|
''Wolf Solent'' is a novel by John Cowper Powys (1872-1963) published in 1929. This, Powys's fourth novel, was his first literary success. It is a ''bildungsroman'' in which the eponymous protagonist, a thirty-four-year-old history teacher, returns to his birthplace, where he discovers the inadequacy of his dualistic philosophy. Wolf resembles John Cowper Powys in that an elemental philosophy is at the centre of his life and, because, like Powys, he hates science and modern inventions like cars and planes, and is attracted to slender, androgynous women. ''Wolf Solent'' is the first of Powys's four Wessex novels. Powys wrote both about the same region as Thomas Hardy and was a twentieth-century successor to the great nineteenth-century novelist. The novel is set in the fictional towns of Ramsgard, Dorset, based on Sherborne, Dorset, where Powys attended school from May 1883, and Blacksod, modelled on Yeovil, Somerset, as well as other places in Dorset like Dorchester and Weymouth that were also full of memories for Powys.〔Krissdottir, p.37 re school.〕 ==Background== ''Wolf Solent'' was Powys's first successful novel. There were six impressions of the first edition (American) between 1929 and 1930, three of the British. A German translation appeared in 1930 and French in 1931.〔New York: Simon and Schuster and London: Jonathan Cape. Derek Langridge, ''John Cowper Powys: A Record of Achievement''. London: The Library Association, 1966, pp.115-6, 121.〕 However, Powys had to cut some 350 pages from his manuscript before ''Wolf Solent'' was published by Simon and Schuster.〔Morine Krissdottir, ''Descents of Memory: The Life of John Cowper Powys''. New York: Overlook Duckworth, 2007, p.227.〕 Following the success of ''Wolf Solent'' three of Powys's works of popular philosophy were also best-sellers: ''The Meaning of Culture'' (1929), ''In Defence of Sensuality'' (1930), ''A Philosophy of Solitude'' (1933).〔Derek Langridge, ''John Cowper Powys: A Record of Achievement'', pp. 11, 115, 121, 123, 127, 131.〕 Prior to this Powys had published three apprentice novels: ''Wood and Stone'' (1915), ''Rodmoor'' (1916), ''Ducdame'' (1925), and had also written ''After My Fashion'' in 1920, though it was not published until 1980.〔Richard Perceval Graves, ''The Powys Brothers''. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983, p.184.〕 He had begun work on ''Wolf Solent'' in February 1925, It is "the first of the four Wessex novels which established John Cowper Powys's reputation",〔Herbert Williams, ''John Cowper Powys''. Bridgend,: Seren, 1997, p.94,〕 an allusion not only to the place but to the influence of Thomas Hardy on him: his first novel, ''Wood and Stone'' was dedicated to Hardy.〔''Wood and Stone: A Romance''. New York: G. Arnold Shaw, 1915.〕 In the Preface he wrote for the 1961 Macdonald edition of the novel Powys states: "''Wolf Solent'' is a book of Nostalgia, written in a foreign country with the pen of a traveller and the ink-blood of his home.〔1964 Penguin edition, p.11.〕 ''Wolf Solent'' is set in Ramsgard, based on Sherborne, Dorset, where Powys attended school from May 1883, as well as Blacksod, modelled on Yeovil, Somerset, and Dorchester, Dorset and Weymouth, Dorset, both in Dorset, all places full of memories for him.〔Krissdottir, p.37 re school.〕 While Powys had been born in Shirley, Derbyshire and lived there for this first seven years of his life, his father then returned to his home county of Dorset, and, after a brief stay in Weymouth, the family resided in Dorchester from May 1880 until the Christmas of 1885.〔Krissdottir, pp.26, 29, 39-40.〕 Powys's paternal grandmother livedin nearby Weymouth. For the rest of his youth Powys lived in Montacute, just over the Dorset border in Somerset. Also in the 1961 Preface Powys records the fact that he and his brother Littleton would often "scamper home" on a Sunday from school in Sherborne via Yeovil: "Sherborne was five miles from Montacute; and Yeovil was five miles from Montacute".〔''Wolf Solent (Penguin edition, 1964), p.11.〕 The seaside resort of Weymouth is the main setting of his novel ''Weymouth Sands'' (1934, published as ''Jobber Skald'' in England) while ''Maiden Castle'' (1935), which alludes to Thomas Hardy's ''Mayor of Casterbridge'', is set in Dorchester (Hardy's Casterbridge). Powys had first settled in Dorchester, after returning from America in 1934. These two works, along with ''Wolf Solent'' and ''A Glastonbury Romance'' (1932) make up Powys's four main Wessex novels.〔The earlier ''Wood and Stone'' and ''Ducdame'' are also set in Wessex.〕 A Further indication of the importance of familiar places in Powys's fiction is that Glastonbury is just a few miles north of Montacute. 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「Wolf Solent」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|