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= Alfred_Noyes =
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Introduction
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Alfred Noyes CBE (16 September 188025 June 1958) was an English poet,
short-story writer and playwright.
Early years
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Noyes was born in Wolverhampton, England the son of Alfred and Amelia
Adams Noyes. When he was four, the family moved to Aberystwyth, Wales,
where his father taught Latin and Greek. The Welsh coast and mountains
were an inspiration to Noyes.
Early career
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In 1898, he left Aberystwyth for Exeter College, Oxford, where he
distinguished himself at rowing, but failed to get his degree because
he was meeting his publisher to arrange publication of his first
volume of poems, 'The Loom of Years' (1902), on a crucial day of his
finals in 1903. On publication, 'The Loom of Years' was lauded by W.
B. Yeats and George Meredith. Noyes' poetry also proved popular with
the book-buying public, and for the first two decades of his career
his books sold well.
''The Barrel-Organ'' and ''The Highwayman''
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Noyes published five more volumes of poetry from 1903 to 1913, among
them 'The Flower of Old Japan' (1903) and 'Poems' (1904). 'Poems'
included "The Barrel-Organ". "The Highwayman" was first published in
the August 1906 issue of 'Blackwood's Magazine', and included the
following year in 'Forty Singing Seamen and Other Poems'. In a
nationwide poll conducted by the BBC in 1995 to find Britain's
favourite poem, "The Highwayman" was voted the nation's 15th favourite
poem. This poem was also the inspiration for name of the American folk
music revival group, The Highwaymen.
''Drake''
===========
Another major work in this phase of his career was 'Drake', a 200-page
epic in blank verse about the Elizabethan naval commander Sir Francis
Drake, which was published in two volumes (1906 and 1908). The poem
shows the clear influence of Romantic poets such as Tennyson and
Wordsworth, both in style and subject. Both volumes of 'Drake' were
the subjects of articles in 'The Times Literary Supplement'.
''Sherwood''
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Noyes' only full-length play, 'Sherwood', was published in 1911; it
was reissued in 1926, with alterations, as 'Robin Hood'. One of his
most popular poems, "A Song of Sherwood", also dates from 1911.
Eventually, one of the more popular ballads dating from this period,
"Bacchus and the Pirates", was set to music for two voices and piano
by Michael Brough, and first performed at the Swaledale Festival in
2012.
Views on literature
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Noyes stated that Geoffrey Chaucer, William Shakespeare, John Milton,
Samuel Johnson and Alfred, Lord Tennyson were the greatest writers in
the English language. Noyes modelled his poetry after Tennyson's, and
published a critical study of Tennyson in 1932. Noyes also admired the
work of William Morris; his study of that writer was published in
1908. It was praised by Andrew Lang and later by C. S. Lewis.
By contrast, Noyes disliked most works of literary modernism. Noyes
disdained the poetry of T. S. Eliot, regarding it as abstruse and
pretentious. Noyes expressed contempt for Arnold Bennett, H. L.
Mencken and Marcel Proust in his book 'The Edge of the Abyss',
describing their works as salacious, irreligious and harmful to
society as a whole. Noyes also had a special hatred for the work of
James Joyce, calling it "filth". Noyes decried Joyce's 'Ulysses',
claiming that the novel was obscure and gratuitously vulgar. In a 1922
article for the 'Sunday Chronicle', Noyes called 'Ulysses' "Literary
Bolshevism" and "the foulest book that has ever found its way into
print." When Lord Birkenhead died in 1930, Noyes, in collaboration
with Lord Darling, obtained the withdrawal of a copy of 'Ulysses' (at
that time, banned in the UK) from the auction sale of Birkenhead's
effects.
First marriage and America
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In 1907, Noyes married Garnett Daniels, youngest daughter of US Army
Colonel Byron G. Daniels, a Civil War veteran who was for some years
U.S. Consul at Hull. Noyes first visited America in February 1913,
partly to lecture on world peace and disarmament and partly to satisfy
his wife's desire that he should gather fresh experiences in her
homeland. His first lecture tour lasted six weeks, extending as far
west as Chicago. It proved so successful that he decided to make a
second trip to the US in October and to stay six months. In this trip,
he visited the principal American universities, including Princeton,
where the impression he made on the faculty and undergraduates was so
favourable that in February 1914 he was asked to join the staff as a
visiting professor, lecturing on modern English literature from
February to June. He accepted, and for the next nine years he and his
wife divided their year between England and the US. At Princeton,
Noyes' students included F. Scott Fitzgerald, Edmund Wilson and John
Peale Bishop. He resigned his professorship in 1923, but continued to
travel and lecture throughout the United States for the rest of his
life. Noyes' work proved to be popular in the United States. His
writings were praised by the American reviewers Thomas Bailey Aldrich
and William Lyon Phelps, and his poems were reprinted in numerous US
newspapers and magazines. His wife died in 1926 at Saint-Jean-de-Luz,
France, where she and Noyes were staying with friends.
War
======================================================================
Noyes is often portrayed by hostile critics as a militarist and
jingoist. Actually, he was a pacifist who hated war and lectured
against it, but felt that, when threatened by an aggressive and
unreasoning enemy, a nation could not but fight. On this principle, he
opposed the Boer War, but supported the Allies in both the World Wars.
In 1913, when it seemed that war might yet be avoided, he published a
long anti-war poem called 'The Wine Press'. One American reviewer
wrote that Noyes was "inspired by a fervent hatred of war and all that
war means", and had used "all the resources of his varied art" to
depict its "ultimate horror". The poet and critic Helen Bullis found
Noyes' "anti-militarist" poem "remarkable", "passionate and
inspiring", but, in its "unsparing realism", lacking in "the large
vision, which sees the ultimate truth rather than the immediate
details". In her view, Noyes failed to address the "vital questions"
raised, for example, by William James' observation that for modern
man, "War is the 'strong' life; it is life 'in extremis'", or by
Shakespeare's invocation in 'The Two Noble Kinsmen' of war as the
"great corrector" that heals and cures "sick" times. Bullis, a
Freudian (unlike Noyes, for whom psychoanalysis was a pseudo-science),
thought war had deeper roots than Noyes acknowledged. She saw looming
"the great figures of the Fates back of the conflict, while Mr Noyes
sees only the 'five men in black tail-coats' whose cold statecraft is
responsible for it". In 1915, Upton Sinclair included some striking
passages from 'The Wine Press' in his anthology of the literature of
social protest, 'The Cry for Justice'.
During World War I, Noyes was debarred by defective eyesight from
serving at the front. Instead, from 1916, he did his military service
on attachment to the Foreign Office, where he worked with John Buchan
on propaganda. He also did his patriotic chore as a literary figure,
writing morale-boosting short stories and exhortatory odes and lyrics
recalling England's military past and asserting the morality of her
cause. These works are now forgotten, apart from two ghost stories,
"The 'Lusitania' Waits" and "The Log of the 'Evening Star'", which are
still occasionally reprinted in collections of tales of the uncanny.
"The 'Lusitania' Waits" is a ghost revenge story based on the sinking
of the 'Lusitania' by a German submarine in 1915 - although the tale
hinges on an erroneous claim that the submarine crew had been awarded
the Goetz medal for sinking the ship.
He aided pacifist causes financially, by conrtibuting the whimsical
poem 'A Spell for a Fairy' to 'Princess Mary's Gift Book' (c. 1915).
The illustrations for this, by C.H.Shepperson, formed the templates
for the Cottingley Fairies, controversially accepted, for instance by
Arthur Conan Doyle as genuine evidence for psychic phenomena.
During World War II, Noyes wrote the same kind of patriotic poems, but
he also wrote a much longer and more considered work, 'If Judgement
Comes', in which Hitler stands accused before the tribunal of history.
It was first published separately (1941) and then in the collection,
'Shadows on the Down and Other Poems' (1945). The only fiction Noyes
published in World War II was 'The Last Man' (1940), a science fiction
novel whose message could hardly be more anti-war. In the first
chapter, a global conflict wipes out almost the entire human race.
Noyes' best-known anti-war poem, "The Victory Ball" (aka "A Victory
Dance"), was first published in 'The Saturday Evening Post' in 1920.
He wrote it after attending a ball held in London soon after the
Armistice, where he found himself wondering what the ghosts of the
soldiers who had died in the war would say if they could observe the
thoughtless frivolity of the dancers. The message of the poem lies in
the line, "Under the dancing feet are the graves." A brief passage
about a girl "fresh from school" who "begs for a dose of the best
cocaine" was replaced by something innocuous in the 'Post' version,
but reinstated when the poem appeared in a collection of Noyes' verse.
"The Victory Ball" was turned into a symphonic poem by Ernest
Schelling and into a ballet by Benjamin Zemach. In 1966, at the height
of the Vietnam War, Congressman H. R. Gross, indignant at a White
House dinner dance that went on until 3 a.m. while American soldiers
were giving their lives, inserted Noyes' poem in the 'Congressional
Record' as bearing "directly on the subject matter in hand".
Middle years
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In 1918, Noyes' short story collection, 'Walking Shadows: Sea Tales
and Others', came out. It included both "The 'Lusitania' Waits" and
"The Log of the 'Evening Star'". In 1924 Noyes published another
collection, 'The Hidden Player', which included a novella, 'Beyond the
Desert: A Tale of Death Valley', already published separately in
America in 1920.
For the Pageant of Empire at the 1924 British Empire Exhibition, Noyes
wrote a series of poems set to music by Sir Edward Elgar and known as
'Pageant of Empire'. Among these poems was 'Shakespeare's Kingdom'.
In 1929, Noyes published the first of his three novels, 'The Return of
the Scare-Crow' (US title: 'The Sun Cure'). A light-hearted story
combining adventure, satire and comedy, it is about an earnest young
clergyman named Basil. During a walk on the South Downs, Basil comes
across a ruined cottage, where he decides to try sunbathing naked, as
recommended by a friend. His clothes vanish, and he has to battle his
way back to them through a series of mental hazards - all the latest
intellectual fads and follies - and ends up rather less naïve than
before.
Second marriage and Catholicism
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In 1927, the year after his first wife's death, Noyes married Mary
Angela 'née' Mayne (1889-1976), widow of Lieutenant Richard Shireburn
Weld-Blundell, a member of the old recusant Catholic Weld-Blundell
family, who had been killed in World War I. Later that year, Noyes
himself converted to Catholicism. He gives an account of his
conversion in his autobiography, 'Two Worlds for Memory' (1953), but
sets forth the more intellectual steps by which he was led from
agnosticism to the Catholic faith in 'The Unknown God' (1934), a
widely read work of Christian apologetics which has been described as
"the spiritual biography of a generation". In 1929, Noyes and Mary
Angela settled at Lisle Combe, on the Undercliff near Ventnor, Isle of
Wight. They had three children: Hugh (1929-2000), Veronica and
Margaret. Noyes' younger daughter married Michael Nolan (later Lord
Nolan) in 1953.
''The Torch-Bearers''
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Noyes' ambitious epic verse trilogy 'The Torch-Bearers' - comprising
'Watchers of the Sky' (1922), 'The Book of Earth' (1925) and 'The Last
Voyage' (1930) - deals with the history of science. In the "Prefatory
Note" to 'Watchers of the Sky', Noyes expresses his purpose in writing
the trilogy:
''Watchers of the Sky''
=========================
Noyes adds that the theme of the trilogy had long been in his mind,
but the first volume, dealing with 'Watchers of the Sky', began to
take definite shape only on the night of 1/2 November 1917, when the
100-inch reflecting telescope at Mount Wilson Observatory was first
tested by starlight. George Ellery Hale, the man who conceived and
founded the observatory, had invited Noyes, who was then in
California, to be his guest on this momentous occasion, and the
prologue, subtitled "The Observatory", gives Noyes' detailed
description of that "unforgettable...night". In his review of
'Watchers of the Sky', the scholar and historian of science Frederick
E. Brasch writes that Noyes' "journey up to the mountain's top, the
observatory, the monastery, telescopes and mirrors, clockwork,
switchboard, the lighted city below, planets and stars, atoms and
electrons all are woven into...beautiful narrative poetry. It seems
almost incredible that technical terms and concepts could lend
themselves for that purpose."
After the prologue come seven long poems, each of which depicts
salient episodes in the career of a major scientist, so as to bring
out both the "intensely human drama" ("Prefatory Note") of his life
and his contribution to astronomy. Noyes' seven scientists are
Nicolaus Copernicus, Tycho Brahe, Johannes Kepler, Galileo Galilei,
Isaac Newton, and William and John Herschel - though due mention is
also made of the contribution of Caroline Herschel, sister to William
and aunt to John. In the epilogue, Noyes meditates once more upon the
mountain in the morning, before bringing his narrative to a close in
the form of a prayer.
In his review, Frederick E. Brasch writes that Noyes' "knowledge of
the science of astronomy and its history...seems remarkable in one who
is so entirely unrelated to the work of an observatory". 'Watchers of
the Sky', he adds, will no doubt appeal to the layman "for its beauty
and the music of its narrative verse, broken and interspersed with
epic poetry. But it remains for the astronomer and other scholars in
science to enjoy it to the fullness which is adequate to Noyes'
ability as a poet."
''The Book of Earth''
=======================
'The Book of Earth' is the second volume in the trilogy. In eight
sections framed by a meditative prologue and epilogue, it follows the
discoveries of scientists in their struggles to solve the mysteries of
the earth, of life forms, and of human origins. Starting in ancient
Greece with Pythagoras and Aristotle, it then moves to the Middle East
for Al-Farabi and Avicenna. The scene then shifts successively to
Italy for Leonardo da Vinci, France for Jean-Étienne Guettard, Sweden
for Carl Linnaeus, France again for Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de
Buffon, Jean Baptiste Lamarck, Antoine Lavoisier, and Georges Cuvier,
and then Germany for Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, before ending in
England with Charles Darwin. Reviewing 'The Book of Earth' for
'Nature', F. S. Marvin wrote, "It deals with a much more difficult
subject from the point of view of poetic presentation, namely biology,
or rather geology as a preface to zoology and evolution as crowning
geology." Nevertheless, it does not "belie the...expectations" raised
by its predecessor. By contrast, Edgell Rickword in the September 1925
issue of 'The Calendar of Modern Letters' gave a negative review of
'The Book of Earth'. Rickword stated: "If ‘science’ had really meant
anything, poetically, to Mr. Noyes, it would have altered his
universe; would have created metaphors. As it is, he sails his
pretentious kite with rags of literature and superstition in its
tail." Rickword's article on Noyes was reprinted in the book 'Towards
Standards of Criticism' by the literary critic F. R. Leavis in 1933.
In his introduction to that book, Leavis described Noyes' poetry as
"intrinsically uninteresting work". Because of Rickword and Leavis'
prominence as literary critics, Noyes' literary reputation began to
decline in the 1920s.
''The Last Voyage''
=====================
Before Noyes had begun proper work on the final volume in the trilogy,
'The Last Voyage', two events occurred which were to influence it
greatly: his first wife's death and his conversion to Roman
Catholicism. Death is a major theme in 'The Last Voyage', as its very
title suggests. The tone, more sombre than that of its predecessors,
is also more religious - though religion was hardly absent from the
earlier volumes - and, as might be expected, more specifically
Catholic.
'The Last Voyage' begins at night in mid-Atlantic, where an ocean
liner, "a great ship like a lighted city", is battling through a
raging storm. A little girl is mortally ill. The ship's surgeon
prepares to operate, but with little hope of success, for the case is
complicated and he is no specialist. Luckily, the captain knows from
the wireless news that a top specialist from Johns Hopkins Hospital is
on another liner 400 miles away - within wireless range. The ship's
surgeon will be able to consult him, and stay in touch with him
throughout the operation. Suddenly, the little girl's chances of
survival are much improved. In a manner of speaking, all the
scientific discoveries and inventions of the past are being brought to
bear in the attempt to save her life. When the poet asks a
casually-met fellow-passenger, "You think they'll save her?" the
stranger replies, "'They' may save her", and then adds enigmatically,
"But who are 'They'?"
Reflecting, the poet realises that 'They' are all the seekers and
discoverers of scientific truths through the ages - people like
William Harvey, Louis Pasteur and Joseph Lister in the field of
medicine or Michael Faraday, James Clerk Maxwell and Heinrich Hertz in
the development of the wireless. Nevertheless, despite the united
efforts of all, the little girl dies, and in the darkness of that loss
the poet finds that only in Faith can a flicker of light be found.
Science cannot defeat death in the long run, and sometimes, as in the
little girl's case, not even in the short run, but if "Love, not
Death" is the ultimate reality, death will not have the final word. Of
course, the "last voyage" of the title is not just that of the little
girl or of Noyes' wife - though there are lyrics mourning her in
Section XIII and another in the Dedication at the end - but of
everyman and everywoman.
F. S. Marvin, who reviewed all three volumes of 'The Torch-Bearers'
for 'Nature', wrote that "the third volume is certainly the best from
the artistic point of view. It contains one well-conceived and highly
interesting incident, around which the author's pictures of the past
and incidental lyrics are effectively grouped, and it leads up to a
full and eloquent exposition of the religious synthesis with which the
history of science inspires him."
''The Last Man''
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In 1940 Noyes published a science fiction novel, 'The Last Man' (US
title: 'No Other Man'),"Noyes, Alfred" in 'The Encyclopedia of Science
Fiction', edited by John Clute and Peter Nicholls, Orbit,
1993: 880-81. in which the human race is almost wiped out by a
powerful death ray capable of killing everyone, friend or foe, unless
they are in a steel chamber deep under the surface of the sea. The
inventor's chief assistant unscrupulously sells the plans to the
leading nations of the world, who declare they will use the ray only
as a "last resort". When events spiral out of control, however, they
all activate it, killing everyone living on the earth.
When the death ray strikes, a 29-year-old Englishman named Mark Adams
is trapped in a sunken submarine. Managing to escape, he finds himself
the only survivor in Britain. He travels to Paris in the hope of
finding another survivor. There he discovers a clue which gives him
hope. His search leads him to Italy, where he finally finds the other
survivor, an American girl named Evelyn Hamilton. At the time when the
death ray struck, she was in a diving bell deep below the surface of
the Mediterranean, where, under the guidance of Mardok, an immensely
wealthy magnate and scientific genius, she was engaged in
photographing the floor of the sea. Her companion turns out to be the
villain of the story. Knowing the power of the ray, for whose
development he had been largely responsible, he had made sure that, at
the time of its activation, he was safely out of its reach, along with
an attractive young woman with whom he could later begin the
repopulation of the planet. Evelyn, however, finds him repulsive, and
the arrival of the upstanding, handsome young Englishman further
upsets Mardok's plan. In the ensuing competition between the two men
for the girl, Mark Adams' surname is a clear hint at which of the two
is better fitted to be Adam to Evelyn's Eve. The two young people fall
in love, but Mardok kidnaps Evelyn. After her escape and Mardok's
death, the novel concludes with the young couple's discovery of some
other survivors at Assisi.
For Charles Holland, reviewing the novel in the 1940s, Noyes'
combination of "such elements of human interest as apologetics, art,
travel and a captivating love story" mean that the reader of 'The Last
Man' is assured of both "an intellectual treat and real
entertainment". Eric Atlas, writing in an early science fiction
fanzine, found the novel, despite some flaws, "well worth the reading
- perhaps twice". The philosophico-religious theme, he wrote,
"detracts in no way from the forceful characterizations...of Mark and
Evelyn". Besides, most of the novel is set "in Italy, where Noyes'
descriptive powers as a poet come to the fore". 'The Last Man' seems
to be the novel which introduced the idea of a doomsday weapon. It is
thought to have been among the influences on George Orwell's 'Nineteen
Eighty-Four'.
Later years
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In 1940, Noyes returned to North America, where he lectured and
advocated the British war position. The following year, he gave the
Josiah Wood lectures at Mount Allison University, New Brunswick,
Canada. Titled 'The Edge of the Abyss', they were first published in
Canada in 1942 and then, in a revised version, in the United States
the same year and in Britain two years later. In 'The Edge of the
Abyss', Noyes ponders the future of the world, attacking
totalitarianism, bureaucracy, the pervasive power of the state, and
the collapse of moral standards. George Orwell reviewed the book for
'The Observer' and, like 'The Last Man', it is considered a probable
influence on 'Nineteen Eighty-Four'.
In his review, Orwell wrote that 'The Edge of the Abyss' "raises a
real problem," paraphrasing Noyes' premise as a question of "decay in
the belief in absolute good and evil," with the result that the "rules
of behaviour on which any stable society has to rest are dissolving"
and "even the prudential reasons for common decency are being
forgotten." Indeed, in Orwell's view, Noyes "probably even
underemphasises the harm done to ordinary common sense by the cult of
'realism', with its inherent tendency to assume that the dishonest
course is always the profitable one." Orwell, however, finds Noyes'
suggested remedy, a return to Christianity, "doubtful, even from the
point of view of practicality." He agrees that the "problem of our
time is to restore the sense of absolute right and wrong" but this is
at a time when its foundation, a belief in personal immortality, has
been "destroyed." While Orwell names "faith" as what would be needed
in this restoration, he also notes that focusing on Christian faith as
Noyes does would exclude wide swaths of Asia and imply a "good life"
could only be lived on the "fringes of the Atlantic." Orwell concludes
Noyes "is probably wrong in imagining that the Christian faith, as it
existed in the past, can be restored even in Europe." Orwell does not
expound further on what his broader concept of "faith" entails.
An anonymous review of 'The Edge of the Abyss' in the American
magazine 'Free World' was more critical. The review focuses on Noyes'
claim that literary Modernism is a symptom of the problems of the
world, and concluded: "The point is debatable, the argument
high-pitched and inconclusive, and the remedies proposed vague and
unsatisfactory."
Noyes remained in retirement in California for some years. In 1943, he
published 'The Secret of Pooduck Island', a children's story set off
the coast of Maine. It features a family of squirrels threatened by
natural enemies (skunks, weasels) and humans, the ghost of a Native
American man who suffered a terrible sorrow in the colonial era, and a
teenage boy who has ambitions to be an artist and who is able to help
both the squirrels and the ghost. It is, however, far more profound
and terrible than the lighthearted accounts of animal behaviour seem
on the surface to indicate; a mysterious voice keeps whispering words
of mystery to the artist Solo, and most of the characters turn out to
be incarnations of the various follies and stupidities of mankind: the
fierce lonely boy-artist (who is nearly locked up as insane by the
petty spiteful villagers) and the pudgy but wise priest, as well as
the solemn ghost of Squando, being the only exceptions against which
the others are contrasted. The entire "secret" of Pooduck Island
consists in the gleams of the supernatural that blaze through the
canopy of the material world, like a glimpse of the ocean through an
arch in the woods that Solo names the "Eye" of the island. The
mysterious Voice, who is hinted to be Glooskap himself, appears
indirectly as an invisible model for a portrait of the Squirrel
family, who think they are seated on a stump: but the picture records
him.
In 1949, Noyes returned to his home on the Isle of Wight. As a result
of increasing blindness, he dictated all his subsequent works. In 1952
he brought out another book for children, 'Daddy Fell into the Pond
and Other Poems'. The title poem has remained a firm favourite with
children ever since. In 2005, it was one of the few poems that
featured in both of two major anthologies of poetry for children
published that year, one edited by Caroline Kennedy, the other by
Elise Paschen.
In 1955, Noyes published the satirical fantasy novel 'The Devil Takes
A Holiday', in which the Devil, in the guise of Mr Lucius Balliol, an
international financier, comes to Santa Barbara, California, for a
pleasant little holiday. He finds however, that his work is being so
efficiently performed by humankind that he has become redundant. The
unwonted soul-searching this leads him to is not only painful but also
- owing to a tragicomic twist at the end - ultimately futile. Brian
Stableford has described 'The Devil Takes A Holiday' as "comic affair"
and "an interesting example of English "Literary Satanism.""
Noyes' last book of poetry, 'A Letter to Lucian and Other Poems', came
out in 1956, two years before his death by polio.
''The Accusing Ghost''
======================================================================
In 1957, Noyes published his last book, 'The Accusing Ghost, or
Justice for Casement' (US title: 'The Accusing Ghost of Roger
Casement'). In 1916, the renowned human rights campaigner Roger
Casement was hanged for his involvement in the Irish Nationalist
revolt in Dublin known as the Easter Rising. To forestall calls for
clemency, the British authorities showed public figures and known
sympathizers selected pages from some of Casement's diaries - known as
the 'Black Diaries' - that exposed him as a promiscuous homosexual. As
a consequence the expected protests and petitions for Casement's
reprieve failed to materialise.
Among those who read these extracts was Noyes, who was then working in
the News Department of the Foreign Office and who described the pages
as a "foul record" of "the lowest depths that human degradation has
ever touched". Later that year in Philadelphia, when Noyes was about
to give a lecture on the English poets, he was confronted by
Casement's sister, Nina, who denounced him as a "blackguardly
scoundrel" and cried, "Your countrymen hanged my brother Roger
Casement."
Worse was to come. After Casement's death, the British authorities
held the diaries in conditions of extraordinary secrecy, arousing
strong suspicions among Casement's supporters that they were forged.
In 1936, there appeared a book by an American doctor, William J.
Maloney, called 'The Forged Casement Diaries'. After reading it, W. B.
Yeats wrote a protest poem, "Roger Casement", which was published with
great prominence in 'The Irish Press'. In the fifth stanza of the
poem, Yeats named Alfred Noyes and called on him to desert the side of
the forger and perjurer. Noyes immediately responded with a letter to
'The Irish Press' in which he explained why he had assumed the diaries
were authentic, confessed he might have been misled, and called for
the setting up of a committee to examine the original documents and
settle the matter. In response to what he called Noyes' "noble"
letter, Yeats amended his poem, removing Noyes' name.
Over twenty years later, Casement's diaries were still being held in
the same conditions of secrecy. In 1957, therefore, Noyes published
'The Accusing Ghost, or Justice for Casement', a stinging rebuke of
British policy in which, making full amends for his previous harsh
judgement, he argued that Casement had indeed been the victim of a
British Intelligence plot.
In 2002, a forensic examination of the 'Black Diaries' concluded that
they were authentic.
Death
======================================================================
Noyes' last poem, 'Ballade of the Breaking Shell', was written in May
1958, one month before his death. He died at the age of 77, and is
buried in the Roman Catholic cemetery at Totland, Isle of Wight.
Poetry
========
*'The Loom of Years' (1902)
*'The Flower of Old Japan' (1903)
*'The Forest of Wild Thyme' (1905)
*'The Highwayman' (1906)
*'Drake' (1906-08)
*'Forty Singing Seamen and Other Poems' (1907)
*'The Golden Hynde' (1908)
*'Tales of the Mermaid Tavern' (1913)
*'Watchers of the Sky' (1922)
*'Songs of Shadow-of-a-Leaf' (1924)
*'The Book of Earth' (1925)
*'The Last Voyage' (1930)
*'The Torch-bearers' (1937)(the three books now combined as a single
work)
*'Shadows on the Down' (1941)
*'Collected Poems' (1950)
*'Daddy Fell into the Pond' (1952)
*'A Letter to Lucian' (1956)
Other works
=============
* [
https://books.google.com/books?id=WqlCAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA123 'The
Thames in Literature'] pp. 123-27, July 1907, 'The Bookman'
*[
https://books.google.com/books?id=CWFkIsDVHSwC 'William Morris']
(1908) Biography.
*'Rada' (1914) Drama.
*'Walking Shadows' (1918) Short Stories.
*'The Hidden Player' (1924) Short Stories.
*'Some Aspects of Modern Poetry' (1924) Criticism.
*'The Opalescent Parrot' (1929) Criticism.
*'The Return of the Scare-Crow' ('The Sun Cure' in America) (1929)
Novel.
* 'The Unknown God' (1934) Intellectual Autobiography.
*'Orchard's Bay' (1936) Essays.
* 'Voltaire' (1936) Biography
*'The Last Man' (1940) Novel.
*'Pageant of Letters' (1940) Criticism.
*'The Secret of Pooduck Island' (1943) Children's story.
*'Two Worlds for Memory' (1953) Autobiography.
*'The Devil Takes A Holiday' (1955) Novel.
*'The Accusing Ghost' (1957)
Films based on Noyes' works
======================================================================
* 'The Highwayman'
* 'Dick Turpin's Ride'
Songs based on Noyes' works
======================================================================
* Eight songs set by to music by Elgar in the 1924 'Pageant of Empire'
*'Bacchus and the Pirates' (Michael Brough)
* "Everywhere" (1987 music video by Fleetwood Mac)
* Madrigals Book XI 'Carmina Silvicola' (Clive Strutt)
*'The Highwayman' by Phil Ochs
*'Let My Love Be Heard' by Jake Runestad, setting of Noyes’ 'A Prayer'
*'The Highwayman' by Loreena McKennitt
*'The River of Stars: A Legend of Niagara' (1917; music by Clarence
Bawden)
External links
======================================================================
*
*
*
*
*
[
http://catalog.hathitrust.org/Search/Home?lookfor=%22Noyes,%20Alfred,%201880-1958.%22&type=author&inst=
Works by Alfred Noyes], at Hathi Trust
* [
http://www.escape-suspense.com/2007/11/escape---log-of.html
'Escapes radio adaptation of Noyes' "The Log of the 'Evening Star'"]
* [
https://niagarapoetry.ca/2024/02/06/noyes/ Alfred Noyes' 'The River
of Stars: A Legend of Niagara'], on the [
https://niagarapoetry.ca/
Niagara Falls Poetry Project] website
License
=========
All content on Gopherpedia comes from Wikipedia, and is licensed under CC-BY-SA
License URL:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
Original Article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Noyes
