Secret-Life-Of-A-Satanist

Total Page:16

File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb

Secret-Life-Of-A-Satanist The Secret Life of a Satanist By Blanche Barton Introduction What Manner of Man is This? One couldn't dream of a more diabolical-looking man. With his head shaven in the tradition of carnival strong men, and a black, Mephistophelean beard tracing up thinly around his lips, Anton LaVey's appearance is decidedly barbaric. His amber eyes look more leonine than human. The small gold ring in his left ear conjures childhood images of gypsies and pirates. Many would see him as their nightmarish vision of the Devil himself. My impression of Anton LaVey matured slowly, over a period of some 10 years before I ever met him. My father (a dyed- in-the-wool Satanist if ever there was one, though he emphatically denies any theistic label) raised me on generous portions of Kipling and London, with enough Robert Louis Stevenson thrown in to instill me with an early fascination with the hidden and the fantastic. By the age of 13, I was already a jaded occult connoisseur. I pored over all available magical texts ancient and modern, from Albertus Magnus to Diary of a Witch, and could feel only disdain at their flaccid meanderings. It's not surprising then that for a long time I resisted reading The Satanic Bible, saving myself from certain frustration. During my sexually and intellectually seething adolescence, I had my own ideas about Satan -- thoughts that surely no living soul could understand but me. I was wrong. When I finally cracked open LaVey's now-infamous book, I felt a thrill of satisfaction. There were others like me out there, and they called themselves Satanists. I read Burton Wolfe's The Devil's Avenger to find out whether this strange, bald-headed man wasn't just posturing -- mouthing-off from a cloistered tower, play-acting his cynicism. But knowing more about LaVey only made me more curious for answers to my questions. The High Priest of the Church of Satan doesn't look much different than he did in 1967, when he burst into international prominence by performing the world's first public wedding. With so few new photographs released during LaVey's ten-year media hiatus (roughly from 1976-1986), I can be forgiven for expecting to see a paunchy, balding, good-natured fellow by the time we finally met. LaVey is not paunchy, nor is he good-natured. The intervening years have served to accentuate the angles of his face, making him look more severe than ever. He is also more cynical, bitterly misanthropic, and violently determined in his role as founder of the Church of Satan. This book attempts to peek into the world of a heretic. Not a cardboard devil or the comfortably menacing fiction that religionists have, for centuries, earned their living denouncing from every pulpit. If LaVey were a cooperative scapegoat, he would be an inarticulate, posturing dilettante who could be trotted out on talk shows, righteously set upon and vanquished. He has not obliged. Nor is he a pretentious self-proclaimed evocateur who can be safely snickered at for spouting what he claims to be the Dark Prince's given word. Anton LaVey is a complex, and in many ways a frighteningly deceptive man. "No one in the world is more justified in being cynical and bitter than me," says LaVey. "Everyday I think less and less of what others are going to think." It's this "justifiable bitterness" that spurs expressions of biography, LaVey has become increasingly reclusive and fiercely protective of what he has achieved. He prefers to limit companionship to that of his daughters, a few close, Cerberean friends and professional associates. After finally being granted an initial interview with LaVey in 1984, it became clear to me that if I wanted to more thoroughly explore this Black Magician's heart and mind, I would have to become woven into the fabric of his everyday life. And so I did. He needed a Girl Friday and seemed satisfied with my enthusiastic determination. Over time, it became my role to arrange interviews with reporters, students and members; iron out travel itineraries; generate informational literature; handle correspondence; straw boss; and generally keep complications to as dull a roar as possible. Along the way, I watched, I listened. To Stories, jokes, long-neglected tunes, movies that contained the germs of LaVeyan Satanism. And, as unobtrusively as possible, I began to take notes. Upon first meeting Anton LaVey, many are disarmed by his good-natured wit, extraordinary talent and almost self- deprecating manner. Those who have the opportunity to be around him for any length of time eventually see a seething, brutal side to LaVey. There is, at times, an almost unbearable oppressiveness to his intolerance and anger. Here is a man who can spend hours delighting in playing forgotten songs, or playing with an animal, yet will become monstrously callous when he feels the need. LaVey is idealistically against hunting and would be the first person to stop to help an injured animal along the road, yet put a nickel in him and he will enthusiastically advocate putting a bounty on selected humans. He speaks with such fervor one doesn't need to question his sincerity. LaVey can appear infirm one minute and possessed of a madman's supernatural strength the next. Well-trained in firearms and judo, I've seen him deal swiftly and savagely with rowdies who have dared to approach him. On the pistol range, I once made the mistake of bringing up a subject I knew produced a violent reaction in LaVey. Answering my question with barely controlled rage, he hit a perfect bull's eye 200 feet away. He prefers to work his 14-foot bullwhip to siphon off pent-up aggressions, snapping the end off a cigarette just as skillfully as he did when he learned fancy whip cracking from Col. Tim McCoy 40 years ago. With all the elements of daring, mystery and intrigue, Anton LaVey seems less like the neurotic, cramped contemporary than an imposing, complex fictional character out of the pages of Jack London or Somerset Maugham. The idea behind starting the Church of Satan was not to gain millions of dependant souls who needed activities and organized weekly meetings to keep them involved. LaVey started an organization for non-joiners, the alienated few who felt disenfranchised because of their independence, and who pridefully adopted Satan, the original rebel, as their patron. LaVey wanted to make Christianity, which he sees as fostering stupidity and dull complacency, obsolete. The gulf between our social evolution and our scientific and technological advances was getting dangerously vast. LaVey wanted to give us tools for a revolution against artificial "morality" before the intellectual cramping became fatal for us all. In Satanism, Anton LaVey provided Christianity's coup de grace. Yet despite his influence, LaVey, for the most part, has been ignored by the avatars of our media-centric culture. Visit the "New Age" section of you nearest bookstore. You'll see the entrepreneurs who have taken up LaVeyan ideas, slapping a more palatable name on them to their critical and literally "Satanic" influences in the modern world, plainly drawing from LaVey's philosophy, routinely give not so much credit as a notation in their in their bibliography. And then there are Johnny-come- lately pseudo-Satanic groups, some claiming to have taken over where the Church of Satan left off," but most, as LaVey says, still afraid of the dreaded "S" word. You can't avoid seeing, on book racks or on talk show panels, an impressive range of Satanic "experts" (usually claiming affiliations with law enforcement, academia, or counseling centers) who adroitly spin their heads around avoiding confrontations with real Satanism. Christian alarmists tremblingly hold aloft tattered copies of The Satanic Bible into the eyes of television cameras while muttering inane and unsupported balderdash about bloody sacrifices and unspeakable crimes against children. Knowing Anton LaVey as long as I have, my mind whispers a question: is ate a pro-Satanic backlash? At these times I get the idea Anton LaVey must be the most dangerous man in the world. The outsider, the alien, will always receive a meager amount of credit. LaVey knows that's an inevitable consequence of being an accuser -- people don't like to hear what you have to say. Still, maybe we're due for a renaissance of the brutal, principled film noir anti-hero. In this new Satanic world of his own making -- expect that the Devil will get his due. Chapter One Satanists Are Born, Not Made If the Gods have any sense of the dramatic, it should have been a dark and stormy night on April 11th, 1930—the night Anton LaVey was born. Somewhat prophetically assigned by birth the sign of Aries (symbolized by the horned ram), Anton LaVey is a mixture of French, Alsatian, German, Russian and Rumanian stock. Even at birth, his overabundance of silky black hair and strange amber eyes hinted at his Mongolian heritage and his Gypsy blood. Throughout his life he has been mistaken for a Latino, Prussian, even an Oriental, because of this unusual blending. Though born in Chicago in the shadow of where the black, trapezoidal-shaped John Hancock Building now stands, his parents relocated to the San Francisco Bay area soon after his birth. Tony, as he would be known in his younger years, spent much of his boyhood in adjacent towns, where he had the freedom to explore the ranging, undeveloped swamplands that have since been developed into tract homes and shopping malls.
Recommended publications
  • Network Map of Knowledge And
    Humphry Davy George Grosz Patrick Galvin August Wilhelm von Hofmann Mervyn Gotsman Peter Blake Willa Cather Norman Vincent Peale Hans Holbein the Elder David Bomberg Hans Lewy Mark Ryden Juan Gris Ian Stevenson Charles Coleman (English painter) Mauritz de Haas David Drake Donald E. Westlake John Morton Blum Yehuda Amichai Stephen Smale Bernd and Hilla Becher Vitsentzos Kornaros Maxfield Parrish L. Sprague de Camp Derek Jarman Baron Carl von Rokitansky John LaFarge Richard Francis Burton Jamie Hewlett George Sterling Sergei Winogradsky Federico Halbherr Jean-Léon Gérôme William M. Bass Roy Lichtenstein Jacob Isaakszoon van Ruisdael Tony Cliff Julia Margaret Cameron Arnold Sommerfeld Adrian Willaert Olga Arsenievna Oleinik LeMoine Fitzgerald Christian Krohg Wilfred Thesiger Jean-Joseph Benjamin-Constant Eva Hesse `Abd Allah ibn `Abbas Him Mark Lai Clark Ashton Smith Clint Eastwood Therkel Mathiassen Bettie Page Frank DuMond Peter Whittle Salvador Espriu Gaetano Fichera William Cubley Jean Tinguely Amado Nervo Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay Ferdinand Hodler Françoise Sagan Dave Meltzer Anton Julius Carlson Bela Cikoš Sesija John Cleese Kan Nyunt Charlotte Lamb Benjamin Silliman Howard Hendricks Jim Russell (cartoonist) Kate Chopin Gary Becker Harvey Kurtzman Michel Tapié John C. Maxwell Stan Pitt Henry Lawson Gustave Boulanger Wayne Shorter Irshad Kamil Joseph Greenberg Dungeons & Dragons Serbian epic poetry Adrian Ludwig Richter Eliseu Visconti Albert Maignan Syed Nazeer Husain Hakushu Kitahara Lim Cheng Hoe David Brin Bernard Ogilvie Dodge Star Wars Karel Capek Hudson River School Alfred Hitchcock Vladimir Colin Robert Kroetsch Shah Abdul Latif Bhittai Stephen Sondheim Robert Ludlum Frank Frazetta Walter Tevis Sax Rohmer Rafael Sabatini Ralph Nader Manon Gropius Aristide Maillol Ed Roth Jonathan Dordick Abdur Razzaq (Professor) John W.
    [Show full text]
  • The Satanic Bible Anton Szandor Lavey
    Called “The Black Pope” by many of his followers, Anton LaVey began the road to High Priesthood of the Church of Satan when he was only 16 years old and an organ player in a carnival: “On Saturday night I would see men lusting after half‐naked girls dancing at the carnival, and on Sunday morning when I was playing the organ for tent‐show evangelists at the other end of the carnival lot, I would see these same men sitting in the pews with their wives and children, asking God to forgive them and purge them of carnal desires. And the next Saturday night they’d be back at the carnival or some other place of indulgence. “I knew then that the Christian Church thrives on hypocrisy, and that man’s carnal nature will out!” From that time early in his life his path was clear. Finally, on the last night of April, 1966– Walpurgisnacht, the most important festival of the believers in witchcraft–LaVey shaved his head in the tradition of ancient executioners and announced the formation of The Church Of Satan. He had seen the need for a church that would recapture man’s body and his carnal desires as objects of celebration. “Since worship of fleshly things produces pleasure,” he said, “there would then be a temple of glorious indulgence. .” The Satanic Bible Anton Szandor LaVey For Diane Dedications To: Bernadino Logara, who knew the value of money Karl Haushofer, a teacher without a classroom Rasputin, who knew the magic of a child Sir Basil Zaharoff, a gentleman Cagliostro, a rogue Barnabas Saul, the link with Mount Lalesh Ragnar Redbeard, whose might is right William Mortensen, who looked .
    [Show full text]
  • CLARK ASHTON SMITH Genius Loci
    The Library of America • Story of the Week Excerpt from American Fantastic Tales: Terror and the Uncanny from Poe to the Pulps (The Library of America, )''0), pages -/( –-0.. © )''0 Literary Classics of the U.S., Inc. Originally appeared in Weird Tales (June (0**). Reprinted in Genius Loci and Other Tales ((0+,). CLARK ASHTON SMITH (1893–1961 ) Genius Loci “It is a very strange place,” said Amberville, “but I scarcely know how to convey the impression it made upon me. It will all sound so simple and ordinary. There is nothing but a sedgy meadow, surrounded on three sides by slopes of yellow pine. A dreary little stream flows in from the open end, to lose itself in a cul-de-sac of cat-tails and boggy ground. The stream, run - ning slowly and more slowly, forms a stagnant pool of some extent, from which several sickly- looking alders seem to fling themselves backward, as if unwilling to approach it. A dead willow leans above the pool, tangling its wan, skeleton-like re - flection with the green scum that mottles the water. There are no blackbirds, no kildees, no dragon-flies even, such as one usually finds in a place of that sort. It is all silent and desolate. The spot is evil— it is unholy in a way that I simply can’t de - scribe. I was compelled to make a drawing of it, almost against my will, since anything so outré is hardly in my line. In fact, I made two drawings. I’ll show them to you, if you like.” Since I had a high opinion of Amberville’s artistic abilities, and had long considered him one of the foremost landscape painters of his generation, I was naturally eager to see the drawings.
    [Show full text]
  • Do You Believe in the Lord and Saviour Cthulhu?
    Do you believe in the Lord and Saviour Cthulhu? The application of Lovecraft and his Cthulhu Mythos in Western Esotericism Nadine Eekhout s1526804 M.A. Davidsen 2018-2019 MA Theology and Religious Studies thesis 09-07-2019 1 Table of Contents 1. Introduction ........................................................................................................................... 3 1.1 H.P Lovecraft: Writer or Prophet? .................................................................................... 3 1.2 Introduction to Cthulhu Mythos ...................................................................................... 5 1.3 Introduction Fiction-based Religions ............................................................................... 7 1.4 Lovecraftian Magick: From Fiction to Magick ................................................................ 10 2. Method ................................................................................................................................ 12 3. Analyzing the Man, the Mythos and the Magick ............................................................... 15 3.1 Adaptations of Lovecraftian magick into an existing religious frame….……….……………..15 3.1.1 The Church of Satan: Cthulhu versus Satan .......................................................... 15 3.1.2 Temple of Set ....................................................................................................... 16 3.1.3 Grant’s Typhonian Order .....................................................................................
    [Show full text]
  • The Satanists
    Introduction Does the name Aleister Crowley mean anything to you? Have you ever heard of the ancient Egyptian god Set? The Golden Dawn? The Ordo Templi Orientis? Have you read the writings of J. K. Huysmans? Anton LaVey? Howard Phillips Lovecraft? Do you know what the Necronomicon is? If you answered "no" to most of those questions, you're in the same position as I was in the summer of 1978, when I had my first real encounter with occultism in the person of Michael Aquino, founder of the satanic sect known as the Temple of Set. At the time, I knew virtually nothing about the occult or its subculture and had no interest in learning more. Yet, disarmed by my own naivete, I fell in love with a satanist—and saw the life I knew destroyed as a result. Like myself, most people who are grappling with issues related to satanism, ritual abuse, and the like came across the problem unexpectedly. Police officers investigating cases of vandalism by Satan-obsessed teenagers, therapists whose pa- tients disclose ritualized abuse, and journalists covering sto- ries of occult-related crime have all found themselves suddenly thrust into contact with a bizarre sort of parallel universe. How well they learn to understand the rules that l govern this alien world determines how effectively they are able to deal with it. In many ways, my experience was identical to that of other victims of the hundreds of manipulative, controlling organizations commonly referred to as cults. Frequently, peo- ple become entangled in cults because a friend, relative, or spouse is a member.
    [Show full text]
  • A Symbolic Analysis of Ritualistic Crime: the Forensics of Sacrifice 1
    RBSE 8(24): 524-621, Dez2009 ISSN 1676-8965 ARTIGO A Symbolic Analysis of Ritualistic Crime: The Forensics of Sacrifice 1 Dawn Perlmutter Resumo: O assassinato ritual inclui uma grande variedade de atos sagrados e temporais cometidos por grupos e por indivíduos e é atribuído o mais frequentemente aos praticantes de ideologias ocultas tais como o Satanismo, o Palo Mayombe, a Santeria e outras tradições mágicas, ou aos assassinos em série e aos sadistas sexuais que assassinam ritualmente as suas vítimas. Devido a muitas controvérsias legais, práticas e éticas o estudo da violência religiosa contemporânea está em sua infância. Não houve nenhum estudo empírico sério dos crimes ou das classificações ritualísticas que distingam adequadamente entre os homicídios rituais cometidos para sagrado versus motivações temporais. Este artigo é o resultado de minha pesquisa na fenomenologia da adoração da imagem, de rituais contemporâneos do sangue, e da violência sagrada. Reflete meu esforço contínuo para proteger as liberdades religiosas de membros de religiões alternativas ao ajudar profissionais da lei de lei na investigação de crimes ritualísticos. Unitermos: Sacrifício; Violência Ritual; Análise Simbólica. Abstract : Ritual murder includes a wide variety of both sacred and secular acts committed by groups and individuals and is most often attributed to practitioners of occult ideologies such as Satanism, Palo Mayombe, Santeria, and other magical traditions, or to serial killers and sexual sadists who ritually murder their victims. Due to many legal, practical, and ethical controversies the study of contemporary religious violence is in its infancy. There have been no serious empirical studies of ritualistic crimes or classifications that adequately distinguish between ritual homicides committed for sacred versus secular motivations.
    [Show full text]
  • Selections from the Literature of Grimoires, Cursed Books And
    LH&RB Newsletter of the Legal History & Rare Books Special Interest Section of the American Association of Law Libraries Volume 17 Number 2 Fall 2011 I. Introduction Bibliographica Necronomica: Selections from the Literature of In a 1923 short-story published in the path- blazing science-fiction and horror writing Grimoires, Cursed Books and 1 serial Weird Tales, H. P. Lovecraft introduced Unholy Bindings an object to horror-literature that would soon take on a life of its own, figuratively and 2 Kurt X. Metzmeier literally. The object was a rare book, the © 2011 “Necronomicon of the mad Arab Abdul Alhazred,” an ancient and forbidden magical text, giving an account of the Old Ones, beings that had been worshipped as gods from the darkest and most primeval times. In later stories and novellas, Lovecraft added a few small details about this baneful book, but he knew that mystery was the key to maintaining the dread aspect of the Necronomicon. His inspirations included the medieval magical texts known as 3 “grimoires.” In one story, “The Festival,” the fictional Necronomicon is described alongside real texts: Pointing to a chair, table, and pile of books, the old man now left the room; and when I sat down to read I saw that the books were hoary and mouldy, and that they included old Morryster’s wild Marvells of Science, the terrible Saducismus Triumphatus of Joseph Glanvill, published in 1681, the shocking Daemonolatreia of Remigius, printed in 1595 at Lyons, and worst of all, the unmentionable Continued on Page 4 Bibliographica Necronomica 1 Weird Tales was a horror, fantasy, and science fiction pulp magazine that published from 1923 to 1954 (and was revived in 1988).
    [Show full text]
  • Catalog 20: Horror from the Eivind Jensen Collection
    Catalog No. 20 Horror from the Eivind Jensen Collection 2 Introduction The books listed in this catalog are but a fraction of the material that comprise the Eivind Jensen collection. In addition to books, Mr. Jensen also collected related magazines, booklets and other ephemera. We encourage readers interested in such material to contact us for a complete inventory. TERMS All items are subject to prior sale. All books are returnable within 10 days if returned in the same condition as sent. Please call before returning. Payment should accompany order unless you are known to us. We accept MasterCard, Visa, checks and money orders. Please include $5 for the first item, $3 for each item thereafter for postage. Books are sent vis USPS Media Mail unless otherwise requested. Colorado residents please add 8.81% sales tax. All items are guaranteed as described. Danbom & Son Books has a brick-and-mortar presence at Printed Page Bookshop at 1416 S. Broadway, Denver, CO 80210. Danbom & Son Books is a member of the Antiquarian Booksellers Association of America, the International League of Antiquarian Booksellers, and the Rocky Mountain Antiquarian Booksellers Association. Danbom & Son Books 974 S. Josephine St. Denver, CO 80209 303-880-1217 [email protected] Graphic design by Julie Hutchinson Cover illustration from The Height of the Scream CATALOG NO. 20: HORROR FROM THE EIVIND JENSEN COLLECTION 3 Eivind Jensen HP Lovecraft was an unforgivably racist man. Anyone who endeavors to collect his works will notice also that he was a gifted creator of strange and horrific worlds that we all enjoy consuming.
    [Show full text]
  • Satanic Panic
    BOOK REVIEW: Satanic Panic: Pop Cultural Paranoia in the 1980s RODGERS, Diane <http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3117-4308> Available from Sheffield Hallam University Research Archive (SHURA) at: http://shura.shu.ac.uk/23113/ This document is the author deposited version. You are advised to consult the publisher's version if you wish to cite from it. Published version RODGERS, Diane (2016). BOOK REVIEW: Satanic Panic: Pop Cultural Paranoia in the 1980s. Cinema Retro. Copyright and re-use policy See http://shura.shu.ac.uk/information.html Sheffield Hallam University Research Archive http://shura.shu.ac.uk Satanic Panic: Pop Cultural Paranoia in the 1980s Ed. Kier-La Janisse & Paul Corupe (2015) Spectacular Optical Publications www.spectacularoptical.ca ISBN: 978-0992-146313 $29.95 CAN / £17.95 UK Review by Diane Rodgers Those around in the 1980s may well remember hysteria about 'video nasties' and the fevered destruction of records in America bearing the (then new) Parental Advisory: Explicit Lyrics label, fuelled by fears of a pervading obsession with evil amongst youth and popular culture. Satanic Panic studies this moral frenzy from a vast array of perspectives in fascinating depth, outlining the fears of anxious parents and a confused mainstream culture about teens supposedly embroiled in Satanic cults and potentially carrying out ritual abuse, devil worship, suicide or murder at any given moment. Following the rise of interest in the occult from the 1960s onward, it's easy to see why Reagan's America, still reeling from the confusion of Vietnam and the implications for the 'American Dream', morality and family values, latched onto something so easily sensationalised as a scapegoat to blame for all of society's problems.
    [Show full text]
  • Heavy Metal Under Scrutiny: the Controversial Battle for the Protection of America’S Youth
    Heavy Metal under Scrutiny: The Controversial Battle for the Protection of America’s Youth Master’s Thesis in North American Studies Leiden University Chrysanthi Papazoglou s1588419 Supervisor: Dr. Eduard van de Bilt 1 Contents Introduction ........................................................................................................... 2 Heavy Metal: Origins, Imagery and Values ......................................................... 6 The 1985 PMRC Senate Hearing & Aftermath .................................................. 20 Heavy Metal on Trial: The Cases of Ozzy Osbourne and Judas Priest .............. 41 Conclusion .......................................................................................................... 53 Bibliography ....................................................................................................... 57 2 Introduction During the 1980s, following the steady rise of neo-conservatism, several political and religious groups were formed to fight for what they deemed the loss of true American values. Among their targets was a music genre called heavy metal. Ever since its emergence, the genre met with serious opposition. Accused of promoting violence, suicide, drug and alcohol abuse and distorted images of sex, heavy metal music was considered a threat to the well-being of America’s youth. These accusations were major arguments in the 1980s religious conservatives’ crusade to establish family values. Trying to raise parents’ awareness of the music’s ostensible catastrophic effects on adolescents,
    [Show full text]
  • SFRA Newsletter
    University of South Florida Scholar Commons Digital Collection - Science Fiction & Fantasy Digital Collection - Science Fiction & Fantasy Publications 2-1-1997 SFRA ewN sletter 227 Science Fiction Research Association Follow this and additional works at: http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/scifistud_pub Part of the Fiction Commons Scholar Commons Citation Science Fiction Research Association, "SFRA eN wsletter 227 " (1997). Digital Collection - Science Fiction & Fantasy Publications. Paper 166. http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/scifistud_pub/166 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Digital Collection - Science Fiction & Fantasy at Scholar Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Digital Collection - Science Fiction & Fantasy Publications by an authorized administrator of Scholar Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Issue #227, January/February 1997 IN THIS ISSUE: SFRA INTERNAL AFFAIRS: Election Results ...................................................................... 5 President's Farewell Message (Sanders) .............................. 5 Letters (Westfahl, Samuelson, Gannon) .............................. 7 Editorial (Sisson) ................................................................. 11 SFRA ANNUAL CONFERENCE UPDATE .................... 12 NEWS AND INFORMATION .......................................... 15 FEATURES Special Feature: An Interview with George R.R. Martin (Levy) ................................................................. 19 REVIEWS: Nonfiction: Angulo,
    [Show full text]
  • The Oxford Companion to English Literature, 6Th Edition
    F Faòer ffoo^r of Modem Verse, The, an anthology FABIUS (Quintus Fabius Maximus) (d. 203 BC), nick­ published in 1936, edited by M. *Roberts, which did named Cunctator (the man who delays taking action), much to influence taste and establish the reputations of was appointed dictator after Hannibal's crushing a rising generation of poets, including *Auden, *Mac- victory at Trasimene (217 BC). He carried on a defensive Neice, *Empson, *Graves, Dylan Thomas. In his campaign, avoiding direct engagements and harassing introduction, Roberts traces the influences of *Clough, the enemy. Hence the expression 'Fabian tactics' and G. M. *Hopkins (himself well represented), the French the name of the *Fabian Society (1884), dedicated to ^symbolists, etc. on modern poetry, defines the 'Euro­ the gradual introduction of socialism. pean' sensibility of such writers as T. S. *Eliot, *Pound, and * Yeats, and offers a persuasive apologia for various fable, a term most commonly used in the sense of a aspects of *Modernism which the reading public had short story devised to convey some useful moral resisted, identifying them as an apparent obscurity lesson, but often carrying with it associations of the compounded of condensed metaphor, allusion, intri­ marvellous or the mythical, and frequently employing cacy and difficulty of ideas, and verbal play. The poet, animals as characters. * Aesop's fables and the *'Rey- he declared, 'must charge each word to its maximum nard the Fox' series were well known and imitated in poetic value': 'primarily poetry is an exploration of the Britain by *Chaucer, *Henryson, and others, and *La possibilities of language.' Fontaine, the greatest of modern fable writers, was imitated by *Gay.
    [Show full text]