I have forgot much, Cynara! gone with the wind,Flung roses, roses riotously with the throng
"Non Sum Qualis Eram Bonae sub Regno Cynarae"
They are not long, the days of wine and roses;Out of a misty dreamOur path emerges for a while, then closesWithin a dream.
"Vitae Summa Brevis Spem Nos Vetet Incohare Longam" (1896)
I understand that Absinthe|absinthe makes the tart grow fonder.
Letter to Arthur Moore (February 1899)
O pray the earth enfoldOur life-sick hearts and turn them into dust.
A Last Word (1899)
Ernest Christopher Dowson (2 August 1867 – 23 February 1900), born in
Lee, LondonLee is a district of south London, England, located mostly in the London Borough of Lewisham and partly in the London Borough of Greenwich. The district lies to the east of Lewisham, one mile west of Eltham, and one mile south of Blackheath village...
, was an
EnglishThe English are a nation and ethnic group native to England, who speak English. The English identity is of early mediaeval origin, when they were known in Old English as the Anglecynn. England is now a country of the United Kingdom, and the majority of English people in England are British Citizens...
poetA poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...
, novelist and writer of short stories, associated with the
Decadent movementThe Decadent movement was a late 19th century artistic and literary movement of Western Europe. It flourished in France, but also had devotees in England and throughout Europe, as well as in the United States.-Overview:...
.
Biography
Dowson attended
The Queen's CollegeThe Queen's College, founded 1341, is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. Queen's is centrally situated on the High Street, and is renowned for its 18th-century architecture...
, Oxford, but left before obtaining a degree. In November 1888, he started work with his father at Dowson and Son, a dry-docking business in
LimehouseLimehouse is a place in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It is on the northern bank of the River Thames opposite Rotherhithe and between Ratcliff to the west and Millwall to the east....
, east London, established by the poet's grandfather. He led an active social life, carousing with medical students and law pupils, going to music halls, and taking the performers to dinner. Meanwhile, he was also working assiduously at his writing. He was a member of the
Rhymers' ClubThe Rhymers' Club was a group of London-based poets, founded in 1890 by W. B. Yeats and Ernest Rhys. Originally not much more than a dining club, it produced anthologies of poetry in 1892 and 1894...
, which included W. B. Yeats and
Lionel JohnsonLionel Pigot Johnson was an English poet, essayist and critic. He was born at Broadstairs, and educated at Winchester College and New College, Oxford, graduating in 1890. He became a Catholic convert in 1891. He lived a solitary life in London, struggling with alcoholism and his repressed...
. He was also a frequent contributor to the
literary magazineA literary magazine is a periodical devoted to literature in a broad sense. Literary magazines usually publish short stories, poetry and essays along with literary criticism, book reviews, biographical profiles of authors, interviews and letters...
s
The Yellow Book and
The SavoyThis article is about the former British magazine, for other uses, see Savoy The Savoy was a magazine of literature, art, and criticism published in 1896 in London. It featured work by authors such as W. B. Yeats, Max Beerbohm, Joseph Conrad, and Aubrey Beardsley. Only eight issues of the magazine...
. Dowson collaborated on two unsuccessful novels with
Arthur MooreArthur Moore may refer to:* A. Harry Moore , American politician* Arthur A. C. Moore, ice hockey player of the Silver Seven* Arthur Cotton Moore , U.S...
, worked on a novel of his own,
Madame de Viole, and wrote reviews for
The CriticThe Critic is an American prime time animated series revolving around the life of film critic Jay Sherman, voiced by actor Jon Lovitz. It was created by Al Jean and Mike Reiss, both of whom had worked as writers on The Simpsons. The Critic had 23 episodes produced, first broadcast on ABC in 1994,...
.
Dowson was also a prolific translator of French fiction, including novels by Balzac and the
GoncourtGoncourt is a commune in the Haute-Marne department in north-eastern France....
brothers, and
Les Liaisons DangereusesLes Liaisons dangereuses is a French epistolary novel by Choderlos de Laclos.Les Liaisons dangereuses may also refer to:* Les liaisons dangereuses , a 1959 film adapted by Claude Brulé and directed by Roger Vadim...
by Choderlos de Laclos.
In 1889, at the age of twenty-three, Dowson fell in love with eleven-year-old Adelaide "Missie" Foltinowicz, the daughter of a
PolishPoland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
restaurant owner. Adelaide is reputed to be the subject of one his best-known poems,
Non Sum Qualis eram Bonae Sub Regno Cynarae. He pursued her unsuccessfully; in 1897, she married a
tailorA tailor is a person who makes, repairs, or alters clothing professionally, especially suits and men's clothing.Although the term dates to the thirteenth century, tailor took on its modern sense in the late eighteenth century, and now refers to makers of men's and women's suits, coats, trousers,...
who lodged above her father's restaurant and Dowson was crushed. In August, 1894, Dowson's father, who was in the advanced stages of
tuberculosisTuberculosis, MTB, or TB is a common, and in many cases lethal, infectious disease caused by various strains of mycobacteria, usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis usually attacks the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body...
, died of an overdose of
chloral hydrateChloral hydrate is a sedative and hypnotic drug as well as a chemical reagent and precursor. The name chloral hydrate indicates that it is formed from chloral by the addition of one molecule of water. Its chemical formula is C2H3Cl3O2....
. His mother, who was also consumptive, hanged herself in February, 1895, and soon Dowson began to decline rapidly.
Robert SherardRobert Harborough Sherard was an English writer and journalist. He was a friend, and the first biographer, of Oscar Wilde, as well as being Wilde's most prolific biographer in the first half of the twentieth century.-Life:...
one day found Dowson almost penniless in a wine bar and took him back to the cottage in
CatfordCatford is a district in south London, England, located in the London Borough of Lewisham. It is situated south-east of Charing Cross. The area is identified in the London Plan as one of 35 major centres in Greater London.-Architecture:...
where he was himself living. Dowson spent the last six weeks of his life at Sherard's cottage and died there of
alcoholismAlcoholism is a broad term for problems with alcohol, and is generally used to mean compulsive and uncontrolled consumption of alcoholic beverages, usually to the detriment of the drinker's health, personal relationships, and social standing...
at the age of 32. He is buried in the Roman Catholic section of nearby
Brockley and Ladywell CemeteriesBrockley and Ladywell Cemeteries were opened within one month of each other in 1858 and are sited on adjacent plots of previously open land. The two component parts are characteristic examples of the first wave of Victorian public cemeteries and are now part of the Brockley Conservation Area.The...
.
In anticipation of the anniversary of Dowson's birth on August 2, 2010, his grave, which had fallen derelict and been victimized by vandalism, was restored. The unveiling and memorial service were publicised in the local (
South London PressThe South London Press is a bi-weekly tabloid newspaper based in Streatham, South London, covering local news within the London boroughs of Lambeth, Southwark, Lewisham and Wandsworth....
) and national (
BBC Radio 4BBC Radio 4 is a British domestic radio station, operated and owned by the BBC, that broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history. It replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. The station controller is currently Gwyneth Williams, and the...
and the
Times Literary Supplement) British press, and dozens paid posthumous tribute to the poet 110 years after his death.
Works
Dowson is best remembered for some vivid phrases, such as "days of wine and roses" from his poem "Vitae Summa Brevis" (1896), which appears in the stanza:
- They are not long, the days of wine and roses:
- Out of a misty dream
- Our path emerges for a while, then closes
- Within a dream.
and "
gone with the windThe slaves depicted in Gone with the Wind are primarily loyal house servants, such as Mammy, Pork and Uncle Peter, and these slaves stay on with their masters even after the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 sets them free...
", from
Non Sum Qualis eram Bonae Sub Regno Cynarae, the third stanza of which reads:
- I have forgot much, Cynara! gone with the wind,
- Flung roses, roses riotously with the throng,
- Dancing, to put thy pale, lost lilies out of mind;
- But I was desolate and sick of an old passion,
- Yea, all the time, because the dance was long:
- I have been faithful to thee, Cynara! in my fashion.
The last line of this stanza, the last line of all four stanzas of the poem, was the inspiration for the song title "
Always True to You in My Fashion"Always True to You in My Fashion" is a 1948 show-tune by Cole Porter, written for the musical Kiss Me, Kate. In the lyrics, the singer protests that she is always faithful to her main love in her own way, despite seeing, and accepting gifts from, wealthy older men.It is sung in the later part of...
" from
Kiss Me, KateKiss Me, Kate is a musical with music and lyrics by Cole Porter. It is structured as a play within a play, where the interior play is a musical version of William Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew. The original production starred Alfred Drake, Patricia Morison, Lisa Kirk and Harold Lang.Kiss...
by
Cole PorterCole Albert Porter was an American composer and songwriter. Born to a wealthy family in Indiana, he defied the wishes of his domineering grandfather and took up music as a profession. Classically trained, he was drawn towards musical theatre...
.
In her words, it was the "far away, faintly sad sound I wanted" of the third stanza's first line that inspired
Margaret MitchellMargaret Munnerlyn Mitchell was an American author and journalist. Mitchell won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1937 for her epic American Civil War era novel, Gone with the Wind, which was the only novel by Mitchell published during her lifetime.-Family:Margaret Mitchell was born in Atlanta,...
to call her only novel
Gone with the WindThe slaves depicted in Gone with the Wind are primarily loyal house servants, such as Mammy, Pork and Uncle Peter, and these slaves stay on with their masters even after the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 sets them free...
.
He provides the earliest use of the word soccer in written language in the
Oxford English DictionaryThe Oxford English Dictionary , published by the Oxford University Press, is the self-styled premier dictionary of the English language. Two fully bound print editions of the OED have been published under its current name, in 1928 and 1989. The first edition was published in twelve volumes , and...
(although he spells it
socca, presumably because it did not yet have a standard written form).
His prose works include the short stories collected as
Dilemmas (1895), and the two novels
A Comedy of Masks and
Adrian Rome (each co-written with
Arthur MooreArthur Moore may refer to:* A. Harry Moore , American politician* Arthur A. C. Moore, ice hockey player of the Silver Seven* Arthur Cotton Moore , U.S...
). Some of his short prose was first published in the journal
The Yellow Book.
Further reading
Primary Works (modern scholarly editions):
- Ernest Dowson, The Stories of Ernest Dowson, ed. by Mark Longaker (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1947)
- Ernest Dowson, The Poems of Ernest Dowson, ed. by Mark Longaker (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1962)
- Ernest Dowson, The Letters of Ernest Dowson, ed. by Desmond Flower and Henry Maas (London: Cassell, 1967)
- Ernest Dowson, The Poetry of Ernest Dowson, ed. by Desmond Flower (Cranbury, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1970)
Biographies:
- Jad Adams, Madder Music, Stronger Wine: The Life of Ernest Dowson, Poet and Decadent (London: I.B. Tauris & Co., 2000)
- Mark Longaker, Ernest Dowson: A Biography (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1945)
- Henry Maas, Ernest Dowson: Poetry and Love in the 1890s (London: Greenwich Exchange, 2009)
Critical Studies on Dowson and the 1890s:
- Elisa Bizzotto, La mano e l'anima. Il ritratto immaginario fin de siècle (Milano: Cisalpino, 2001)
- Jean-Jacques Chardin, Ernest Dowson et la crise fin de siècle anglaise (Paris: Editions Messene, 1995)
- Linda Dowling, Language and Decadence in the Victorian Fin de Siècle (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986)
- Ifor Evans, English Poetry in the Later Nineteenth Century (London: Methuen, 1966)
- Ian Fletcher, Decadence and the 1890s (London: Edward Arnold, 1979)
- Graham Hough, The Last Romantics (London: Duckworth, 1949)
- Holbrook Jackson, The Eighteen Nineties (London: Jonathan Cape, 1927)
- Franco Marucci, Storia della letteratura inglese dal 1870 al 1921 (Firenze: Le Lettere, 2006)
- Murray G. H. Pittock, Spectrum of Decadence: The Literature of the 1890s (London: Routledge, 1993)
- Mario Praz, La carne, la morte e il diavolo nella letteratura romantica (Firenze: Sansoni, 1976)
- Bernard Richards, English Poetry of the Victorian Period (London: Longman, 1988)
- Thomas Burnett Swann, Ernest Dowson (New York: Twayne, 1964)
- Arthur Symons, The Memoirs of Arthur Symons, ed. by Karl Beckson (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1977)
- William Butler Yeats, Autobiographies (London: Macmillan, 1955)
External links