John Cowper Powys and the Afterlife of Romanticism - by Kim Wheatley (Hardcover)

About the Book

"This study interprets the British modernist-era novelist Powys as an under-recognized contributor to the cultural transmission of Romanticism. It shows how Powys uniquely combines sense-based nature-worship, the leveling of animate and inanimate, and care for disabled human beings, along with mystical and magical themes, into an ecological vision more capacious than any imagined by the Romantics themselves. The author argues that Powys anticipates and interrogates recent revisionary approaches to the Romantics, particularly eco-critical, thus demanding a fresh kind of environmentalist criticism open to the transcendental and the supernatural"--

Book Synopsis

This study bridges the chronological divide between the Romantic era and the first six decades of the 20th century, interpreting John Cowper Powys (1872-1963) as a major, under-recognized contributor to the cultural transmission of Romanticism.

Kim Wheatley's John Cowper Powys and the Afterlife of Romanticism uncovers the surprising extent to which this multi-faceted Modernist-era author reworked key concerns of the Romantic poets. Wheatley shows how Powys's prose rewritings of Romantic poetry contribute to the story of the posthumous life of Romanticism, especially its environmental legacy. In particular, the book expands our understanding of the early 20th-century reception of William Wordsworth and John Keats.

Wheatley argues that Powys anticipates and presciently interrogates recent revisionary critical approaches to the Romantics, primarily materialist eco-critical approaches, and therefore invites a fresh environmentalist criticism open to the transcendental and the supernatural. Chapters range across Powys's extensive oeuvre, investigating his treatment of Wordsworth and Keats in his works of fiction, autobiographical writings, popular philosophical books, and essays of literary appreciation, including his Autobiography (1934), his four major Wessex novels - Wolf Solent (1929), A Glastonbury Romance (1932), Weymouth Sands (1934), and Maiden Castle (1936) - and his later Welsh historical novels Owen Glendower (1941) and Porius (1951). Wheatley demonstrates how Powys uniquely combines sense-based nature-worship, the leveling of animate and inanimate, and care for disabled human beings, along with mystical and magical themes, into an all-encompassing ecological vision more capacious than any imagined by the Romantics themselves.

Review Quotes

Born in 1872, John Cowper Powys belonged to the generation of Modernism-and his admiration for James Joyce and, notably, Dorothy M. Richardson displays his sensitivity to Modernism's modes of aspiration. Allthough his first major novel, Wolf Solent (1929) was at once compared to Ulysses, Powys has seldom been ranked alongside his eminent contemporaries. When not simply ignored, he has been treated as an an anomaly, even an anachronism, or plain 'old-fashioned'. Yet while Powys certainly recorded his pleasure in reading Sir Walter Scott, it is not as a belated 'Romantic novelist' that he is to be appreciated. Rather, through a dedicated reading, attentive to echoes in the text not often heard before, Kim Wheatley traces Powys's debts to the Romantic poets-in particular, Wordsworth and Keats-and argues that Powys's novels do not merely offer majestic and mystical evocations of the British landscape: they revitalise the poetic inheritance of Romanticism in novelistic form. This is a serious, sophisticated and substantial intervention in the long-deferred making of the reputation of John Cowper Powys.
Charles Lock, Professor of English Literature, University of Copenhagen, Denmark, and former Editor of the Powys Journal

Kim Wheatley's book impressively demonstrates that John Cowper Powys, a great modernist maverick novelist and essayist, typifies essential ties between 20th-century writing and Romanticism. Those ties, she shows, are of compelling interest not only to historians of Powys's place in literary tradition but also to the appeal Powys currently holds for critics in the fields of disability studies and eco-studies.
Robert L. Caserio, Professor Emeritus of English, The Pennsylvania State University, USA

This is an exceptional, beautifully written work. Admirers of the novels of John Cowper Powys have always appreciated their intellectual and artistic indebtedness to Keats and especially Wordsworth. Wheatley lays all this out in commanding fashion. I have been reading Powys for sixty years but will now be returning to his prodigious oeuvre with renewed enthusiasm, quickened by her invigorating analysis and insights.
David Goodway, Founding Member and Vice-Chair of the Powys Society

"Kim Wheatley's book impressively demonstrates that John Cowper Powys, a great modernist maverick novelist and essayist, typifies essential ties between 20th-century writing and Romanticism. Those ties, she shows, are of compelling interest not only to historians of Powys's place in literary tradition but also to the appeal Powys currently holds for critics in the fields of disability studies and eco-studies." --Robert L. Caserio, Professor Emeritus of English, The Pennsylvania State University, USA

"This is an exceptional, beautifully written work. Admirers of the novels of John Cowper Powys have always appreciated their intellectual and artistic indebtedness to Keats and especially Wordsworth. Wheatley lays all this out in commanding fashion. I have been reading Powys for sixty years but will now be returning to his prodigious oeuvre with renewed enthusiasm, quickened by her invigorating analysis and insights." --David Goodway, Founding Member and Vice-Chair of the Powys Society

"Born in 1872, John Cowper Powys belonged to the generation of Modernism-and his admiration for James Joyce and, notably, Dorothy M. Richardson displays his sensitivity to Modernism's modes of aspiration. Allthough his first major novel, Wolf Solent (1929) was at once compared to Ulysses, Powys has seldom been ranked alongside his eminent contemporaries. When not simply ignored, he has been treated as an an anomaly, even an anachronism, or plain 'old-fashioned'. Yet while Powys certainly recorded his pleasure in reading Sir Walter Scott, it is not as a belated 'Romantic novelist' that he is to be appreciated. Rather, through a dedicated reading, attentive to echoes in the text not often heard before, Kim Wheatley traces Powys's debts to the Romantic poets-in particular, Wordsworth and Keats-and argues that Powys's novels do not merely offer majestic and mystical evocations of the British landscape: they revitalise the poetic inheritance of Romanticism in novelistic form. This is a serious, sophisticated and substantial intervention in the long-deferred making of the reputation of John Cowper Powys." --Charles Lock, Professor of English Literature, University of Copenhagen, Denmark, and former Editor of the Powys Journal

About the Author

Kim Wheatley is Professor of English at William & Mary, USA, specializing in British Romanticism. Her previous books include Shelley and His Readers (1999) and Romantic Feuds (2013).