Early in
1900, just before he himself died, Oscar Wilde remarked upon hearing
of Ernest Dowson's death; "Much of what he has written will
remain," and, "I hope bay leaves will be laid on his tomb,
and rue, and myrtle too, for he knew what love is." These are as
much an accurate summation of Dowson's little known fiction as of his
better known poetry. That known as 'Cynara,' his most oft-quoted
example, where...
"All
night upon mine heart I felt her warm heart beat,
Night-long
within mine arms in love and sleep she lay;
Surely
the kisses of her bought red mouth were sweet;
But I
was desolate and sick of an old passion,
When
I awoke and found the dawn was gray:
I have
been faithful to thee, Cynara! In my fashion."
There is little rose-tinted romance in Dowson's view of love. This
is its quiet power. He wrote from the heart; from its effect upon him
at the time; from personal experiences he so often came out of the
poorer. This reader couldn't help but feel this was due to his once
being a hopeless romantic in the first place. Through his twenties, he had transient relationships with teenage
showgirls, prostitutes and bar-girls from those venues where he was
regular receipient of tots of absinthe and Spanish wine. (Hence the
"bought red mouth" in 'Cynara').One such – from a
Polish, family-run cheap restaurant near his fathers' London docks
where he reluctantly worked – was the proprietors' very young
daughter, Adelaide Foltinowicz, whose pragmatism may only have stoked
Dowson's lustrous fire. (They remained an unlikely couple for over a
decade until Adelaide married someone else).
To
glean a thumbnail sketch of Dowson from Jad Adams' 2000 biography: he
was boyishly slight of build, narrow-shouldered, shy, introspective,
pale, (from tuberculosis), flannel-wearing, chain-smoking, with an
unsmiling 'soft' mouth beneath a mousy moustache, from losing his
teeth at an early age and rarely bothering with his set of
replacements. Yet, while a depressive, who also drank to smother what
he could, he was no miserablist, sudden bursts of energy and a
determination to change his immediate situation also taking hold,
allied to a serious appreciation of a droll wit. Often homeless, he
was as generous to the poor as one on his modest income from writing
could be. More problematical – especially today – was his
unsatisfactory love-life idealised, like so many men of the time,
through at least two affairs with early teenage girls.
Superficially, Dowson sounds like one of those self-destructive
rock stars of more recent times; physically fragile, incapable of
looking after themselves, getting into fights, monosyllabic from
intoxication, being dependent on drink and occasional coke,
overspending on each ensuring constant destitution. Yet, also like
them, uniquely brilliant at their equally public talent. It may be
difficult to feel even a smidgen of sympathy for a man with such
tastes; but Dowson's authenticity managed to elicit a certain beauty
from his self-destructive habits.
Singularly
more mature than his ability to look after himself is his own
fictionalised view on relationships, played out in these nine short
tales – the summation of what he produced of the form. These
originally published in the inevitable Yellow Book and other
'decadent' journals of the Nineties. Eight
of the nine tales are thematically connected in one way or another;
missed opportunities for love where circumstance rather than personal
blame – i.e. the restrictions and expectations of Victorian society
– conspire to deprive each party. Five of them originally
collected under the well chosen banner, 'Dilemmas.' (1895). The young
woman in each – the protagonists' object of desire - may be
idolised, but never patronised. Biographer Jad Adams gave a class A
example:
"Dowson merged religious devotion with earthly love,
particularly in his prose. In 'Diary of a Successful Man,' the object
of the men's devotion joins a closed order, as the beloved girl does
in 'Apple Blossom in Brittany.' This story...is set in the fictional
Breton village of Ploumariel where Dowson also set 'A Case of
Conscience' and to which he frequently referred when saying he wanted
to be back in Brittany. In the story, Benedict Campion, an English
Catholic of around 40, is visiting his ward, a girl of 16.
Marie-Ursule is an orphan, being educated at a convent under the
supervision of the local Cure who, recognising Campion's love for the
girl, urges that he marry her. Campion delays, returns to London, and
when he next sees Marie-Ursule she is turning to him for advice on
whether or not she should enter the Ursuline convent. He feels he
cannot deflect her from this higher path... so he acquiesces, and she
never knows of his love for her, thus combining religious vocation
with the sacrifice of love for a higher purpose." (Adams,
p.54).
I have
little doubt that mass appreciation of Dowson as a novelist could
have rivalled that of DH Lawrence had he lived to produce them
unaided. (He had co-written two, early in his short career and flawed
through compromise, with former Oxford chum Arthur Moore). Still,
there is a sensitivity, subtlety and emotional authenticity in the
short tales that can be seen as a blueprint for more extended prose.
Whereas, in much of the poetry, Dowson's depiction of himself in love
is as a wraith, or spectre, the ghost of himself with whom a lover
may conjoin were he so fortunate. (See 'Saint Germain-En-Laye,' 'A
Requiem' and 'In a Breton Cemetery'). That he never lived to mine
from these nine – dying from long-term TB at 32 - has undoubtedly
held back his reputation.
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