T. F. Powys
Theodore Francis Powys (T. F. Powys) was a notable British author, recognized as one of the Powys brothers who made significant contributions to literature in the early to mid-twentieth century. While he is less famous than his brother John Cowper, T. F. Powys excelled in crafting novels that melded narrative talent with mystical insight. His literary work emerged after years of silent practice, with his first volume of fiction published when he was forty-seven. Powys's writing is characterized by an exploration of the internal struggles of humanity, often reflecting allegorical qualities in his characters, who embody themes of good and evil.
He was part of a literary movement that embraced the influences of nature and animistic forces, yet he distinguished himself by focusing on the spiritual complexities within human nature rather than external supernatural entities. His narratives often delve into uncomfortable themes, including morality and the darker aspects of existence, aligning with modernist literary preoccupations. His philosophical essays laid the groundwork for the ideas expressed in his fiction, while his personal life, marked by a troubled marriage and the tragic loss of his son, may have informed his literary themes. T. F. Powys spent the majority of his life in Dorset and was part of a vibrant community of writers before passing away in 1953.
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T. F. Powys
English novelist
- Born: December 20, 1875
- Birthplace: Shirley, Derbyshire, England
- Died: November 27, 1953
- Place of death: Sturminster Newton, England
Biography
Of the three Powys (POH-uhs) brothers distinguished in literature—John Cowper, Theodore Francis, and Llewelyn—the second, though not the most famous, was the one who wrote most successfully within the conventions of the mid-twentieth century novelistic form. T. F. Powys may be numbered among those writers to whose narrative talent is added a mystical insight. He had reached the age of forty-seven before his first volume of fiction appeared, but he had practiced his craft in silence for many years. He may be grouped with such writers as Violet Paget, Lord Dunsany, Algernon Blackwood, Kenneth Grahame, and Arthur Machen, all of whom drew inspiration from the hypothesis that nature is tenanted by animistic forces. The Edwardian decade and after was a great period of haunted literature, as much an age of tales about fauns, banshees, and goblins as it was of social-protest novels and comic-opera romances. This was the period when Powys began to write.
Unlike those of his contemporaries who, in the tradition of Celtic folklore, contrasted the normal human world with a realm of supernatural creatures, Powys depicted an inward haunting, the presence of the cosmic powers of good and evil in humankind. His human characters are almost incarnations, and hence they often have an allegorical quality: In Unclay the central figure, John Death, is Death; in Mr. Weston’s Good Wine Mr. Weston is God. However, Powys always emphasized human traits; his personages seem as homely and local as the rustic Dorset villages through which they move.
Powys’s technique arose from his acute perception of nature’s unseen powers. It would be misleading to speak of “possession” or of “immanent spirits” or to regard him as an ordinary pantheist. Such terms imply a dualism in which the material and the spiritual, however intermingled, remain distinguishable. Powys conceived rather a complete, monistic identification of all nature, human and external, with the passionate intelligence of a creator responsible alike for beauty and for pain. Powys’s insistence on the truth of matter explains the occasional elements of horror, and even of foulness, in his stories.
Powys’s interest in the uncanny and the supernatural is never doctrinaire. Though not a believing Christian in his adult life, Powys in Mr. Weston’s Good Wine recognizes the human need for transcendence while at the same time postulating that, if human beings were actually to meet God, they would be more intoxicated than illuminated, more drunk with the power of God to heal pain than actually redeemed by his mercy. The brute materialism evinced by the title character in Mr. Tasker’s Gods is mocked by the novel, yet no clear alternative is given. Black Bryony is interesting because of its strong portrait of a woman character, a Salvation Army preacher who is confronted by unexpected evil. This theme, of the irresoluble conflict between the morality to which humans aspire and the evil to which they too often succumb, is a hallmark of Powys’s work.
Powys’s interest in evil fit into modernist preoccupations, and his concise and parabolic style was more pleasing to the critical consensus fostered by academics such as F. R. Leavis than were the long, sprawling narratives of John Cowper Powys. Eventually, though, John Cowper was considered to be the most significant of the Powys brothers.
Powys’s philosophical essays, An Interpretation of Genesis and The Soliloquy of a Hermit, set forth the ideas that later became visible in his fiction. Powys married Violet Dodds in 1905; his wife was eleven years his junior. The marriage, which was not untroubled, produced a son, Bertie, who was tragically murdered by tribesmen in Africa. Powys and his wife later adopted a daughter, Susan. T. F. Powys lived most of his life in Dorset, where he became friends with a community of writers that included David Garnett and Sylvia Townsend Warner. He died on November 27, 1953.
Bibliography
Buning, Marius. T. F. Powys: A Modern Allegorist: The Companion Novels “Mr. Weston’s Good Wine” and “Unclay,” in the Light of Modern Allegorical Theory. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1986. Discusses allegory in Powys’s work.
Coombes, H. T. F. Powys. London: Barrie and Rockliff, 1960. A biography.
Gibbings, Robert. “Llewelyn and Theodore.” Matrix 6 (1986): 1-5. Describes Powys’s relationship with his brother Llewelyn.
Graves, Richard Percival. The Brothers Powys. New York: Scribner, 1983. A group biography of John Cowper, T. F., and Llewelyn Powys.
Hunter, William. The Novels and Stories of T. F. Powys. Folcroft, Pa.: Folcroft Library Editions, 1977. A thorough study.