Richard Aldington facts for kids

Richard Aldington (born Edward Godfree Aldington on 8 July 1892 – died 27 July 1962) was an English writer and poet. He was an important part of the early Imagist movement in poetry. He was married to the poet Hilda Doolittle, also known as H. D., from 1911 to 1938.

Aldington had a writing career that lasted 50 years. He wrote poetry, novels, literary reviews, and biographies. He was the editor of a literary magazine called The Egoist. He also wrote for other well-known publications like The Times Literary Supplement and Vogue. His book about Wellington (published in 1946) won him the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, a special award for books. He knew many famous writers, including T. S. Eliot, D. H. Lawrence, and Ezra Pound. He greatly supported Hilda Doolittle, helping her poetry become known around the world.

Early Life and Education

Richard Aldington was born in Portsmouth, England. He was the oldest of four children. His father was a lawyer. Both of his parents enjoyed writing and publishing books. Their home had a large library filled with books from Europe and ancient times.

Even as a young boy, Aldington loved collecting butterflies, going on hikes, and learning new languages. These hobbies stayed with him throughout his life. He became very good at French, Italian, Latin, and ancient Greek. He went to school at Mr. Sweetman's Seminary and then Dover College. He later attended the University of London. However, he could not finish his degree because his family faced money problems after his father's business difficulties.

With a small amount of money from his parents, Aldington worked as a sports journalist. He also started publishing his poems in British magazines. He soon became part of literary groups where he met poets like William Butler Yeats.

Joining the Imagist Movement

In 1911, Aldington met Ezra Pound and Hilda Doolittle, who were both American poets. Doolittle and Aldington became close friends. In 1913, they traveled together through Italy and France. When they returned to London, they lived in separate apartments near each other. Aldington and Doolittle got married in 1913.

The poets were excited by new ideas and ways of thinking before World War I. They often met in London to discuss new forms of poetry, ideas about women's rights, and philosophy. They felt they were equal partners in their creative work.

In 1914, the couple met the American poet Amy Lowell. She introduced them to writer D. H. Lawrence, who became a close friend and guide to both of them.

Aldington's poetry was connected to the Imagist group. This group believed in writing poetry with simple, clear language and strong images. They wanted to move away from older, more traditional styles of poetry. This group was very important in starting the Modernist movement in literature. Ezra Pound first used the term imagistes for H. D. and Aldington in 1912. Aldington's poems made up almost one-third of the first Imagist poetry collection, Des Imagistes, published in 1914.

In 1912, three of Aldington's poems were published in Poetry magazine. The editor noted that he was a young English poet and part of the "Imagistes," who were doing interesting experiments with free verse poetry.

World War I and Its Impact

World War I began in 1914. The war deeply affected Aldington. In 1916, he joined the army and was sent for training. He found army life very difficult. He felt different from the other soldiers because he was more interested in books and ideas than in hard physical work. He had little time to write.

When Aldington was sent to the front lines in December 1916, he and H.D. could only communicate through letters. He wrote that he tried to keep his mind on literature by writing poems and essays, even while digging graves. He found life as a soldier harsh, dealing with lice, cold, mud, and poor hygiene. He was exposed to gas on the front, which affected his health for the rest of his life.

Aldington became an officer in the Royal Sussex Regiment in 1917. He finished the war as a signals officer in 1919. He may never have fully recovered from the war. His poetry collections Images of War and Images of Desire (both from 1919) showed a new sadness. He felt discouraged about his own talent as a poet after the war. His collection Exile and Other Poems (1923) also explored the pain of his experiences. He later wrote a collection of war stories called Roads to Glory in 1930. After this, he became known more as a literary critic and a writer of biographies.

After the war, H.D. and Aldington formally separated, but they did not divorce until 1938. They remained friends for the rest of their lives.

Aldington helped other writers, too. He introduced T. S. Eliot to the editor of The Times Literary Supplement. Aldington was also on the editorial board of a London literary magazine called Coterie.

Later Life and Works

In 1928, Richard Aldington moved to Paris and lived there for several years. He married his second wife, Netta, in 1938.

His novel Death of a Hero (1929) was a semi-autobiographical story about the war. Aldington called it a "jazz novel." He started writing it almost immediately after the war ended. The book criticized the old-fashioned ideas of the Victorian era, seeing them as a cause of the war's tragedy. It was praised by many, including writer Lawrence Durrell, who called it "the best war novel of the epoch." The book was very popular, selling over 10,000 copies in England alone by Christmas of 1929. It was quickly translated into other languages.

Death of a Hero faced censorship, meaning some parts were changed or removed. Instead of cutting parts of his novel, Aldington replaced some words with asterisks to show that they had been censored.

In 1942, Aldington moved to the United States with his wife, Netta. He began writing biographies, starting with a book about Wellington (1943). He also wrote biographies of D. H. Lawrence (1950), Robert Louis Stevenson (1957), and T. E. Lawrence (1955). He also worked as a screenwriter in Hollywood to earn money.

Aldington's biography of T. E. Lawrence, published in 1955, caused a lot of discussion. In this book, he was the first to publicly mention some personal details about Lawrence's life. This biography greatly changed how people viewed Lawrence.

Last Years and Legacy

From 1958, Aldington lived in Sury-en-Vaux, France. His last important book was a biography of the French poet Frédéric Mistral (1956).

Richard Aldington died in Sury on 27 July 1962. He was honored in Moscow shortly before his death. He is buried in the local cemetery in Sury. He had one daughter, Catherine, from his second marriage.

On 11 November 1985, Aldington was one of 16 poets from World War I honored with a stone in Westminster Abbey's Poet's Corner. The inscription on the stone is a quote from another war poet, Wilfred Owen. It says: "My subject is War, and the pity of War. The Poetry is in the pity."

Writing Style

Some people described Aldington as having been made bitter by the war. However, they felt he used this feeling in his novels, like The Colonel's Daughter (1931), rather than letting it ruin his life. His novels sometimes included characters that were based on his friends, like Eliot, Lawrence, and Pound. These portrayals did not always help his friendships.

When Aldington died in 1962, The Times newspaper in London described him as "an angry young man of the generation before they became fashionable ... who remained something of an angry old man to the end."

Works by Richard Aldington

• Images (1910–1915) (1915) – Poetry
• Images Old and New (1916) – Poetry
• Images of Desire (1919) – Poetry
• Images of War, A Book of Poems (1919) – Poetry
• War and Love: Poems 1915–1918 (1919) – Poetry
• Exile and Other Poems (1923) – Poetry
• Literary Studies and Reviews (1924) – Essays
• Voltaire (1925) – Biography
• Collected Poems (1928) – Poetry
• Death of a Hero: A Novel (1929) – Novel
• Roads to Glory (1930) – Stories
• The Colonel's Daughter: A Novel (1931) – Novel
• Stepping Heavenward: A Record (1931) – Satire
• All Men Are Enemies: A Romance (1933) – Novel
• Women Must Work: A Novel (1934) – Novel
• Life for Life's Sake: A Book of Reminiscences (1941) – Memoirs
• The Duke: Being an account of the life & achievements of Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington (1943) – Biography
• Portrait of a Genius, But . . . (The Life of D.H. Lawrence, 1885–1930) (1950) – Biography
• Lawrence of Arabia: A Biographical Enquiry (1955) – Biography
• Introduction to Mistral (1956) – Biography of Frédéric Mistral
• Portrait of a Rebel: The Life and Work of Robert Louis Stevenson (1957) – Biography

See also

In Spanish: Richard Aldington para niños