Richard Aldington

Richard Aldington - Quick Facts

Profile Overview of Richard Aldington

Richard Aldington (born Edward Godfree Aldington; 8 July 1892 – 27 July 1962) was an English writer and poet. He was an early associate of the Imagist movement. His 50-year writing career produced "143 separate titles, including poetry, literary criticism, fiction, essays, anthologies, biographies, translations, and introductions. Also, he published reviews of over 1,350 separate books, published hundreds of other articles, and wrote an immense quantity of letters, of which approximately 8,000 have been located since his death." He edited The Egoist, a literary journal, and wrote for The Times Literary Supplement, Vogue, The Criterion, and Poetry. His biography, Wellington (1946), won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize.

This profile of Richard Aldington covers Early Life and Family Background, Career and Rise to Fame, World War I and aftermath, Exile and Death and Legacy.

Aldington was married to the poet Hilda Doolittle, known by her initials H.D., from 1913 to 1938. His acquaintances included writers T. S. Eliot, D. H. Lawrence, Ezra Pound, W. B. Yeats, Lawrence Durrell, C. P. Snow, and others. He championed H.D. As the major poetic voice of the Imagist movement and helped her work gain international notice.

Early Life and Family Background of Richard Aldington

Edward Godfree (known from an early age as "Richard") Aldington was born in Portsmouth, on 8 July 1892, the eldest of four children of Albert Edward Aldington (1864–1921) and Jessie May (1872–1954), née Godfree. His father failed to establish himself as a solicitor, going into business as a bookseller and stationer on Portsmouth High Street, later a solicitor's clerk and amateur author; his mother was a novelist (as "Mrs A. E. Aldington") and keeper of the Mermaid Inn at Rye. Both his parents wrote and published books, and their home held a large library of European and classical literature. In addition to reading, Aldington's interests at this time, all of which continued in later life, included butterfly collecting, hiking, and learning languages – he went on to master French, Italian, Latin, and ancient Greek. He was educated at Mr. Sweetman's Seminary for Young Gentlemen, St Margaret's Bay, near Dover. His father died of heart problems at age 56.

Aldington attended Dover College, followed by the University of London. He was unable to complete his degree because of the financial circumstances of his family caused by his father's failed speculations and ensuing debt. Supported by a small allowance from his parents, he worked as a sports journalist, started publishing poetry in British journals, and gravitated towards literary circles that included poets William Butler Yeats and Walter de la Mare.

In 1911, Aldington met society hostess Brigit Patmore, with whom he had a passing affair. At the time he was described as "tall and broad-shouldered, with a fine forehead, thick longish hair of the indefinite colour blond hair turns to in adolescence, bright blue eyes, too small a nose, and a determined mouth." Through her he met American poets Ezra Pound and H.D., who had previously been engaged to each other. Doolittle and Aldington grew closer and in 1913 travelled together extensively through Italy and France, just before the war. On their return to London in the summer they moved into separate flats in Churchwalk, Kensington, in West London. Doolittle lived at No. 6, Aldington at No. 8, and Pound at No. 10. In the presence of Pound and the Doolittle family, over from the United States for the summer, the couple married. They moved to 5 Holland Place Chambers into a flat of their own, although Pound soon moved in across the hall.

The poets were caught up in the literary ferment before the war, where new politics and ideas were passionately discussed and created in Soho tearooms and society salons. The couple bonded over their visions of new forms of poetry, feminism, and philosophy emerging from the wake of staid Victorian mores. The couple felt a sense of peership, rejecting hierarchies and beginning to view Pound as an intruder and interloper rather than a literary igniter.

The couple met American poet Amy Lowell, and she introduced them to D. H. Lawrence in 1914, who would become a close friend and mentor to both.

Career and Rise to Fame of Richard Aldington

Aldington's poetry was associated with the Imagist group, championing minimalist free verse with stark images, seeking to banish Victorian moralism. The group was key in the emerging Modernist movement. Ezra Pound coined the term imagistes for H.D. And Aldington (1912). Aldington's poetry forms almost one third of the Imagists' inaugural anthology Des Imagistes (1914). The movement was heavily inspired by Japanese and classical European art. Aldington shared T. E. Hulme's conviction that experimentation with traditional Japanese verse forms could provide a way forward for avant-garde literature in English.

Pound sent three of Aldington's poems to Harriet Monroe's magazine Poetry and they appeared in November 1912. She notes "Mr Richard Aldington is a young English poet, one of the "Imagistes", a group of ardent Hellenists who are pursuing interesting experiments in vers libre."She considered the poem "Choricos" to be his finest work, "one of the most beautiful death songs in the language", "a poem of studied and affected gravity".

H.D. Became pregnant in August 1914, and in 1915 Aldington and H.D. Moved from their home in Holland Park near Ezra Pound to Hampstead close to D. H. Lawrence and Frieda. They felt calmer out of the bustle of the city, with more space and green. The pregnancy ended in a stillborn daughter, which traumatised the couple and put a great strain on the relationship; H.D. Was 28 and Aldington 22. The outbreak of war in 1914 deeply disturbed Aldington, though no draft was in place at this time. H.D. Felt more distant from the melee, not having a close affinity to the European landscape, geographical or political. This rift also put pressure on the marriage. Unhappy, Aldington dreamed of escape to America and began to have affairs. He began a relationship with Florence Fallas, who had also lost a child.

Between 1914 and 1916 Aldington was literary editor and a columnist at The Egoist. He was assistant editor with Leonard Compton-Rickett under Dora Marsden. Aldington knew Wyndham Lewis well and reviewed his work in The Egoist. He was also an associate of Ford Madox Ford's, helping him with a propaganda volume for a government commission in 1914 and taking dictation for The Good Soldier.

Source: adapted from Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Aldington), text available under CC BY-SA 4.0.