NationMaster - Encyclopedia: A. L. Rowse

Alfred Leslie Rowse, CH FBA (December 4, 1903 – October 3, 1997), known professionally as A. L. Rowse and to his friends and family as Leslie, was a prolific British historian. He is perhaps best known for his poetry about Cornwall and his work on Elizabethan England. He was also a Shakespearean scholar and biographer. He developed a widespread reputation for irascibility and intellectual arrogance. The Order of the Companions of Honour is a British and Commonwealth Order (decoration). ... is the 338th day of the year (339th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1900 (MCMIII) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will display calendar) of the Gregorian calendar or a common year starting on Friday of the 13-day slower Julian calendar. ... is the 276th day of the year (277th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... For the band, see 1997 (band). ... A historian is an individual who studies history and who writes on history. ... For other uses, see Cornwall (disambiguation). ... This article is about Elizabeth I of England. ... For other uses, see England (disambiguation). ... Wikipedia does not yet have an article with this exact name. ... This article needs cleanup. ... JosÃ© Mourinho JosÃ© MÃ¡rio dos Santos Mourinho FÃ©lix (pron. ...

Life

Alfred Leslie Rowse was born in Tregonissey near St Austell, Cornwall, the son of Richard Rowse, a china clay worker, and Annie (née Vanson). His parents were poor and semi-illiterate but despite his humble origins, he won a place at St. Austell Grammar School (now Poltair School - who have named part of their curriculum the Rowse Pathway) and then a scholarship to Christ Church, Oxford in 1921. He was encouraged in his pursuit of an academic career by fellow Cornish man of letters Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch (1863-1944) who recognised his ability from an early age. The tone or style of this article or section may not be appropriate for Wikipedia. ... A scholar is either a student or someone who has achieved a mastery of some academic discipline, perhaps receiving financial support through a scholarship. ... College name Christ Church Named after Jesus Christ Established 1546 Sister College Trinity College Dean The Very Revd Christopher Andrew Lewis JCR President William Dorsey Undergraduates 426 MCR or GCR President {{{MCR President}}} Graduates 154 Home page Boat Club Christ Church (Latin: Ã†des Christi, the temple or house of Christ... The University of Oxford, located in the city of Oxford in England, is the oldest university in the English-speaking world. ... Year 1921 (MCMXXI) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar). ... Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (November 21, 1863 - May 12, 1944) was a British writer, who published under the pen name of Q. Born in Cornwall, he was educated at Newton Abbot College, at Clifton College, and Trinity College, Oxford and later became a lecturer there. ...

Rowse had planned to study English literature, having developed an early love of poetry, but was persuaded to read history. Although he had the reputation of a "swatopotumus", he was a popular under-graduate and made many friendships that lasted for life. He graduated with first class honours in 1925 and was elected a Fellow of All Souls College the same year, the first such Fellow from a working-class background. In 1929, he was awarded his Master of Arts degree, and in 1927 was appointed lecturer at Merton College, where he stayed until 1930. In 1931, he contested the parliamentary seat of Penryn and Falmouth for the Labour Party, but was unsuccessful and became a lecturer at the London School of Economics. Year 1925 (MCMXXV) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... College name All Souls College Collegium Omnium Animarum Named after Feast of All Souls Established 1438 Sister College Trinity Hall, Cambridge Warden Dr. John Davis JCR President None Undergraduates None MCR President None Graduates 8 (approx. ... The degree of Master of Arts degree is an undergraduate degree awarded by the universities of Oxford and Cambridge as well as by the University of Dublin. ... Year 1927 (MCMXXVII) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Merton College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. ... Year 1930 (MCMXXX) was a common year starting on Wednesday (link will display 1930 calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1931 (MCMXXXI) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will display full 1931 calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... A parliament is a legislature, especially in those countries whose system of government is based on the Westminster system modelled after that of the United Kingdom. ... Penryn and Falmouth was a parliamentary constituency centred on the towns of Penryn and Falmouth in Cornwall, represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, elected by the first past the post system. ... The Labour Party is a political party in the United Kingdom. ... Mascot Beaver Affiliations University of London Russell Group EUA ACU CEMS APSIA Golden Triangle G5 Group Website http://www. ...

In the general election of 1935 he again proved unsuccessful, and chose to continue his career at Oxford becoming Sub-Warden of All Souls College. In 1952, he failed in his candidacy for election as Warden against John Sparrow (1906-92) and shortly afterwards began his regular trips to the Huntingdon LIbrary in California where for many years he was a Senior Research Fellow. He received a doctorate (D. Litt.) from Oxford University in 1953. After delivering the British Academy's 1957 Raleigh Lecture on History about Sir Richard Grenville's place in English history he became a Fellow of the Academy in 1958. Despite his academic and social success, he remained proud of his Cornish roots. He retired from Oxford in 1973 to Trenarren House, his Cornish home, from where he remained active as writer, reviewer and conversationalist until immobilised by a stroke the year before his death. His ashes are buried in the Campdowns Cemetery, Charlestown, near St Austell. There is a commemorative plaque to him in Truro Cathedral and a memorial stone on Black Head, overlooking St Austell Bay almost within sight of Trenarren. 1935 (MCMXXXV) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will display full calendar). ... Year 1953 (MCMLIII) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... The British Academy is the United Kingdoms national academy for the humanities and the social sciences. ... The tone or style of this article or section may not be appropriate for Wikipedia. ... Truro Cathedral is a cathedral in the city of Truro in Cornwall in south-west England. ... The tone or style of this article or section may not be appropriate for Wikipedia. ...

Character

Rowse published around 100 books. He became a celebrated author and lecturer from the 1940s and travelled widely, especially in the United States. He also published many popular articles in newspapers and magazines in Great Britain and the United States. His brilliance was widely recognised, and his knack for the sensational, as well as his academic boldness (which some considered to be irresponsible carelessness), sustained his reputation. His opinions on rival popular historians, such as Hugh Trevor-Roper and A.J.P Taylor, were expressed sometimes in very ripe terms. Hugh Redwald Trevor-Roper, Baron Dacre of Glanton (January 15, 1914 â€“ January 26, 2003) was a notable historian of Early Modern Britain and Nazi Germany. ... A. J. P. Taylor (March 25, 1906 - September 7, 1990) (full name Alan John Percivale Taylor) was a renowned British historian of the 20th century. ...

In his later years, Rowse moved increasingly towards the political right, and many considered him to be part of the Tory tradition by the time he died. One of A. L. Rowse's life-long themes in his books and articles was his condemnation of the National Government's policy of appeasement in the 1930s and the economic and political consequences for Great Britain of fighting a second war with Germany. Another was his horror at the degradation of standards in modern society. He is reported as saying : "This filthy twentieth century. I hate its guts". Appeasement is a policy of accepting the imposed conditions of an aggressor in lieu of armed resistance, usually at the sacrifice of principles. ...

Work

Rowse wrote poetry all his life. He contributed poems to Public School Verse whilst at St Austell Grammar School. He also had verse published in Oxford 1923, Oxford 1924, and Oxford 1925. His collected poems A Life were published in 1981. The poetry is mainly autobiographical, descriptive of place (especially Cornwall) and people he knew and cared for, e.g. The Progress of Love, which describes his platonic love for Adam von Trott, a handsome and aristocratic German youth who studied at Oxford in the 1930s and who was later executed for his part in the July Plot of 1944 to kill Hitler. Unusually for a British poet, Rowse wrote a great number of poems inspired by American scenery. He maintained that in writing poetry one could get to the truth of a matter rather more than in prose. Adam von Trott zu Solz (born August 9, 1909 in Potsdam, Germany - died August 26, 1944 in Berlin, Germany) was a lawyer and diplomat who opposed the Nazi regime. ... Claus von Stauffenberg The July 20 Plot was an attempt to assassinate Adolf Hitler, the dictator of Germany, on July 20, 1944. ... Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler (April 20, 1889 – April 30, 1945, standard German pronunciation in the IPA) was the Führer (leader) of the National Socialist German Workers Party (Nazi Party) and of Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945. ...

His first book was On History, A Study of Present Tendencies published in 1927 as the seventh volume of Kegan Paul's Psyche Miniature General Series. In 1931 he contributed to T. S. Eliot's quarterly review The Criterion. In 1935 he co-edited Charles Henderson's Essays in Cornish History for the Clarendon Press. His best-seller was his first volume of autobiography A Cornish Childhood, first published by Jonathan Cape in 1942, that has gone on to sell nearly half a million copies worldwide. It describes his hard struggle to get to the bright lights of Oxford and his love/hate relationship with Cornwall. Highly readable, it contains some of his best prose. Routledge, amongst Brunner-Routledge, RoutledgeCurzon and RoutledgeFalmer, is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, which is a sub-division of Informa PLC, a company based in the United Kingdom with offices worldwide. ... Thomas Stearns Eliot, OM (September 26, 1888 â€“ January 4, 1965), was a poet, dramatist and literary critic. ... Charles Gordon Henderson (July 11, 1900 â€“ September 24, 1933) was a historian and antiquarian of Cornwall. ... Oxford University Press (OUP) is a highly-respected publishing house and a department of the University of Oxford in England. ...

Shakespearian Scholarship

Rowse's early works focus on sixteenth century England and his first full-length historical monograph, Sir Richard Grenville of the Revenge (1937), was a biography of a sixteenth century sailor. His next was Tudor Cornwall (1941), a lively detailed account of Cornish society in the 16th century. He consolidated his reputation with a one-volume general history of England, The Spirit of English History (1943), but his most important work was the historical trilogy The Elizabethan Age: The England of Elizabeth (1950), The Expansion of Elizabethan England (1955), and The Elizabethan Renaissance (1971-72), respectively examine the society, overseas exploration, and culture of late sixteenth century England. (15th century - 16th century - 17th century - more centuries) As a means of recording the passage of time, the 16th century was that century which lasted from 1501 to 1600. ... (15th century - 16th century - 17th century - more centuries) As a means of recording the passage of time, the 16th century was that century which lasted from 1501 to 1600. ...

In 1963 Rowse began to concentrate on Shakespeare, starting with a biography in which he claimed to have dated all the sonnets, identified Christopher Marlowe as the suitor's rival and solved all but one of the other problems posed by the sonnets. His failure to acknowledge his reliance upon the work of other scholars alienated some of his peers, but he won popular acclaim. In 1973 he published Shakespeare the Man, in which he claimed to have solved the final problem - the identity of the 'Dark Lady': from a close reading of the sonnets and the diaries of Simon Forman, he asserted that she must have been Emilia Lanier, whose poems he would later collect. He suggested that Shakespeare had been influenced by the feud between the Danvers and Long families in Wiltshire, when he wrote Romeo and Juliet. The Danvers were friends of the 3rd Earl of Southampton. This article is about the English dramatist. ... The Dark Lady is a woman referred to by William Shakespeare in a number of his sonnets. ... In literary criticism, close reading describes the careful, sustained interpretation of a brief passage of text. ... Simon Forman (December 30, 1552 â€“ September, 1611) was a prominent Elizabethan occultist, astrologist and herbalist active in London. ... Aemilia Lanyer, or Emilia Lanier (1569-1645) was the first Englishwoman to assert herself as a professional poet through her single volume of poems, Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum (1611). ... For the Auditor of the Exchequer see: Sir Robert Long, 1st Baronet Sir Robert Long (c. ...

1. The Fair Youth was the 19-year old Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton, extremely handsome and bisexual. Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton, 1603, in the Tower, atrributed to John de Critz. ...

3. The "rival poet" was the famously homosexual Christopher Marlowe. This article is about the English dramatist. ...

6. Shakespeare was a heterosexual man, who was faced with an unusual situation when the handsome, young, bisexual Earl of Southampton fell in love with him.

As a result of this, Sonnet XX can now be read in a very new way. It is Shakespeare making a courtly and witty refusal of the young Henry Wriothesley.

Current scholarly opinion regarding Rowse's theories about the sonnets seem to fall into two camps: either a); He is absolutely wrong or b); He hasn't told us anything new and has neglected to mention the contributions of others to the solutions he presented.

Meanwhile, conventional wisdom continues to maintain that Shakespeare was homosexual, or bisexual, and that the publisher's dedication to a certain "Master W.H." somehow provides the name of Shakespeare's gay lover.

The name of Shakespeare's fair youth was "Lord H.W." -- never, ever, Master (the title of a Knight).

Rowse did not tolerate fools, but he also did not make such assertions without supplying reasons. In the case of Shakespeare, he noted that Shakespeare had managed to get an older woman pregnant by the time he was 18, and was consequently obliged to marry her. Moreover, he had saddled himself with three children by the time he was 21. In the sonnets, Shakespeare's explicit erotic interest lies with the Dark Lady; he obsesses about her. As anyone can figure out, Shakespeare was still married and therefore carrying on an extramarital affair. Human sexuality was the subject of another of his controversial books: Homosexuals In History (1977)

Other subjects

He wrote other biographies of English historical and literary figures and many other histories. Among his most interesting biographies are the ones of Shakespeare, Marlowe, and Southampton, the major players in the sonnets. A devoted cat-lover, he also wrote the biographies of several cats who came to live with him at Trenarren claiming that it was as much a challenge to write the biography of a favourite cat as it was a Queen of England. He also published a number of short stories, mainly about Cornwall, of interest more for their thinly-veiled autobiographical resonances than their literary merit. His last book, My View of Shakespeare, published in 1996, summed up his life-time's appreciation of The Bard of Stratford. The book was dedicated "To HRH the Prince of Wales in common devotion to William Shakespeare".

Honours

Rowse was a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. He was awarded an honorary D.Litt by the University of Exeter in 1960 and a D.C.L. by the University of New Brunswick, Fredericton, Canada, the same year. He was elected to the Athenaeum under Rule II in 1972, received the Benson Medal of the Royal Society of Literature in 1982 and was made a Companion of Honour (somewhat belatedly) in the 1997 New Years' Honours List. In 1968 he was made a Bard of Gorseth Kernow, taking the bardic name Lef A Gernow ('Voice of Cornwall') reflecting his high standing in the Cornish community. He did not receive the Order of Merit that he once coveted or the knighthood that many thought he deserved. The Royal Historical Society was founded in 1868. ... The University of Exeter (usually abbreviated as Exon. ... The University of New Brunswick (UNB) is a Canadian university located in the province of New Brunswick. ... Athenaeum, also AthenÃ¦um or Atheneum, is used in the names of institutions or periodicals for literary, scientific, or artistic study. ... The AC Benson Medal or Benson Medal is a medal awarded by the Royal Society of Literature. ... The Royal Society of Literature is the senior literary organisation in Britain. External link The Royal Society of Literature Categories: Literature stubs | Literature of the United Kingdom ... The Order of the Companions of Honour is a British and Commonwealth Order (decoration). ... The Bard (ca. ... Gorseth Kernow is a Cornish organization, which exists to maintain the national Celtic spirit of Cornwall. ... A bardic name is a pseudonym used, in Wales, by poets and other artists, especially those involved in the eisteddfod movement. ... For other Orders see Order of Merit (disambiguation). ...

Bibliophile

One of Rowse's great enthusiasms was collecting books, and he owned many first editions, many of them bearing his acerbic annotations. For example, his copy of the January 1924 edition of The Adelphi magazine edited by John Middleton Murry bears a pencilled note after Murry's poem In Memory of Katherine Mansfield: 'Sentimental gush on the part of JMM. And a bad poem. A.L.R.' John Middleton Murry (August 6, 1889 - 1957) was an English author and writer. ...

Upon his death in 1997 he bequeathed his book collection to the University of Exeter, and his personal archive of manuscripts, diaries, and correspondence. In 1998 the University Librarian selected about sixty books from Rowse’s own working library and a complete set of his published books. The Royal Institution of Cornwall selected some of the remaining books, and the rest were sold to dealers.

Posthumous reputation

Rowse was a hoarder and boasted that his unpublished diaries, journals, letters and pocket books would keep a Rowse industry going long after his death à la Boswell or Horace Walpole. The full force of this industry has yet to get under way: extracts chosen from his diaries for posthumous publication in 2003 proved disappointing as it appeared that most of the more interesting material had already been quarried by Rowse himself for publication in his lifetime and the remainder seemed somewhat banal. It remains to be seen whether there is scope for a more lively (and possibly controversial) edition of diary extracts. A collected edition of Rowse's many letters has yet to be undertaken. Meanwhile, his posthumous academic reputation is on the rise. In books such as Tudor Cornwall and The Expansion of Elizabethan England he can be seen as a pioneer of the new British historiography that recognises the cultural differences of the constituent parts of the British Isles. Several of his best books remain in print or have been reprinted and various authors have attempted analysis of his notoriously complex personality - see Biography below. Boswell may refer to: Boswell, Indiana Boswell, Oklahoma Boswell, Pennsylvania Boswell, British Columbia Alexander Boswell (1706 â€“ 1782), judge of the Scottish supreme court. ... Horatio Walpole, 4th Earl of Orford, more commonly known as Horace Walpole, (September 24, 1717 â€“ March 2, 1797), was a politician, writer and forerunner of the Gothic revival. ...

In Media

As well as his own appearances on radio and television, Rowse has been depicted in various TV drama documentaries about British politics in the 1930s and appeasement.

Christopher William Hill's radio play Accolades, re-broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in March 2007 as a tribute to its star Ian Richardson who had died the previous month, covers the period leading up to the publication of Shakespeare the Man in 1973 and publicity surrounding Rowse's unshakeable confidence that he had discovered the identity of the Dark Lady of the Sonnets. Radio drama is a form of audio storytelling broadcast on radio. ... old Radio 4 logo BBC Radio 4 is a UK domestic radio station which broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes including news, drama, comedy, science and history. ... Ian William Richardson CBE (7 April 1934 â€“ 9 February 2007) was a Scottish actor best known for playing the Machiavellian politician Francis Urquhart in the House of Cards trilogy for the BBC. // Born in Edinburgh, Richardson was educated at Balgreen Primary School and Tynecastle High School in the city,[1...

A Cornish Childhood has also been adapted for voices (in the style of Under Milk Wood) by Judith Cook, and is available from Plumstone Productions.[1] We are not wholly bad or good, who live our lives under Milk Wood - prayer of the Rev Eli Jenkins from Under Milk Wood Statue of Dylans fictional Captain Cat, in Swanseas Maritime Quarter Under Milk Wood was originally a radio play and later a stage play and...

Selected works

This article is about the British House of Lords. ... Queen Elizabeth, or Elisabeth, may refer to: Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom, queen regnant of the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth Realms Elizabeth I of England, reigned 1558â€“1603 Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, mother of Elizabeth II Elizabeth Woodville, queen consort of Edward IV of England Elizabeth of York, daughter... John Maynard Keynes John Maynard Keynes [ˈkeɪns], 1st Baron Keynes of Tilton (June 5, 1883 - April 21, 1946) was an English economist, whose radical ideas had a major impact on modern economic and political thought. ... Sir Richard Grenville (alternately spelt Greynvile, amongst others) (June 6, 1542 - September 1591) was an Elizabethan sailor, explorer, and soldier. ... For other uses, see Cornwall (disambiguation). ... Geography Status City (1951) Region East of England Admin. ... The tone or style of this article or section may not be appropriate for Wikipedia. ... All Souls can refer to: All Souls Day All Souls College, Oxford All Souls Unitarian Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma This is a disambiguation page â€” a navigational aid which lists pages that might otherwise share the same title. ... Appeasement is a policy of accepting the imposed conditions of an aggressor in lieu of armed resistance, usually at the sacrifice of principles. ... Wikipedia does not yet have an article with this exact name. ... This article is about the English dramatist. ... Oxford is a city and local government district in Oxfordshire, England, with a population of 134,248 (2001 census). ... Lancaster York For other uses, see Wars of the Roses (disambiguation). ... For other uses, see Cornwall (disambiguation). ... For other uses, see Tower of London (disambiguation) Her Majestys Royal Palace and Fortress The Tower of London, more commonly known as the Tower of London (and historically simply as The Tower), is an historic monument in central London, England on the north bank of the River Thames. ... Shakespeare redirects here. ... This article is about the castle in Windsor. ... Oxford is a city and local government district in Oxfordshire, England, with a population of 134,248 (2001 census). ... Jonathan Swift Jonathan Swift (November 30, 1667 â€“ October 19, 1745) was an Irish cleric, satirist, essayist, political pamphleteer (first for Whigs then for Tories), and poet, famous for works like Gullivers Travels, A Modest Proposal, A Journal to Stella, The Drapiers Letters, The Battle of the Books, and... Matthew Arnold Caricature from Punch, 1881: Admit that Homer sometimes nods, That poets do write trash, Our Bard has written Balder Dead, And also Balder-dash Family tree Matthew Arnold (24 December 1822 â€“ 15 April 1888) was an English poet and cultural critic, who worked as an inspector of schools. ... Shakespeare redirects here. ... // Milton may refer to: People with the surname Milton: John Milton (1608â€“1674), English poet Milton (surname), other people with that surname People with the given name Milton: Milton (given name) In Australia: Milton, New South Wales Milton, Queensland Milton railway station, Brisbane In Canada: Milton, Ontario Milton (GO Station... For the record label, see Puritan Records. ... For other uses, see Cornwall (disambiguation). ... For the record label, see Puritan Records. ... Christopher Isherwood and W.H. Auden, photographed by Carl Van Vechten, 1939 Wystan Hugh Auden (February 21, 1907–September 29, 1973) was an English poet. ... The following three are brothers. ... Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (November 21, 1863 - May 12, 1944) was a British writer, who published under the pen name of Q. Born in Cornwall, he was educated at Newton Abbot College, at Clifton College, and Trinity College, Oxford and later became a lecturer there. ... For other uses, see Cornwall (disambiguation). ... Colenso is a town in KwaZulu-Natal Province, South Africa. ... Shakespeare redirects here. ... All Souls can refer to: All Souls Day All Souls College, Oxford All Souls Unitarian Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma This is a disambiguation page â€” a navigational aid which lists pages that might otherwise share the same title. ... The broad definition of Regicide is the deliberate killing of a king. ... For the record label, see Puritan Records. ... Shakespeare redirects here. ... For other uses, see Cornwall (disambiguation). ...

Bibliography/Biography

Categories: 1903 births | 1997 deaths | British historians | Gay writers | British poets | British biographers | Alumni of Christ Church, Oxford | Fellows of All Souls College, Oxford | Members of the Order of the Companions of Honour | Academics of the London School of Economics | Fellows of the British Academy | Cornish poets | Cornish writers | Bards of the Cornish Gorseth | People from St Austell | Fellows of the Royal Historical Society | Shakespeare academia Richard Ollard (1923â€“ ) is a British historian and biographer. ... Richard Ollard (1923â€“ ) is a British historian and biographer. ... Philip John Payton is professor of Cornish and Australian Studies at the University of Exeter and Director of the Institute of Cornish Studies. ...

Contents

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