys through the wilderness made by the fathers of two religions.
Diane di Prima’s Loba (1998) is a later book, which Mackay uses as a starting point for a discussion of de Prima’s knowledge of early Modernist verse and her responses to mid-century writers, such as Black Mountain poet Charles Olson. This complex book-length poem includes a cast of well-known women from history and, according to critics, contains contradictory attitudes that put forth a complex idea of femininity, not one wholly laudatory. Mackay’s chapter indicates how dense the levels of mythology are in Loba and, more than the other chapters, makes one wish to read the original.
There is a chapter on female performances at Nova Convention in November-December 1978, New York, held to celebrate the work of William Burroughs. These included Laurie Anderson, Julia Heyward, Patti Smith and Anne Waldman. The event marked a widespread acknowledgement of the influence of the Beats on the New Wave and punk movements and advanced a younger generation of creators to be seen as peers of Burroughs and Ginsberg. The performance of Anderson was a key step from being a performance artist known only to afficionados of the New York art scene of the 1970s to a widely known musician and storyteller, world famous by the 1980s. Tangentially related are Kathy Acker’s cut-ups (as found in her novel Don Quixote (1986)), which were expressly parodic in character and considerably less respectful toward Burroughs than were Anderson and Waldman’s performances.
Waldman’s poetry is considered as a form of activism, mainly through the light of her collection Fast Speaking Woman (1975, expanded 2nd edition 1996) and Iovis Trilogy (2011). Aside from generalised statements in support of women lacking power, Waldman makes explicit statements against war. She has been an outspoken opponent of the Vietnam War and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Waldman’s Iovis Trilogy is a 1,000-page long Post-Modern, post-Beat “cultural intervention into public space”. Although this book is held up as a “clear link between writing as a woman and being an activist against various forms of oppression”[iii], this argument seems slightly light here. At least, we could do with more concrete examples that display how Waldman enacts activism through text, as opposed to simply displaying socio-political engagement. Is Waldman’s activism more explicit or direct here? Are there some distinct literary devices that support Mackay’s thesis or is it simply the prominence and urgency of Waldman’s politics that make Iovis Trilogy a landmark work?
The avoidance of jargon and clarity of argument makes Beat Feminisms a pleasing read, in a field that can become opaque with theory and advocacy. The extensive bibliography and a full index contribute to the book’s use as a study resource. Mackay’s book will prompt renewed consideration of the way prominent female Beats have viewed themselves as writers and is recommended for students of the Beat Generation and the wider movement, as well as for those researching feminist literature.
Alexander Adams, Peggy Pacini (trans.), After/Après Francis Bacon, Golconda Fine Art Books, February 2022, first edition, 60pp, 1 col. illus., English/French, 140gsm cream paper, one-colour cover, A5 size, ISBN 978-1-9999614-2-8, 250 copies, 50 signed and numbered, £10 + £5 p&p (UK and worldwide)
After/Après Francis Bacon is a suite of 21 poems by Alexander Adams based on the life and art of Anglo-Irish painter Francis Bacon. It follows his story from childhood to death, including key parts of his life, evoking his art, milieu and residences. Partly set in Paris and Monaco, the entire sequence has been translated into French by Mme Peggy Pacini. The English original text and French translation are set out on parallel pages. It includes one colour illustration by the author.
The author and publisher wish to gratefully acknowledge the generous contribution to this publication made by The Alessandra Wilson Fund and a private donor.
Purchasing
This book may be purchased directly from me (via this page https://www.alexanderadams.art/contact) or via Amazon (UK residents only). Payments are £15 per book or £5 p&p + £10 per book for multiple orders. Payments can be received by bank transfer, cheque, cash and PayPal.
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