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The Powys Review NUMBER NINETEEN The Powys Review Editor Belinda Humfrey Reviews Editor Peter Miles Advisory Board Glen Cavaliero Ben Jones Ned Lukacher Correspondence, contributions, and books for review may be addressed to the Editor, Department of English, Saint David's University College, Lampeter, Dyfed, SA48 7ED. Copyright ©, The Editor The Powys Review is published with the financial support of the Welsh Arts Council. We are grateful to Mr Francis Powys and Laurence Pollinger Ltd., for permission to quote from the writings of John Cowper Powys and T. F. Powys, and to the late Mrs Evelyn Elwin for permission to quote from the writings of Llewelyn Powys. The Powys Review may be obtained from Booksellers for £2.50, or from Gomer Press, Llandysul, Dyfed, for £2.50 plus 60p postage. The Powys Review is printed by J. D. Lewis & Sons Ltd., Gomer Press, Llandysul, Dyfed. Enquiries about advertisment in The Powys Review should be made to James Dawson, 99 Corve Street, Ludlow, Shropshire. Tel. Ludlow (0584) 2274. Contents J. Lawrence Mitchell Reviews The Education of T. F. Powys 3 T. F. Powys Michael Ballin Mr Weston's Good Wine John Cowper Powys's Porius MARTIN STEINMANN 67 and the Dialectic of History 20 Roy Fisher A Furnace Dorothee von Huene Greenberg JEREMY HOOKER 71 Stone Worship and the Search for Community in John Cowper Powys's Edward Larrissy A Glastonbury Romance 36 William Blake DESIREE HIRST 73 Oliver Marlow Wilkinson The Letters of Frances and Jack 43 David Punter The Hidden Script: Frederick Davies Writing and the Unconscious LAWRENCE NORMAND 76 Recollections of John Cowper Powys and Phyllis Playter: Part One 58 Raymond H. Thompson The Return from Ava/on: Notices 66 A Study of the Arthurian Legend in Modern Fiction Reviews 67 T. A. SHIPPEY 78 Notes on Contributors 89 Andrew Rutherford, ed. Early Verse by Rudyard Kipling 1879-1889 MARTIN GREEN 79 R. George Thomas Edward Thomas: A Portrait LESLIE NORRIS 81 Gwyn Thomas Sorrow For Thy Sons PETER MILES 83 Fleur Adcock Selected Poems GILLIAN CLARKE 85 Roger Fowler Linguistic Criticism ANDREW HASSAM 87 The Powys Review Number Nineteen 1986 Volume Viii i Almshouses and Dorchester Grammar School J. Lawrence Mitchell The Education of T. F. Powys One of the peculiarities of T. F. Powys's in his reconstruction of the details of the style is the way in which he combines sim- first twenty years of Powys's life. Of his plicity of subject and language with sophist- schooling in Dorchester, Graves writes only: tication of literary and philosophical refer- ' 'Theodore, eight and a half years old in the ence and allusion. A couple of random summer of 1884, had been attending a examples will suffice to make the point: school in Dorchester" (14). His failure to mention that the school was Dorchester John Pardy had never been able to agree with Grammar School (henceforth DGS) prob- Voltaire that the only true happiness was ably reflects unwillingness to grant credence found in cultivating a garden ("John Pardy to unsubstantiated reports of his attendance and the Waves", Fables, 82-3; 84-5) there—especially at the age of eight and a . when the donkey was feeding contentedly half. In one account, Francis Powys tells and philosophically, considering in the how his father attended DGS and sat in the manner of Bishop Berkeley that the moor very seat once occupied by Thomas Hardy. could never have had an existence unless he had been there, the mother rabbit stepped out Elsewhere the story gains embellishment, and we are given to understand that Theodore of her burrow and thus addressed the ass. 2 ("The Ass and the Rabbit", Fables, 67-8; 70) carved his initials below those of Hardy. It is a fine story with a nice symbolism that That his wide and eclectic reading should be places Powys squarely in the tradition of as so self-consciously displayed some critics well as the seat of Hardy. Alas, it is quite have found a fault. As it happens, I do not without foundation, as Graves no doubt share this view, and rather delight in the detected. Not that Powys never attended insouciance with which Powys scatters his DGS—he did, though later than 1884. But learning before us. Given, however, the Hardy never attended DGS. He went to obstrusiveness of that learning, it is strange the Dorchester British School, under Isaac that so little attention has been directed to its Glandfield Last, in Greyhound Yard, from source, or even towards Powys's motivation 1850 to 1853. Then he moved to Last's new for incorporating it into his fiction. In other school, an independent "commercial acad- emy" until 1856, when he left school for words, should we not ask: What sort of edu- 3 cation, broadly speaking, made Powys the ever. writer he became? In this paper, I will Now this is just the kind of story that attempt an answer to that question, based Powys would have been capable of perpe- upon my examination of many unpublished trating in mischievous mood—but only, one documents, as well as upon the published suspects, if it had somehow cast him in a bad data.' At the same time, I will reconstruct light. As it happens, Powys does seem to an entirely new chronology of Powys's early have been the ultimate source for the Hardy years. connection, though not with any intention The early schooling of Theodore Powys of self-glorification—which would have has never been presented in anything but the been quite uncharacteristic. Asked by sketchiest of outlines. Even so meticulous a Charles Prentice of Chatto and Windus for biographer as Graves (1983) found very little some autobiographical material for pub- to go on, and has as a result sometimes slipped licity purposes, Powys sent a typically short 4 The Education of T. F. Powys and generally unilluminating statement— 'facts' and assumptions, and can lead to the sort of thing that reflects nothing quite more important issues. Finally it is arguable so much as the author's unwillingness to say that since Powys's formal education can anything at all to reveal himself. Nonethe- reasonably be judged a failure, we ought to less, it was later incorporated by David know as much about it as possible. How Garnett into an article on TFP in The otherwise are we to explain the fact that Borzoi, 1925. But in this short paragraph Powys did not follow his father and older Powys does say that he "was at Dorchester brothers to Cambridge? And how can we Grammar School for a year or two", and ignore a phase of his life that more or less adds parenthetically: "I think that's determined his future for him, that excluded Hardy's school too". From this casual him from the professions, and that led him observation there seems to have grown a to try the life of a farmer? His relative lack legend of sorts, with Powys represented as of education cast a giant shadow across his following in the footsteps of the master, life; it was never far from his consciousness Hardy. There are affinities between the two (as is evidenced in the attack upon him that —both were certainly pessimists of sorts, Theodore puts in the mouth of Llewelyn in both wrote short stories as well as novels, "Theodore Examined by the Brethren": both used dialect in their work, both left "You are not intelligent, you don't know school around sixteen, and both are rather the world, you don't know French, you prone to show off the learning later acquir- can't spell" (Humfrey, 1980, 268); it con- ed. The mistaken notion about Hardy's tributed in no small measure to his neg- attendance at DGS almost certainly derives ative self-image (his feelings of inadequacy, from the fact that DGS was endowed in 1579 of being an outcast and persecuted, even by one Thomas Hardye of Frampton. More- perhaps to his choice of a wife); and it cert- over, Thomas Hardy, the novelist, was for ainly helped shape his career as a writer. In a many years a governor of the school (1909- letter to John Cowper Powys (henceforth 25), and "was always mindful of the role his JCP), some of his pent-up feelings about his namesake had played in its foundation" education surface: (Millgate, 1982, 460). The dates of his own attendance at the Do I say things that you don't like, do I?— Very likely I do—but remember that I have school may be, and have been, seen as relat- been to a different kind of school to you and ively unimportant within the larger bio- to Lulu. And not a very pretty one either—so graphical framework. Hitherto critics have forgive me. (TFP to JCP, 24 Sept. 1917) considered it sufficient merely to note his attendance before passing on to an equally Of course, Powys has in mind what we fleeting reference to his unhappy days at might call the "school of hard knocks" or Sherborne Prep., and his sojourn at the life itself. Sometimes, then, it suits Powys, school in Aldeburgh run by the father of in the role in which he cast himself, to exag- Louis Wilkinson (henceforth LW). Yet gerate the differences in their education. It is there are a number of reasons why we should this fact that colours some of his not alto- pay closer attention to this period of gether reliable observations about his Powys's life. First of all, the factual and schooling or the lack thereof.