scispace - formally typeset
Search or ask a question
Journal ArticleDOI

Aldous Huxley: A Biography, Volume One: 1894-1939

23 Jan 1974-Novel: A Forum on Fiction-Vol. 8, Iss: 1, pp 80
About: This article is published in Novel: A Forum on Fiction.The article was published on 1974-01-23. It has received 3 citations till now.
Citations
More filters
01 Jan 2014
TL;DR: Katherine Mansfield among the Moderns as discussed by the authors examines Mansfield's relationship with three fellow writers: Virginia Woolf, D.H. Lawrence, and Aldous Huxley, and appraises her impact on their writing.
Abstract: OF DISSERTATION KATHERINE MANSFIELD AMONG THE MODERNS: HER IMPACT ON VIRGINIA WOOLF, D.H. LAWRENCE AND ALDOUS HUXLEY Katherine Mansfield among the Moderns examines Katherine Mansfield’s relationship with three fellow writers: Virginia Woolf, D. H. Lawrence, and Aldous Huxley, and appraises her impact on their writing. Drawing on the literary and the personal relationships between the aforementioned, and on letters, diaries, and journals, this project traces Mansfield’s interactions with her contemporaries, providing a richer and more dynamic portrait of Mansfield’s place within modernism than usually recognized. Hitherto, critical work has not scrutinized Mansfield in the manner I suggest: attending to representations of her as a character in other’s work, while analyzing the degree to which her influence on the aforementioned authors affected their writing and success. Albeit, her influence extends in vastly different ways, and is affected by gender and nationality. While Woolf’s early foray into Modernism is accelerated by Mansfield’s criticism of her work, several of Woolf’s texts – “Kew Gardens,” Jacob’s Room, and Mrs. Dalloway – are similar in certain respects to Mansfield’s work – “Bliss” and “The Garden Party.” A repudiation of Mansfield, personally, and a retelling of her work are seen in Lawrence’s The Lost Girl and Women in Love. Huxley’s Those Barren Leaves and Point Counter Point, contain characterizations of Mansfield that undermine her writing, and her person: both are affected by the mythical misrepresentation of Mansfield, created by Murry after her death, known as the “Cult of Mansfield.” Using Life Writing, this study asserts that Mansfield had impact on the writing of Woolf, Lawrence, and Huxley. Taking into account the many issues that surround the recognition of this, among them: gender politics, colonialism, marginality by genre, and personal relations – these all, to varying degrees, prevented critics from acknowledging that a minor modernist author played a role in the undisputed success of three major authors of the twentieth century.

19 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Huxley's use of color and light can be traced back to the early 1920s, when he converted to the faith of the pure light of the void as mentioned in this paper, which is the most profound experience of the human mind.
Abstract: Unlike modern British writers such as T. S. Eliot and Evelyn, Waugh, Aldous Huxley did not convert to a specific religious community indigenous to Western culture; however, his entire life embraced a consciousness-expanding search for ultimate reality revealed to him through the mystical qualities of color and light. Like Eliot and Waugh, Huxley found himself regarded by many critics as unfaithful to his earlier writing after his conversion to a spiritual faith. Huxley's friend Christopher Isherwood states that Huxley's developing beliefs were "widely represented as the selling-out of a once-brilliant intellect" (Clark 303), and Donald Watt concurs that "in the minds of a majority of critics Huxley was fixed as an entertaining recorder of the frenetic 1920s who later recoiled into an aesthetically suicidal mysticism" (AH 31).(1) More recent critics still tend to divide Huxley's canon into two halves in which Eyeless in Gaza (1936) is sometimes referred to as his "conversion" novel (Bowering 114, Watt AH 19). Although the assumption has been weakening, what many critics mistakenly took to be an abrupt change of direction and attitude in Huxley's writing actually represents a continuation of his search for theological idealism. The writer's steps on the pathway to spiritual reality can be charted -- from his first book of poetry in 1916 to his last novel in 1962 -- through his distinctive use of the imagery of color and light. By 1936 Huxley had already started his troubled spiritual journey from despair toward mystical union with the "pure light of the void." Despite elements of wishful thinking and open doubt in Huxley's life and work, his conscious commitment to the struggle to believe in the Divine Light can be traced as early as 1922 in his first novel, Crome Yellow. Confirmation of Huxley's intentional use of color is summarized in his "Natural History of Visions," a 1959 lecture posing the question, "Why are precious stones precious?" (Human 216). These brightly colored pebbles, says Huxley, are not beautifully harmonized like a work of art or a piece of music; they are single objects which the human mind responds to in an unaccountable way. He states that one reason for our interest can be found in the Phaedo where Socrates speaks about the ideal world of which our world is in a sense a rather bad copy. Socrates says: "In this other earth the colors are much purer and more brilliant than they are down here. The mountains and stones have a richer gloss, a livelier transparency and intensity of hue" (217). Plato writes not merely about a metaphysical idea but also about another inner world which has landscape and beautiful regions of memory, fantasy, imagination, dreams, and-most remote -- "the world of visions" (218). Huxley explains the importance of light and color in this world of visions: This experience of the pure light of the void is a visionary experience of what may be called the highest, the most mystical kind. On a rather lower level the lights seem to be broken up and become, so to speak, incorporated in different objects and persons and figures. It is as though this tremendous white light were somehow refracted through a prism and broken up into different coloured lights. In this lower form of vision we have the intensification of light in some way associated with the story-telling faculty, so that there are visions of great complexity and elaboration in which light plays a tremendous part, but it is not the pure white light of the great theophanies. (228-29) Huxley deduces, therefore, that precious stones are precious because they are objects in the external world -- along with fire, stained glass, fireworks, pageantry, theatrical spectacle, Christmas-tree lights, rainbows, and sunlight -- which most nearly resemble the things that people see in the visionary world (232-35). …

9 citations

23 May 2018
TL;DR: Pappas as discussed by the authors explores the history of psychedelics and entheogens, considers the causes behind the prohibition of their research, and outlines their reintroduction into current scientific research, highlighting what is at stake when politics and misinformation suppresses scientific research.
Abstract: approved:_____________________________________________________ Robin Pappas Psychedelics and entheogens began as religious sacraments. They were apotheosized for their mind-expanding powers and were thought to open realms to the world of the Gods. It was not until the first psychedelic compound was discovered in a laboratory setting a mere hundred years ago that they entered into formal scientific study. Although they were initially well-received in academic and professional circles, research into their potential was interrupted when they were made illegal. Only recently have scientists renewed the investigation of psychedelic substances, in the hope of demonstrating their potential in understanding and healing the human mind. This thesis will explore the history of psychedelics and entheogens, consider the causes behind the prohibition of their research, and outline their reintroduction into current scientific research. Psychedelic compounds have proven to be magnifiers of the mind and, under appropriate circumstances, can act as medicaments in both therapeutic and non-medical contexts. By exploring the journey of psychedelic substances from sacraments, to therapeutic aids, to dangerous drugs, and back again, this thesis will highlight what is at stake when politics and misinformation suppresses scientific research.

2 citations