Christopher Brennan

Christopher Brennan ( born November 1, 1870 in Sydney, † October 5, 1932 ) was an Australian poet.

Life

Christopher Brennan was born the son of a brewer and educated in Catholic schools. When he enrolled in the University of Sydney in 1888, he gave up his faith and instead studied the classics. He won a scholarship in Berlin, where he met his future wife and the poetry of Stéphane Mallarmé. Around this time, he decided to become a poet. On his return to Australia, he took a job as a librarian in the public library before he obtained a post in the University of Sydney. In 1914 he wrote his magnum opus Poems: 1913 Later in the 20s he had an affair with Violet Singer who appeared in his later poems as Vie. . Due to his divorce and the increasing alcoholism, he was dismissed from the university. Vies accidental death left him to despair, and he spent the rest of his life in poverty.

Brennan died in 1932 after he was diagnosed with cancer and returned to the faith of his childhood.

Artistic creation

Brennan was not really a lyric poet, and should it not also be criticized. His work was not driven by emotions, but it was the best architectural and mythological resonance. His main work should be read as a whole as a single poem, although it was not assembled in smaller parts. It includes not only the basic details of his life as the mourning for his wife ( in the first sections ), but also human depth through mythology ( in the central Lilith Passage and in the Walker sequence). As such, it is one of the most intensively discussed works of Australian poetry, considering the prominence of the criticism of the work and Brennan.

Brennan can not be clearly assigned to a group. He is neither Balladist still a member of the emerging " vision " school. The next he is the generation of the 1890s such as Victor Daley. This is not surprising since he produced during this period most of the lyrics. Its importance in the Australian literature is based on the seriousness with which he approached his task as a poet, and his influence on some later poets such as Vincent Buckley. Therefore Brennan is considered the greatest poet of Australia.

Works

  • XXI Poems: MDCCCXCIII - MDCCCXCVII. Towards the source, 1897
  • Poems: 1913, 1914
  • A chant of doom: and other verses, 1918
  • The verse of Christopher Brennan ed by AR Chisholm and JJ Quinn, 1960
  • The prose of Christopher Brennan ed by AR Chisholm and JJ Quinn, 1962
  • Christopher Brennan ed by Terry Sturm, 1984
History of the term "Catholic" Lyric poetry Architecture Australian Dictionary of Biography Integrated Authority File
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