Roy Campbell Letter
Autograph card signed from Campbell to "My dear Marshall" promising to write soon. A photograph of Campbell is on the reverse side. 1 page.
Dates
- Creation: undated
Creator
- Campbell, Roy, 1901-1957 (Person)
Conditions Governing Access
Open
Conditions Governing Use
Users of the collection must read and agree to abide by the rules and procedures set forth in the Materials Use Policies.
Providing access to materials does not constitute permission to publish or otherwise authorize use. All publication not covered by fair use or other exceptions is restricted to those who have permission of the copyright holder, which may or may not be Washington University.
If you wish to publish or license Special Collections materials, please contact Special Collections to inquire about copyright status at (314) 935-5495 or spec@wumail.wustl.edu. (Publish means quotation in whole or in part in seminar or term papers, theses or dissertations, journal articles, monographs, books, digital forms, photographs, images, dramatic presentations, transcriptions, or any other form prepared for a limited or general public.)
Extent
1.00 items
1 folders
Biographical Information
Ignatius Royston Dunnachie Campbell, better known as Roy Campbell, (October 2, 1901 –April 22, 1957) was an Anglo-African poet and satirist. He was considered by T. S. Eliot, Dylan Thomas and Edith Sitwell to have been one of the best poets of the period between World War I and II. Campbell's vocal attacks upon the Marxism and Freudianism popular among the British intelligentsia caused him to be a controversial figure during his own lifetime.
While living in a small converted stable on the coast of North Wales, Campbell completed his first long poem, The Flaming Terrapin, a humanistic allegory of the rejuvenation of man projected in episodes. The Flaming Terrapin had established his reputation as a rising star. Returning to South Africa in 1925, he started Voorslag, a literary magazine with the ambition to serve as a "whiplash" (the meaning of the Afrikaans word voorslag) on South African colonial society, which he considered backwards and inbred. Campbell lasted as the magazine's editor for three issues but then resigned because of interference from the magazine's proprietor, Lewis Reynolds.
Campbell's conversion to Catholicism inspired him to write what some consider being the finest spiritual verse of his generation. Campbell's translations of the Catholic mystical poetry by St. John of the Cross were lavishly praised by Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges, who considered them, in some ways, superior to the original Spanish. Campbell also wrote travel guides and children's literature. He began translating poetry from languages such as Spanish, Portuguese, and French. Among the poets he translated were Francisco de Quevedo, Fernando Pessoa, Manuel Bandeira and Ruben Dario. Some of Campbell's translations of the symbolist verse of Charles Baudelaire and Arthur Rimbaud have appeared in modern anthologies.
Roy Campbell died in a car accident near Setúbal, Portugal, on Easter Monday, 1957 when a car driven by his wife hit a tree. At the time of his death, he was working upon translations of 16th and 17th century Spanish plays. Although only the rough drafts were completed, Campbell's work was posthumously edited for publication by Eric Bentley.
Method of Acquisition
Originally laid in Collected Poems by Roy Campbell. PR6005 A418 A6 1949 v.1 Accession number 1049. Purchase, May 29, 1969
Processing Information
Processed June 1969.
Creator
- Campbell, Roy, 1901-1957 (Person)
- Title
- Roy Campbell Letter
- Description rules
- dacs
- Language of description
- eng
Revision Statements
- 2021 February 24: Resource record updated in ArchiveSpace by Sarah Schnuriger.
Collecting Area Details
Part of the Manuscripts Collecting Area
Joel Minor
Olin Library, 1 Brookings Drive
MSC 1061-141-B
St. Louis MO 63130 US
(314) 935-5495
spec@wumail.wustl.edu