Philadelphia Story (George Boker)
Oct. 30th, 2009 12:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lblanchardWe've started a new program for the Union League docent corps -- the docents' lunch series. The idea is that we'll meet once a month, or once every other month, and one or two of us will research some work of art or other figure and present our findings. For the inaugural lunch, we're concentrating on the portraits placed in our sumptuously remodeled dining rooms. I have four to do and one is George Henry Boker, 1823-1890, poet and playwright and polemicist and one of the prime movers behind the Union League.
To prepare for this, I'm reading Sculley Bradley's 1928 biograpahy of Boker, which is a pure delight in itself. Bradley is a contemporary of Christopher Morley, whose Travels in Philadelphia, with their gentle and affectionate descriptions of city life, have always been a favorite of mine. Bradley's book opens with a description of what Philadelphia had been like in the year of Boker's birth -- pointing out that Boker would have been surrounded by older folks who were part of the Revolution, and linking him in memory to the country's founding.
I'm looking forward to savoring this biography for its language as well as its content, and have ordered a copy for my very own so that I can dip into it again after returning this copy to the Union League Library.
The fact that Boker translated Beowulf before going off to Princeton impressed me mightily. The fact that he remained close to his boyhood friends for all his life is also telling. And the fact that he has written some no doubt unintentionally hilarious faux Shakespeare in Anne Boleyn is pure gold.
By the turn of the 20th century, Boker's reputation as a poet and a playwright had ebbed, despite Sculley Bradley's heroic attempts to resusciate it. I am finding his life at least wonderfully complex.
To prepare for this, I'm reading Sculley Bradley's 1928 biograpahy of Boker, which is a pure delight in itself. Bradley is a contemporary of Christopher Morley, whose Travels in Philadelphia, with their gentle and affectionate descriptions of city life, have always been a favorite of mine. Bradley's book opens with a description of what Philadelphia had been like in the year of Boker's birth -- pointing out that Boker would have been surrounded by older folks who were part of the Revolution, and linking him in memory to the country's founding.
I'm looking forward to savoring this biography for its language as well as its content, and have ordered a copy for my very own so that I can dip into it again after returning this copy to the Union League Library.
The fact that Boker translated Beowulf before going off to Princeton impressed me mightily. The fact that he remained close to his boyhood friends for all his life is also telling. And the fact that he has written some no doubt unintentionally hilarious faux Shakespeare in Anne Boleyn is pure gold.
By the turn of the 20th century, Boker's reputation as a poet and a playwright had ebbed, despite Sculley Bradley's heroic attempts to resusciate it. I am finding his life at least wonderfully complex.
