|
Olivia Shakespear (born Olivia Tucker; 17 March 1863 – 3 October 1938) was a British novelist, playwright, and patron of the arts. She wrote six books that are described as "marriage problem" novels. Her works sold poorly, sometimes only a few hundred copies. Her last novel, ''Nurse Harry'', is considered her best. She wrote two plays in collaboration with Florence Farr. Olivia was the daughter of a retired Adjutant General, and had little formal education. She was well-read however, and developed a love of literature. In 1885 she married London barrister Henry Hope Shakespear, and in 1886 gave birth to their only child, Dorothy. In 1894 her literary interests led to a friendship with William Butler Yeats that became physically intimate in 1896. He declared that they "had many days of happiness" to come,〔qtd. in Carpenter (1988), 104〕 but the affair ended in 1897. They nevertheless remained lifelong friends and corresponded frequently. Yeats went on to marry Georgie Hyde-Lees, Olivia's step-niece and Dorothy's best friend. Olivia began hosting ekly salon frequented by Ezra Pound and other modernist writers and artists in 1909, and became influential in London literary society. Olivia's daughter Dorothy Shakespear married Pound in 1914, despite the less than enthusiastic blessing of her parents. After their marriage, Pound would use funds received from Olivia to support T. S. Eliot and James Joyce. When Dorothy gave birth to a son, Omar Pound, in France in 1926, Olivia assumed guardianship of the boy. He lived with Olivia until her death on 3 October 1938. ==Early life and marriage== Olivia's father, Henry Tod Tucker (b. 1808), was born in Edinburgh and joined the British Indian Army as an ensign at age 16. He rose to the rank of Adjutant General in Bengal, but retired in 1856 at age 48 owing to ill health. Within a year of returning to Britain he married Harriet Johnson (b. 1821) of Bath. The couple moved to the Isle of Wight where their two daughters were born: Florence in 1858 and Olivia on 17 March 1863. Soon after they relocated to Sussex where their third child, Henry, was born in 1866. In 1877 the family moved to London and raised their daughters in a social world that encouraged the pursuit of leisure. Olivia often visited her many Johnson relatives in the country, and became particularly fond of her cousin Lionel Johnson—the only one of many uncles and cousins not to join the military—who went on to become a poet and friend to W. B. Yeats.〔Harwood (1989), 1–7, 10〕 It is likely that Olivia received little formal education; she may have been educated by tutors, and appears to have become well-read as a young woman.〔Hassett (2010), 11〕 In 1885 Olivia married Henry Hope Shakespear, a man described by Terence Brown in ''The Life of W.B. Yeats: A Critical Biography'' as "worthy" but "dull".〔Brown (1999), 91〕 Born in India in 1849, he was descended from 17th-century East London ropemakers and, like Olivia, came from a military family, although of less prestige and wealth than the Tuckers and Johnsons. John Harwood, Olivia's biographer and author of ''Olivia Shakespear and W. B. Yeats: After Long Silence'' believes Henry probably saw an opportunity to increase his social standing and annual income in wedding Olivia. He had attended Harrow, studied law, and joined a law practice in 1875. The couple were married on 8 December 1885, and honeymooned in Boulogne and Paris. Olivia's father endowed them with a comfortable income in the form of a trust. Nine months after the wedding their only child, Dorothy, was born on 14 September 1886; they likely discontinued physical relations after the honeymoon, and Olivia realised quite soon that the marriage was devoid of passion.〔Harwood (1989), 13–16〕 Yeats' biographer Alexander Jeffares writes, "she was unselfcentered, unselfish, deeply imaginative and sympathetic and, until she met Yeats, she seems to have accepted the fact of her unhappy loveless marriage".〔Jeffares (2001), 60–61〕 Shakespear dissolved his legal partnership in the late 1880s—his partner may have been embezzling from clients' trusts—and formed his own practice. Harwood writes that Shakespear's attitude to the situation showed a certain amount of "timidity" on his part and a definite "dislike of scenes". During this period Olivia moved from socialising with military wives to literary women: Valentine Fox (unhappily married to a Kent brewer) and Pearl Craighie, a divorced American writer who published as John Oliver Hobbes.〔Harwood (1989), 21–30〕 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「Olivia Shakespear」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|