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John Cowper Powys's (1872-1963) ''Autobiography'', published in 1934,〔New York: Simon and Schuster and London: John Lane, later that year.〕 the year Powys returned to Britain from America, describes his first 60 years, and is considered one of his most important works. Writer J. B. Priestly comments: "Even if Powys had - never written any novels – and at least one of them, ''A Glastonbury Romance'' is a masterpiece – this one book alone would have proved him to be a writer of genius."〔"Introduction". ''Autobiography'' . London: Macdonald, 1967, p. xi.〕 While he sets out to be totally frank about himself, and especially his sexual peculiarities and perversions, he largely excludes any substantial discussion of the women in his life.〔Krissdottir, ''Descents of Memory: The Life of John Cowper Powys''. New York: Overlook, 2007, pp. 287-294.〕 It has become clear that the reason for this is because it was written while he was still married to Margaret Lyon though he was living in a permanent relationship with the American Phyllis Playter.〔Morine Krissdottir, ''Descents of Memory'', pp.72, 86–90, 170, 298.〕 Morine Krissdotir, in ''The Life of Powys'', describes the first chapter of the ''Autobiography'' as "one of the most complex and beautifully sustained pieces of prose about early childhood", but notes that "there is something distinctly odd about it" because there is no mention of his mother, who "is never mentioned in the entire ''Autobiography''.〔Morine Krissdotir, ''Descents of Memory'', p. 23.〕 Herbert Williams comments that the exclusion of most of the important women in Powys's life "makes ''Autobiography'', for all its power and candour, a curiously distorted account of himself".〔''John Cowper Powys''. Bridgend, Wales: Seren, 1997, p.114.〕 Novelist Margaret Drabble describes it as "one of the most eccentric memoirs ever written", and notes that Powys took "Pepys, Casanova and Rousseau as his models, in his earlier autobiographical work, ''Confessions of Two Brothers'', and that ''Autobiography'' has justly been compared to Rousseau's ''Confessions of Jean-Jacques Rousseau''."〔See Morine Krissdottir, ''Descents of Memory'', p. 289.〕 Drabble adds that ''Autobiography'' rivals these earlier autobiographies "in its frankness and its evasions, in its inconsistency and its emotional intensity, in its egoism and its self-abasement".〔Margaret Drabble, "The English Degenerate". ''The Guardian'', 12 August 2006. ()〕 Powys also alludes to the autobiographical writing of Goethe, Montaigne, Saint Augustine, and Oscar Wilde in ''Confessions of Two Brothers''.〔Rochester, NY: The Mantras Press, 1916, pp.15-16.〕 J. B. Priestly, in his "Introduction" to the 1967 Macdonald reprint, also refers to the fact that "Its author is astonishingly frank about himself, confessing all manner of aberrations and absurdities." 〔London, p. x.〕 Critic C. A. Coates suggests that "It is not a chronological account of his sixty years () chapters are blocks of land seized upon and described" ranging from Powys's birthplace in Shirley, Derbyshire, to Dorchester, Dorset, where his novel ''Maiden Castle'' is set, to his childhood in Montacute, Somersetshire, not far from Glastonbury, to his marriage and living in Sussex, to the many years he lived and lectured in America. It is, however, according to Coates, "impossible to visualize an incident (''Autobiography'' ) without also remembering not its 'setting', but what Powys's emotional, sensuous attitude to that environment was at the time".〔''John Cowper Powys in Search of a Landscape''. Totowa, NJ: Barnes & Noble, 1982, pp.124-5.〕 The diaries of John Cowper Powys, kept from 1929, several of which have been published, are a source of further autobiographical material, along with numerous published and unpublished letters. In 1965 Marie Canavaggia received the Prix Gustave Le Métais - Larivière of the French Academy for her translation of the ''Autobiography'' (''Autobiograhie'', Gaillmand).〔Prix-Gustave-le-Metais-Lariviere ()〕 ==See also== *Llewelyn Powys *Philippa Powys *T. F. Powys 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「John Cowper Powys's Autobiography」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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