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George W Russell (AE) resources on the Web

[more pix] another

lfae = Alan Denson's Letters from AE [Bibliofind] [ABE]
rbd = RB Davis's George William Russell ('AE') [Bibliofind] [ABE]
rff = Foster's WB Yeats [Amazon]
dtm = Gomes's Dawning of the Theosophist Movement [Amazon]
wbya = WBY's Autobiographies (Collected Works Vol 3) [Amazon]
anj = AN Jeffares' WBY: a new biography [Amazon]
gyL = MacBride and Jeffares' The Gonne-Yeats Letters [Amazon]
sb = WBY's The Speckled Bird (O'Donnell, ed) [Bibliofind] [ABE]
ygd = GM Harper's Yeats's Golden Dawn [Bibliofind] [ABE]
dh = JE&GW Dunleavy's Douglas Hyde [Bibliofind] [ABE]
cl1y = John Kelly's Collected Letters of WBY: Vol 1, 1865-1895 [Bibliofind] [ABE]
mgyb = Samuel Levenson's Maud Gonne: Yeats' Beloved [Bibliofind] [ABE]

Related pages: Yeats, The Household, Theosophy, gossip, Maud

1867: 10Apr: George William Russell born in Lurgan, County Armagh [map] (youngest of three sibs; father Thomas a musically-inclined bookkeeper who appreciated AE's later poetry, mother favored brother Tom, neither approved of Theosophy, both Church of Ireland) [lfae278]

1871: Feb: starts Model School in Lurgan [lfae-xxxi]
no-date: didn't eat: 'like a skeleton... but a beautiful reader' [lfae278]
1878: family moves to Dublin, father works as accountant; holidays in Armagh [lfae-xxxi]
c1880: meets Carrie Rea in Armagh, close friend but expected marriage never happened [lfae278]
c1880: first urge to try drawing and writing while wandering near St Brigid's Well outside Armagh [lfae278]
1880: Mar-May? starts parttime at Metropolitan School of Art in Kildare Street [lfae-xxxi, rbd15]
1881: living at 33 Emorville, next door to JSJ when JAJ is conceived [lfae-xxxi]
1882-4: Rathmines College [lfae-xxxi]

no-date: reads rapidly, almost-photographic memory? [rbd22]
wins prizes in math, French, English, classics, and handwriting [rbd24]
rejects parents' religion at early age [rbd25]

1883: Oct (to 1885 Jul): Metropolitan School of Art [lfae-xxxi]
1884: experiences Blakean occult visions: "waking dreams of astonishing power and vividness" [rbd25]
1884: 17yo AE meets 19yo Yeats at School of Art (always mispronounced it 'Willie Yeets' aiwgdss165)

they recite poems until late in WBY's kitchen, affect red ties [anj19] maid calls AE 'a strayed angel' [rff48] JBY thinks AE mediocre [anj19]

WBY impressed by AE's drawing of a man on a mountain startled by his magnified shadow [rff48] they attempt seance [rff49] AE alarmed by WBY's urge to dominate; WBY thinks visions should be 'interrogated' as Swedenborg did [rff49] AE on WBY: "He made a mistake in thinking that symbolism was mysticism."

WBY on AE: 'almost unintelligibile... seemed incapable of coherent thought... he had become, I think, to all his fellow students, sacred, as the fool is sacred in the East... we never derided him...' [wbya196]

1884: 13Oct: 18yo older sister dies [lfae-xxxi]
1885: family moves to Grosvenor square (Harold's Cross) [lfae-xxxi]
1885: Dublin Hermetic Society founded by Yeats and Chas Johnston
1885: Jul: leaves art school because his "will was weak, and must grow weaker of he followed any emotional pursuit" [lfae-xvi, wbya200]
1885-87? evening sessions at Royal Hibernian Academy school [lfae-xxxi]
1886: admires Blake in letter to Carrie 'Arkon' Rea [lfae3]
1886: signs letters 'Zorak' [lfae3]
1886: Jun: Dublin Lodge of Theosophical Society founded
1886: autumn? friend Friedrich Lippman cheats WBY, CJ, JO'L and others, fleeing Dublin [lfae4]

AE to Carrie Rea: "...O you must become a Theosophist! ...The God which the Christians have imagined for themselves is the result of the sentimentality into which they have coddled themselves, he is merely a gigantic and rather good-natured baby who now and then gets into a tremendous passion and kills a few hundred thousands in his rage-- This kind of a God was never preached by Paul or Christ..." [lfae5]

1887: feels presence of supernatural beings in hills south of Dublin

"...the heart of the hills was opened to me, and I knew there was no hill for those who were there, and they were unconscious of the ponderous mountains piled above the palaces of light, and the winds were sparkling and diamond clear, yet full of colour as an opal, as they glittered through the valley, and I knew the Golden Age was all about me, and it was we who had been blind to it but that it had never passed away from the world."

1887: 11Dec: meets Katherine Tynan [lfae-xxxi]
c1888: meets SJ O'Grady [lfae262]
c1888? visits WBY in Bedford Park, meets William Morris [anj43]

1888? AE paints series depicting development from birth 'in Divine Mind' to perfection on earth, voice says "Call it the Birth of Aeon" [rbd26]

1888: adopts 'AE' pseudonym based on printer's misreading of intended 'Aeon' (heard in a vision)

1888: 06Nov: critical letter to Blavatsky, probably about WBY, probably source of AE typo [lfae6]
1888: distances self from Yeats (?) fearing his belief that knowledge is power [rff51]

"As Russell remarked to Tynan, it hardly mattered that he did not see his friend: he could supply the appropriate responses without actually hearing WBY speak, and pretend he was in astral communication. The suggested appropriate responses are noteworthy: 'Your poem is splendid.' 'Your paradoxes are getting more startling every day.' 'You should not say such hard things to your friends.'" --RF Foster

1890: 01Aug: starts as accountant at Pim's drapery store (Quaker, dry goods) for £40/year [lfae-xxxi]
1890: 09Dec: joins Esoteric Section of TS [lfae-xxxi]
1891: Apr: 3 Upper Ely Place theosophists' commune called "the Household" w/ Mr and Mrs Frederick Dick, Dunlop, HM Magee, EJ King (community moves Jan 1897) [lfae-xxxii] [more]

1891? WBY helps AE paint mural; WBY writes essay about AE [rff114]
1891: Oct: consoles MaudG with talk of reincarnation

1890s??? paints weekends, mostly landscapes with visionary beings
1892: May? AE's parents move to Monkstown [lfae-xxxii]
1892-97: articles in Irish Theosophist on "Priest and Hero" and "The Hero in Man"; also poems

"I had no private doctrine: nothing but HP Blavatsky eked out for beginners by WQ Judge; the Bhagavad Gita; Upanishads; Patanjali; and one or two other classics." [source]

no-date: hopes to write aphorisms like Lao Tse [lfae-xiv]

1894: Jun: Russell's poems Homeward: Songs by the Way samples, sample ditto ditto

1894: Aug: defends mysticism to Dowden after mixed review [lfae10]

1894: IAOS formed [French]

1895: Irish Homestead founded by the IAOS [date]

"...a little weekly paper, the Irish Homestead, acts as the organ of the movement, promotes the exchange of ideas between societies scattered throughout the country, furnishes useful information upon all matters connected with their business operations, and keeps constantly before the associated farmers the economic principles which must be observed, and, above all, the spirit in which the work must be approached, if the movement is to fulfil its mission... Those wishing to keep au courant with the further development of the movement would do well to take in the Irish Homestead, post free 6s. 6d. per annum." [cite]

editors:
TA Finlay (start to 1897)
JK Montgomery (1897-1899)
HF Norman (1899-1905)
AE (1905-1923)

Susan Mitchell subeditor c1901 [lfae260]

1896: 21Mar: death of WQ Judge [WGR's eulogy]

1896: 02Jun: AE to WBY: "The gods have returned to Erin and have centred themselves in the sacred mountains... I believe profoundly that a new Avatar is about to appear..." [lfae17; rff164 says 'Eri']

1896: AE denounces 'Savoy' magazine as the "Organ of the Incubi and the Succubi" (Aubrey Beardsley tells WBY he agrees) [wbya252]

c1896: WBY's stories of 'Michael Robartes' use AE as model (also Mathers) [anj96]

1896: Aug? two weks in Sligo [lfae18]

1897: SJ O'Grady's Flight of the Eagle based on AE? [lfae262]

1897: Apr: WBY's The Secret Rose published after heavy final revisions [jk] (dedicated to AE)

1897: 09Oct: AE's mother dies [lfae-xxxii]
1897: 03Nov: Russell leaves Pim's (at WBY's insistence?) to organise agricultural cooperatives (WBY concerned at AE's suicidal imagery, Theosophical obsession, religious mania) [rff186] pay was £60/yr [lfae-xxxii]

1897: Dec: working in Mayo [lfae23]

'missionary' travelling through every county in Ireland by train (and bicycle?) talking to farmers about the advantages of agricultural banks/ co-operatives (eg for buying pigs at favorable prices), starting creameries [politics]

vegetarian, wears homespun cloth

1898: Mar: resigns TS, revives Hermetic Society [lfae-xxxii, rbd15]
1898: 09Jun: marries Violet North [lfae-xxxii] live at 6 Castlewood ave?
1898: 'Literary Ideals in Ireland' debate in Daily Express [more]
12Oct and 30Oct: Synge spends evening with AE [lfae229]

1900: son Brian born; father dies [lfae-xxxiii]
1901: Frank Fay produces Deirdre after seeing it in "All Ireland Review" [cite]

1902: son Diarmuid born
1902-09: George Moore's Saturday night literary circle included Russell, Edward Martyn, Yeats, John Eglinton, Douglas Hyde, Lady Gregory, John (Jack?) Butler Yeats, Nathaniel Hone, John Pentland Mahaffy, Walter Osborne, John Hughes [cite]

1902: John Quinn commissions AE to paint WBY

1902: 03Jan: private performance of AE's play 'Deirdre' for Diarmuid Coffey's 12th birthday, starring AE as Naisi, Violet Mervyn as Deirdre, Richard Best as Ainle, Ella Young as Lavarcam, George Coffey as Fergas, and James Cousins as Buinne [lfae36 great photos! Best looks like Dickie Smothers]

1902: plays Druid in own play Deirdre (Padraic Colum also has a role)

WBY: "AE himself, then as always, I loved and hated" [wbya331]

1902: August: James Joyce introduces himself to Russell, asks about Irish avatar, reads his poems

Holloway: "A.E. told me of his first meeting with James Joyce. One night at 11.45, a knock came to the door. A.E. opened it and a figure outside asked was he A.E. and Russell said, 'Yes.' 'I want to see you,' the young man said, 'My name's Joyce. Is it too late to go in?' 'No,' replied A.E. and in Joyce came. A.E. went to his sofa, where he sat with his legs crossed and waited for what Joyce had to say. For a while Joyce seemed confused, but afterwards he thawed and showed the most utter contempt for everybody and everything. Joyce not only spoke slightingly of Yeats but of all others. His arrogance was colossal in one so young..."

AE on JAJ: 'asked about planes of consciousness', "not enough chaos in you to make a world", "extremely clever" "first spectre of the new generation" 'critising bad taste of his deity' 'poems delicate and dainty as Watteau'

AE writes Lady G he may write a play based on JAJ's looking for a Messiah [rff270]

1902: Dec: Joyce to Paris, leaving poems and epiphanies with Russell

1903: 08Feb: JAJ to Stannie: "Words cannot measure my contempt for AE at present (I believe he didn't write to Lady Gregory) and his spiritual friends." [SL14]

1904: 14Jan: poems The Divine Vision
1904? poems New Poems
1904: Mar: Russell edits New Songs with poems by Colum, Milligan, Mitchell, O'Sullivan, Eva Gore-Booth, Thomas Koehler, George Roberts, Ella Young

1904: June? reads Joyce's Stephen Hero manuscript
1904: July: AE invites JAJ to write stories for "Irish Homestead"

(Russell was not yet the editor, but presumably acted as fiction editor.)

1904: Aug? Joyce attacks Russell (et al) in "The Holy Office":

...Or him who once when snug abed
Saw Jesus Christ without his head
And tried so hard to win for us
The long-lost works of Eschylus
[etext]

1904: August: IH publishes Joyce's "The Sisters" [etext]
1904: Sept: IH publishes Joyce's "Eveline"
1904: Aug-Sept: exhibit of paintings in Dublin gallery
1904: 20Oct: TS charters '2nd Dublin Lodge' with the Russells, W Fay, Starkey [lfae-xxxiii]
1904: Dec: IH publishes Joyce's "After the Race"
1904: painted "The Log-carriers" [description]

cf "Carrying Driftwood" [pic source]

1905: Aug (to 1923): editor of the Irish Homestead
1906: poems By Still Waters

1907: divisive quarrel with WBY about the policies of the Abbey Theatre. 'the antagonism that unites dear friends'

1904?-1913? nine year break in AE/WBY correspondence [lfae-xii]

Nonviolence: Horace Plunkett, Francis Sheehy Skeffington and George William Russell (AE)

Gogarty called him 'the Angelic Anarchist' [aiwgdss153]

George Moore: 'his one fault is that he has no faults'

no-date: sells paintings for four or five pounds each

poem about the infant god he "saw" behind the eyes of the Irish farmers whose cause he tried to serve in the country districts.

1909: poems The Hero In Man
1911: poems The Renewal Of Youth
1913: open letter [etext] ditto
1913: Collected Poems [etext]
1915: poems Gods Of War
1915: poems Imaginations And Reveries
1918: The Candle of Vision [Amazon] [quotes]
1919? introduced Francis Stuart to Iseult Gonne [cite]

1920s: Isa MacNie cartoon 'Chin-Angles, or How the Poets Passed' illustrates story of WBY and AE passing without seeing each other, one looking up, the other down (frontispiece to Gogarty's aiwgdss)

1920: article French]
1922: The Interpreters
1923-30: edited The Irish Statesman
1928: speech on Joyce et al in NYC [review]
1928: poems Midsummer Eve
1929: Dark Weeping
1929: honorary degree from by Trinity College
1930? discovered poet Patrick Kavanagh [article]
1930: farewell
1930: poems Enchantment, And Other Poems
1931: poems Vale, And Other Poems

1932: wife Violet dies
1932: Song and its Fountains [Amazon]
1932: invited by US Dept of Agriculture to come advise them on co-ops
1933: The Avatars: A Futurist Fantasy
1934: poems The House Of The Titans
1934: tribute to Orage [etext]

1935: 17 July: dies in Bournemouth England, buried in Dublin [detailed account!]

WBY on AE: "the most spiritual and subtle poet of his generation, and a visionary who may find some room beside Swedenborg and Blake". [cite]

1935: poems Selected Poems
1936: Some Passages From The Letters Of AE to W B Yeats
1937: Monk Gibbon (ed) The Living Torch
1937: AE's Letters To Minanlabain
1937: A Memoir of AE: George William Russell by John Eglinton

1968, 1989: exhibitions at Oriel Gallery [article]
1975: Henry Summerfield's That Myriad-minded Man: a biography of George William Russell [cite] [Amazon]
1988: The Descent of the Gods one-volume collection

fave color: dark blue

best bio page; [bio] [EB], French ditto, ditto

Collected

many

five etexts; five more

one one mirror

Titles:

"Midsummer Eve," "Unmeet," and "Platonics" [cite]

"Seek on earth what you have found in heaven."

"When steam first began to pump and wheels go round at so many revolutions per minute, what are called business habits were intended to make the life of man run in harmony with the steam engine, and his movement rival the train in punctuality." [cite]

Paraphrase: 'Penetrating perception and sustained meditation are elusive and difficult for minds that have overdeveloped the analytic tendency to dissect and classify. This habitual inclination is bound up with brantidarshana, false apprehension in the realm of changing phenomena. A helpful start in the use of analogy and correspondence, vividly illustrated by George William Russell (A.E.), is to consider the hour of twilight, which corresponds in each day to the twilight of an incarnation as well as to the sandhyas that mark the seasons of nature and the cycles of manifestation...'. [more]

Indiana

Victoria, Illinois; Emory, Boston

[Bibliofind] [cf] [cf] [cf]

Paintings: described

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