Cover Slide
First UM-UMEA Partnership Conference Umea, Mo, Feb. 16, 2009 3. ABOUT the FPG Collections at the UM The PAPERS of the Canadian author Frederick Philip Grove (1879-1948) were acquired from his widow in the early 1960s In 1973, M. Stobie published her Grove book (Twayne's World Authors series) D. O. Spettigue's seminal FPG: The European Years came out the same year The Research Collections of both scholars were added to the UM archival holdings in 1976 & in the late 1980s respectively 4 UMEA, 16 Feb. 2009 gd ABOUT the F.P.G. Collections at the UM Alas, D. Pacey's papers went to the NL of Canada in Ottawa – his 1976 ed. of FPG's LETTERS remains the perhaps most authoritative reference source Stobie's papers contain notably Grove's first Canadian publication in 1914, the Nietzsche-like essay "Rousseau als Erzieher" in Der Nordwesten Spettigue's papers document his sensational discovery of the Greve/Grove identity in October 1971 (pub. 1973) 5 Spettigue, Dustcover, 1973
6 Grove, studiously writing (Pacey, 1976) 7 UMEA, 16 Feb. 2009 gd ABOUT the F.P.G. Collections at the UM My own research findings & other FPG & FrL materials have been deposited in the Archives since the early 1980s as research collection Mss 12 Apart from a host of smaller research clusters, there are substantial BOOK collections, such as The F. P. Grove Library Collection, and The F. P. Greve Translations Collection Both, along with quite a few e-editions, have been made available on the FPG & FrL Website since 1998 8 FPG (Greve/Grove) & FrL Website 9 UMEA, 16 Feb. 2009 gd ABOUT the F.P.G. Collections at the UM In 2008, the digitized Video-Proceedings of the International Anniversary Symposium "In Memoriam FPG: 1979-1948-1998" went online It was spear-headed by the late Pulitzer Prize-winning author Carol Shields, & introduced by the then Fac Arts' Associate Dean, James Dean This illustrious event included a session on the New York dada artist, Else Baroness von Freytag-Loringhoven (FrL) Greve had abandoned her in 1911, barely a year after she had joined him in Pittsburgh 10 Website, 1998 Symposium, Video-Proceedings
11 FPG (Greve/Grove) & FrL Website 12 UMEA, 16 Feb. 2009 gd FrL in the FPG Collections at the UM Around 1988, Professors Spettigue & Hjartarson found that Greve's Else had left a revealing autobiography, where the decade she spent with him loomed large [publ. as Baroness Elsa, 1992] Here FINALLY was hard proof that Greve started a new life in America in 1909, and that she had followed him in June 1910 Her papers at the Univ. of Maryland also include "unidentified" German letters & poems ... adressed to "Tse"/Endell, E. Hardt, R. Schmitz, M. Behmer et al. Several are dedicated "To FPG" 13. "Spottgedichte:" about Hardt & Endel 14 UMEA, 16 Feb. 2009 gd FrL in the FPG Collections at the UM Two "FPG" poems hark back to the 1904/5 poetry cycle she & FPG had published under the name "Fanny Essler" [all 7 are in FPG's 1993 PEd Poems/Gedichte] One of them specifies the location of their rocky & short-lived reunion: "Sparta, Kentucky, am Eagle Creek" [found in April 1991] In 1913, she married Baron Leo, a black sheep of the illustrious Freytag-Loringjovem family He retirned to Germany at the outbreak of Woeld War I For ten years, she modelled in New York, then returned to Berlin in 1923 In 1926, she was able to join her American friends in Paris There, she committed suicide in December 1927 15 Baron Leo, ca. 1914
16 Else in 1917 Oil, Theresa Bernstein, NY
17 Letter "A" Man Ray, 1921 Still Frame of a lost film "The Baroness shaving her pubic hair"
18 Portrait of Marcel Duchamp
19 GOD (ca.1917) 20 UMEA, 16 Feb. 2009 gd WHO was F. P. GREVE ? Frederick Philip Grove was born Felix Paul Greve in 1879 He grew up in Hamburg, Germany, where he received an excellent education: In 1898, he graduates with honours from the humanistic Gymnasium Johanneum He goes to Bonn to study Classical Philology with authorities like Usener, Bücheler, & Loeschke He also studies Byron, Michelangelo, & Oceanography 21 UMEA, 16 Feb. 2009 gd WHO was F. P. GREVE ? In early 1901, he is in Rome at the Deutsche Archäologische Institut Later that year, he moves to Munich Barely 23, & without a university degree, he registers as "Privatgelehrter" (Independent Scholar) Soon, he courts Karl Wolfskehl & the "Meister" Poet Stefan George He imitates Nietzsche's & George's poetry in Wanderungen (Feb. 1902), and Das Jahr der Wende (mss, a sensational UMA acquisition, 2008) 22 Dashing Dandy Greve Postcard Detail, 1902 23 Stefan George 24 Karl Wolfskehl 25 UMEA, 16 Feb. 2009 gd WHO was F. P. GREVE? He starts translating Oscar Wilde, then Dowson, Browning, Pater, et al. He reviews Nietzsche's & Stendhal's works in the Münchener Allgemeine Zeitung He collaborates with archaeologist Adolf Furtwängler on an acclaimed catalogue of Greek vases In view of such hectic activities, Wolfskehl questions his sanity: "Ob er krank ist?" ("Perhaps, he is ill?" he asks in a letter to Gundolf, early 1902) Greve's letters to Insel Publ. rather do suggest that he was indeed manic 26 UMEA, 16 Feb. 2009 gd WHO was F. P. GREVE ? In October 1902, he moves to Berlin He hopes to have four Oscar Wilde's plays staged at Max Reinhardt's "Kleines Theater" He befriends Jugendstil architect August Endell & his wife Else – soon, they become lovers In early 1903 all three journey via Hamburg to Palermo Endell is left behind in Naples with a consolation bicycle 27 August Endell, Jugendstil architect 28 UMEA, 16 Feb. 2009 gd WHO was F. P. GREVE ? In May 1903, Greve is arrested, tried, and sentenced ... ... for defrauding his friend Kilian of M10,000 He spends a year in Bonn prison, furthering his translation career ... now with contemporary authors like Gide, Wells, & Meredith He spends a year in Bonn prison, furthering his translation career [with contemporary authors like Gide, Wells, & Meredith] Fresh out of jail, he visits André Gide in Paris (June 1904) Gide publishes his impressions in 1919 as "Conversation avec un Allemand" It was published in BAAG, 1976, with 2 confessional letters: In one, Greve declares "je sommes 3" (eEd. 2002, gd) Greve & Else publish their "Fanny Essler" novel & poems (Freistatt) in 1904/5 29 André Gide 30 UMEA, 16 Feb. 2009 gd WHO was F. P. GREVE ? Greve & Else visit H. G. Wells, then move to Wollerau near Zürich until mid-1905 Until they return to Berlin in early 1906, they live in Paris-Plage/Étaples on the French Channel Coast - just a hop over to Wells estate in Folkestone Greve's 1905 Fanny Essler novel about Else's life in Berlin and Munich targets the George Circle, while his Maurermeister Ihles Haus (1906) is about her childhood in Swinemünde Both books are mirror-images of FrL's autobiography, written in the 1920s In late July, 1909 Greve leaves Germany with a staged suicide (Kippenberg to "widow" Else suggests, because he had double-sold his Swift translation) 31 Wollerau, near Zürich Hotel Bellevue, overlooking Zürich Lake
32 Paris-Plage, near Etaples 33 H. G. Wells 34 FPG's Poetry Ed., 1993 35 "Fanny Essler" - Drei Sonette 36 Fanny Elssler, 1840, in Broom 1921 37 Circle" in Broom, 1921/22 38 UMEA, 16 Feb. 2009 gd WHO was F. P. GREVE ? As described in the opening pages of Grove's first autobiographical novel ASA (1927), he travelled second-class on a White Star Liner [the Megantic] from Liverpool to Montreal Following the ASA leads, Greve's PASSAGE was found in late Oct. 1998, shortly after the IN MEMORIAM symposium His last German publication was "Reise in Schweden" in Neue Revue und Morgen – we will hear more about this essay later 39 Megantic 1909 40 UMEA, 16 Feb. 2009 gd FPG in the USA, 1909-1912 Little is known about these three "lost" years According to ASA, he peddled Travelogues in New York, took – innocently! - part in a book scam selling a History Set to rich industrialists for ten times the going price He tramped along the Ohio, worked in a furniture factory, stayed at a Bonanza Farm in "the Dakotas", ... then settled in Canada to teach The entire Kentucky year with Else is omitted 41 ASA Lining Paper Ma 42 UMEA, 16 Feb. 2009 gd FPG in the USA, 1909-1912 Apart from Else's Sparta reference, there is a NYT note reporting her arrest on Pittsburgh's 5th Ave, for cross-dressing & smoking in public [found in Dec. 2004] An entry in a 1910 Pittsburgh directory lists Greve as a downtown agent for National Alumni, publisher of a 20 v. History title [found in Apr. 1994 & 2000] The Bonanza Farm could be identified as the Amenia & Sharon Land Co. near Fargo & Casselton, ND, in March 1995 43 Pittsburgh Arrest, Sep.1910 44 National Alumni History Set 45 The Bonanza Farm (near Fargo) 46 UMEA, 16 Feb. 2009 gd WHO was F. P. GROVE ? Grove emerges as an author from Rapid City, Manitoba, in 1922, with perfectly impersonal nature essays - they seamlessly align with Greve's 1909 Sweden article When FPG must provide biographical givens to publishers & readers, he cleverly reinvents his past: He appropriates former friend Kilian's Anglo-German background as his own But: he turns it into a more desirable Anglo-Swedish one 47 UMEA, 16 Feb. 2009 gd WHO was F. P. GROVE ? The biographical underpinnings of Grove's first novel Settlers of the Marsh (1925) were not recognized until the mid-1990s It is a therapeutic account of ending a ten-year relationship in Sparta, Ky His two autobiographies, A Search for America (ASA, 1927) & In Search of Myself (ISM, 1946) are both based on FPG's 1907 sketch for a literary dictionary: The text Greve submitted then reads like a blueprint of Grove's accounts 48 Brümmer's Lexicon Cover 49 UMEA, 16 Feb. 2009 gd WHO was F. P. GROVE ? ASA blends Goethe's "Dichtung & Wahrheit" with all sorts of genres: the picaresque- & adventure novel, the Bildungsroman, & satires from Grimmelshausen's Simplicissimus & Voltaire's Candide… Repeated claims to ABSOLUTE veracity hold strangely true, despite the distorted narrative frame: Grove dates the setting back to 1892, & makes himself up to eleven years older -- later, he will settle for seven years 50 UMEA, 16 Feb. 2009 gd WHO was F. P. GROVE ? In ISM, Grove recants precisely those truthful ASA accounts that could have led to his identification as Greve He bends over backwards to brake out of the self-imposed time-prison by reporting five trips to Europe between 1892 & 1912 All coincide with important episodes in Greve's life In both books, FPG often brags about his language skills – his alleged mother- tongue Swedish is conspicuously lacking! 51 ASA Cover 52 eEd. of Grove's A Search for America (c2005, orig. 1927) 53 ISM Cover
54 eEd. of Grove's In Search of Myself (c2007, orig. 1946) 55 UMEA, 16 Feb. 2009 gd WHO was F. P. GROVE ? In comparison to Greve's biography, Grove's fiction is rather boring. After leaving Manitoba in 1929, he briefly is affiliated with Graphic Publishers in Ottawa He then settles for the rest of his life as a "gentleman farmer" in Simcoe, Ontario Of Grove's many books, only his 1933 novel Fruits of the Earth is mentioned here to demonstrate his typical multi-referential condensation technique 56 UMEA, 16 Feb. 2009 gd FPG & Hamsun The title artfully mimics both Gide's Les nourritures terrestres (1897) and Knut Hamsun's Growth of the Soil (1917, Nobel Prize 1920). This brings us back to Greve's 1909 Swedish travel impressions He mentions to Gide that he is about to go to Norway in July 1908 He may have tried to visit Hamsun, who was very popular in Germany at the time 57 Hamsun's Works in 17 v. 58 Hamsun's Book 59 Grove's Library, no.147 60 UMEA, 16 Feb. 2009 gd FPG & Travel Essays While all of FPG's travel impressions draw mainly on Flaubert and his symbolic realism, they also follow models like Heine, Fontane, & Hamsun Greve's 1909 description of the northern Swedish landscape is very similar to Grove's 1922 Manitoba nature essays in Over Prairie Trails Greve adds drama to the text, as he is lost for hours after an excursion on "Mount Dundret to the south of "Gellivare" 61 Gällivare, Sweden 62 Map, Gällivare, Sweden [Detail] 63 UMEA, 16 Feb. 2009 gd Greve's Contemporaries Echoes of Greve's trip to Norway & Sweden exist in form of a family anecdote: Grove told his son Leonard how he received the royal treatment there, because his name was mistaken for the aristocratic title "Count" – which is "Greve" in Swedish! The artistic circles Greve frequented both in Munich & in Berlin had multiple ties to Scandinavians like Ibsen, Brandes, Hamsun, Strindberg, and Munch 64 UMEA, 16 Feb. 2009 gd Greve's Contemporaries: Munich Albert Langen met Hamsun in Paris and published his Mysterien in 1896 The same year, he married Dagny, the daughter of B. Björnson (Nobel-Prize, 1903) Langen's famous satirical journal Simplicissimus employed Gulbransson who would marry Björnson's niece Dagny in 1906 This artist also portrayed Ibsen, who resided many years in Munich, & Hamsun, who sometimes visited Langen 65 Publisher A. Langen
66 Author B. Björnson 67 Artist O. Gulbransson 68 Hamsun, by Gulbransson 69 Ibsen, by Gulbransson 70 Cover, Simplicissimus 71 UMEA, 16 Feb. 2009 gd Greve's Contemporaries: Berlin Max Reinhardt was directing Wolzogen's Cabaret, "Das Bunte Theater," which Endell had built in 1901 He also took over more serious theatres: his opening play at the Kammerspiele in Nov. 1906 was Ibsen's Ghosts Munch was providing the set designs for that momentous occasion Reinhardt also staged Hofmannsthal, Wedekind, Strindberg & Oscar Wilde [including at least one of the latter's comedies in Greve's translation] 72 Max Reinhardt
73 Endell's "Buntes Theater"
74 Munch
75 Set design, for Ibsen's Ghosts
76 Hamsun
77 O. Wilde 78 UMEA, 16 Feb. 2009 gd Greve's Contemporaries: Brandes Another influential FPG contact was the Danish critic Georg Brandes, the first to propagate NIETZSCHE in Europe Nietzsche's influence cannot be over- estimated, but here, his reception by Hamsun & FPG are our only concern Hamsun, of course, embraced Nietzsche far earlier than Greve, who was 20 years younger FPG reflects Nietzsche's influence in his 1901/2 poetry, Das Jahr der Wende & Wanderungen, and in 1939, mss Aphorisms in his "Poems" Notebook 79 Georg Brandes 80 UMEA, 16 Feb. 2009 gd Greve's Contemporaries: Brandes Incidentally: The name of ASA's protagonist "Phil Branden" is one of those multi-layered references to - Georg Brandes - Karl Wolfskehl in Munich, who was affectionately called "Dr. Phil" ... a close homophone of Greve's shortened given name Felix [Fel/Phil] 81 Greve's Das Jahr der Wende, 1901
82 "Vision" Das Jahr der Wende
83 Friedrich Nietzsche, 1899 84 LCMND, Sept 2008 gd Greve's First Poetry Books, 1901/2 Das Jahr der Wende reflects the unstructured style of Nietzsche's "Dionysos Dithyramben" These concluded the "Zarathustra" complex in 1888, just before Nietzsche suffered a permanent mental breakdown Greve's Wanderungen show the formally rigid way of crafting poetry in the so- called Stefan "George-Mache" 85 Nietzsche's "Dionysos Dithyramben" 86 Facsimile eEd. of Jahr der Wende 87 UMEA, 16 Feb. 2009 gd GROVE & HAMSUN A typically oblique "Homage" to Hamsun can be found in the Bonanza Farm episodes in both ASA & ISM: Indeed, it is hardly a coincidence that FPG should have been drifting to this very specific area near Casselton, some 20 km west of the next larger town of Fargo Nor is it by chance that FPG set his narrative to roughly the time that Hamsun resided at the Dalrymple's vast estate 88 UMEA, 16 Feb. 2009 gd GROVE & HAMSUN FPG was stationed at the Amenia & Sharon Land Company in the summer of 1912 [but pre-dated to 1892] Hamsun stayed on several occasions at the Dalrymple's Farm, mostly in the late 1880s Hamsun's travel impressions about the Red River Valley were published by A. Langen as "Auf der Prairie" & "Vagabundentage" in 1905, the very year that the Swedish-Norwegian union fell apart 89 Hamsun, Gesammelte Novellen, 1905 90 UMEA, 16 Feb. 2009 gd GROVE & HAMSUN Further similarities suggesting that Greve/Grove imitated Hamsun are the Hobo theme, describing the social criticism of exploitative practices of both man and beast, & reckless gambling scenes A 2003 anthology entitled Hamsun remembers America assembles many of the 1905 German texts available to Greve, and a few more issued in Kristiana/Oslo newspapers as early as Nov. 1887 91 Hamsun remembers. (2000) 92 UMEA, 16 Feb. 2009 gd GROVE & HAMSUN The editor, Richard Nelson Current, points out that Hamsun's Bonanza Farm episodes are disproportionally prominent in the author's recollections The map, not unlike Grove's in ASA, shows both Fargo & Casselton at the left margin Hamsun mentions the owner, Oliver Dalrymple, by name [a descendent was Governor of North Dakota around 2005] 93 Hamsun, Contents 94 Hamsun's Map 95 Oliver Dalrymple (18301908) 96 Chaffee's House 97 Bonanza Harvest 98 Grove's ASA Map 99 UMEA, 16 Feb. 2009 gd GROVE & HAMSUN FPG speaks only vaguely of the "Young Owner" & his widowed mother: They are L. H. Chaffee & Carrie Chaffee, her husband, the financial genius H. F. Chaffee, had drowned in the Titanic Tragedy of April 1912 For a long time, only a shot of a middle-aged "young owner" with a slain antelope was available Since 2007, this image can be matched with the rifled Lawrence H. Chaffee [courtesy, his grand-daughter, Carie Good Chaffee] 100 L. H. Chaffee, with antelope 101 L. H. Chaffee, with rifle 102 Carrie Chaffee Survivor of the 1912 Titanic disaster 103 H. F. Chaffee, died in the 1912 Titanic disater 104 UMEA, 16 Feb. 2009 gd FPG: the quintessential Imitator Once again, the sly references to Hamsun show to what extent FPG was imitating admired literary models He started with the decadent Oscar Wilde, then turning to the austere Flaubert after prison in 1903/4 He used Nietzsche for his cultural criticism, and Goethe for his autobiographies He ended up partially imitating Hamsun with his Manitoba nature essays, & substantially, as chronicler of the Dakota Bonanza Farms
Sources
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