Laurence Binyon

Laurence Binyon
Drawing of Laurence Binyon byWilliam Strang,1901
Born	Robert Laurence Binyon (1869-08-10)10 August 1869 Lancaster,Lancashire,England
Died	10 March 1943(1943-03-10)(aged 73) Reading,Berkshire,England
Occupation	Poet, dramatist, scholar
Spouse	Cicely Margaret Powell
Children	Helen Binyon Margaret Binyon Nicolete Gray
Relatives	T. J. Binyon(great-nephew) Camilla Gray(granddaughter)

Binyon's birthplace, 1 High Street,Lancaster

Robert Laurence Binyon,CH(10 August 1869 – 10 March 1943) was an English poet, dramatist and art scholar. Born inLancaster,England, his parents were Frederick Binyon, a clergyman, and Mary Dockray. He studied atSt Paul's School, Londonand atTrinity College, Oxford,where he won theNewdigate Prizefor poetry in 1891. He worked for theBritish Museumfrom 1893 until his retirement in 1933. In 1904 he married the historian Cicely Margaret Powell, with whom he had three daughters, including the artistNicolete Gray.

Moved by the casualties of theBritish Expeditionary Forcein 1914, Binyon wrote his most famous work "For the Fallen",which is often recited atRemembrance Sundayservices in the UK, Australia, New Zealand and Canada. In 1915, he volunteered as a hospital orderly in France and afterwards worked in England, helping to take care of the wounded of theBattle of Verdun.He wrote about these experiences inFor Dauntless France,re-released as a centenary edition in 2018 asThe Call and the Answer.After the war, he continued his career at the British Museum, writing numerous books on art.

He was appointed Norton Professor of Poetry atHarvard Universityin 1933. Between 1933 and his death in 1943, he published his translation ofDante'sDivine Comedy.His war poetry includes a poem about the LondonBlitz,"The Burning of the Leaves", regarded by many as his masterpiece.

Early life

Laurence Binyon was born inLancaster,Lancashire,England. His parents were Frederick Binyon, a clergyman of the Church of England, and Mary Dockray. Mary's father, Robert Benson Dockray, was a main engineer of theLondon and Birmingham Railway.His forebears were Quakers.

Binyon studied atSt Paul's School, London.Then he readClassics(Honour Moderations) atTrinity College, Oxford,where he won theNewdigate Prizefor poetry in 1891.

Immediately after graduating in 1893, Binyon started working for the Department of Printed Books of theBritish Museum,writingcataloguesfor the museum and artmonographsfor himself. In 1895 his first book,Dutch Etchers of the Seventeenth Century,was published. In that same year, Binyon moved into the museum's Department of Prints and Drawings, underCampbell Dodgson.In 1909, Binyon became its Assistant Keeper.

1913, he was made the Keeper of the new Sub-Department of Oriental Prints and Drawings. Around then, he played a crucial role in the formation of Modernism in London by introducing youngImagist poetssuch asEzra Pound,Richard AldingtonandH.D.to East Asian visual art and literature.Many of Binyon's books produced at the museum were influenced by his own sensibilities as a poet although some were works of plain scholarship, such as his four-volume catalogue of all of the museum's English drawings and his seminal catalogue of Chinese and Japanese prints.

In 1904 he married historian Cicely Margaret Powell, and the couple had three daughters. During those years, Binyon belonged to acircleof artists, as a regular patron of theVienna CaféinOxford Street.His fellow intellectuals there were Ezra Pound, SirWilliam Rothenstein,Walter Sickert,Charles Ricketts,Lucien PissarroandEdmund Dulac.

Binyon's reputation before theFirst World Warwas such that on the death of thePoet LaureateAlfred Austinin 1913, Binyon was among the names mentioned in the press as his likely successor. Others named includedThomas Hardy,John MasefieldandRudyard Kipling,with the post going toRobert Bridges.

"For the Fallen"

Main article:For the Fallen

Moved by the opening of what was then called the Great War and the already-high number of casualties of theBritish Expeditionary Force,Binyon wrote his "For the Fallen" in 1914, with its "Ode of Remembrance",the third and fourth, or simply the fourth stanza of the poem. At the time, he was visiting the cliffs on the northCornwallcoast, either atPolzeathor atPortreath.There is a plaque at each site to commemorate the event, but Binyon himself mentionedPolzeathin a 1939 interview. The confusion may be related to Porteath Farm being near Polzeath. The piece was published byThe Timesin September, when public feeling was affected by the recentBattle of the Marne.

Today Binyon's most famous poem, "For the Fallen", is often recited at BritishRemembrance Sundayservices; is an integral part ofAnzac Dayservices in Australia and New Zealand and of 11 November Remembrance Day services in Canada.The "Ode of Remembrance" has thus been claimed as a tribute to all casualties of war, regardless of nation.

They went with songs to the battle, they were young.

Straight of limb, true of eyes, steady and aglow.

They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted,

They fell with their faces to the foe.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:

Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning,

We will remember them.

They mingle not with their laughing comrades again;

They sit no more at familiar tables of home;

They have no lot in our labour of the day-time;

They sleep beyond England's foam

Laurence Binyon, 1898, drypoint by William Strang

This "Ode to Remembrance" comprises the central three stanzas of the seven-stanza poem "For the Fallen", being preceded, and followed, by two additional stanzas. The Ode itself, as used in remembrance services, is more usually only the central stanza of the three shown above. The full poem may be foundhere.

Three of Binyon's poems, including "For the Fallen", were set by SirEdward Elgarin his last major orchestra/choral work,The Spirit of England.

In 1915, despite being too old to enlist in the armed forces, Binyon volunteered at a British hospital for French soldiers,Hôpital Temporaire d'Arc-en-Barrois,Haute-Marne,France, working briefly as a hospital orderly. He returned in the summer of 1916 and took care of soldiers taken in from theVerdunbattlefield. He wrote about his experiences inFor Dauntless France(1918) and his poems, "Fetching the Wounded" and "The Distant Guns", were inspired by his hospital service inArc-en-Barrois.

Artists Rifles,a CD audiobook published in 2004, includes a reading of "For the Fallen" by Binyon himself. The recording itself is undated and appeared on a 78 rpm disc issued in Japan. Other Great War poets heard on the CD includeSiegfried Sassoon,Edmund Blunden,Robert Graves,David JonesandEdgell Rickword.

Later life

After the war, he returned to theBritish Museumand wrote numerous books on art, in particular onWilliam Blake,Persian art,andJapanese art.His work on ancient Japanese and Chinese cultures offered strongly-contextualised examples that inspired, among others, the poetsEzra PoundandW. B. Yeats.Binyon's work on Blake and his followers kept alive the then nearly-forgotten memory of the work ofSamuel Palmer.Binyon's duality of interests continued the traditional interest of British visionaryRomanticismin the rich strangeness of Mediterranean and Oriental cultures.

In 1931, his two-volumeCollected Poemsappeared. In 1932, Binyon rose to be the Keeper of the Prints and Drawings Department, but in 1933, he retired from the British Museum.He went to live in the country at Westridge Green, nearStreatley, Berkshire,where his daughters also came to live during theSecond World War,and he continued to write poetry.

In 1933–1934, Binyon was appointedNortonProfessor of Poetry atHarvard University.He delivered a series of lectures onThe Spirit of Man in Asian Art,which were published in 1935. Binyon continued his academic work. In May 1939, he gave the prestigiousRomanes LectureinOxfordonArt and Freedom,and in 1940, he was appointed theByronProfessor of English Literature atUniversity of Athens.He worked there until he was forced to leave, narrowly escaping theGerman invasion of Greecein April 1941.He was succeeded byLord Dunsany,who held the chair in 1940–1941.

Laurence Binyon

Binyon had been friends with Pound since around 1909, and in the 1930s, the two became especially close; Pound affectionately called him "BinBin" and assisted Binyon with his translation of Dante. Another protégé wasArthur Waley,whom Binyon employed at the British Museum.

Between 1933 and 1943, Binyon published his acclaimed translationofDante'sDivine Comedyin an English version ofterza rima,made with some editorial assistance fromEzra Pound.He dedicated twenty years to his translation and finished it shortly before his death.Its readership was dramatically increased when Paolo Milano selected it for "The Portable Dante" in Viking's Portable Library series. Binyon significantly revised his translation of all three parts for the project,and the volume went through three major editions and eight printings, while other volumes in the same series went out of print, before it was replaced by theMark Musatranslation in 1981.

During the Second World War, Binyon continued to write poetry including a long poem about theLondon Blitz,"The Burning of the Leaves", which is regarded by many as his masterpiece. In 2016,Paul O'Preyedited a new selection of his poems,Poems of Two Wars,which brought together the poems written during both wars, with an introductory essay on Binyon's work that makes the case for his later poetry to be considered as his best.

At his death, Binyon was working on a major three-partArthuriantrilogy, the first part of which was published after his death asThe Madness ofMerlin(1947).

He died in Dunedin Nursing Home, Bath Road,Reading,on 10 March 1943, aged 73, after an operation. A funeral service was held at Trinity College Chapel, Oxford, on 13 March 1943.

There is aslatememorial in St Mary's Church, inAldworth,Berkshire,where Binyon's ashes were scattered. On 11 November 1985, Binyon was among 16 Great War poets commemorated on a slate stone unveiled inWestminster Abbey'sPoets' Corner.The inscription on the stone was taken fromWilfred Owen's "Preface" to his poems and reads: "My subject is War, and the pity of War. The Poetry is in the pity".

Family

His three daughters Helen, Margaret andNicoletebecame artists.Helen Binyon(1904–1979) studied withPaul NashandEric Ravilious,illustrating many books for theOxford University Press,and was also a marionettist. She later taught puppetry and publishedPuppetry Today(1966) andProfessional Puppetry in England(1973). Margaret Binyon wrote children's books, which were illustrated by Helen. Nicolete, asNicolete Gray,was a distinguishedcalligrapherand art scholar.

Selected bibliography

Poems and verse

• Lyric Poems(1894)
• Porphyrion and other Poems(1898)
• Odes(1901)
• Death of Adam and Other Poems(1904)
• London Visions(1908)
• England and Other Poems(1909)
• "For The Fallen",The Times,21 September 1914
• Winnowing Fan(1914)
• Ypres
• The Anvil(1916)
• The Cause(1917)
• The New World: Poems(1918)
• The Idols(1928)
• Collected Poems Vol 1: London Visions, Narrative Poems, Translations.(1931)
• Collected Poems Vol 2: Lyrical Poems.(1931)
• The North Star and Other Poems(1941)
• The Burning of the Leaves and Other Poems(1944)
• The Madness of Merlin(1947)
• Poems of Two Wars(2016)

In 1915Cyril Roothamset "For the Fallen" for chorus and orchestra, first performed in 1919 by theCambridge University Musical Societyconducted by the composer.Edward Elgarset to music three of Binyon's poems ( "The Fourth of August", "To Women", and "For the Fallen", published within the collection "The Winnowing Fan" ) asThe Spirit of England,Op. 80, for tenor or soprano solo, chorus and orchestra (1917).

English arts and myth

• Dutch Etchers of the Seventeenth Century(1895), Binyon's first book on painting
• John Crome and John Sell Cotman(1897)
• William Blake:Being all his Woodcuts Photographically Reproduced in Facsimile(1902)
• English Poetry in its relation to painting and the other arts(1918)
• Drawings and Engravings of William Blake(1922)
• Arthur:A Tragedy(1923)
• The Followers of William Blake(1925)
• The Engraved Designs of William Blake(1926)
• Landscape in English Art and Poetry(1931)
• English Water-colours(1933)
• Gerard Hopkinsand his influence(1939)
• Art and freedom.(TheRomanes lecture,delivered 25 May 1939). Oxford: The Clarendon press, (1939)

Japanese and Persian arts

• Painting in the Far East(1908)
• Japanese Art(1909)
• Flight of the Dragon(1911)
• The Court Painters of the Grand Moguls(1921)
• Japanese Colour Prints(1923)
• The Poems ofNizami(1928) (Translation)
• Persian Miniature Painting(1933)
• The Spirit of Man in Asian Art(1936)

Autobiography

• For Dauntless France(1918) (War memoir)

Biography

• Botticelli(1913)
• Akbar(1932)

Stage plays

• Brief CandlesA verse-drama about the decision ofRichard IIIto dispatch his two nephews
• "Paris and Oenone", 1906
• Godstow Nunnery: Play
• Boadicea;A Play in eight Scenes
• Attila: a Tragedy in Four Acts
• Ayuli: a Play in three Acts and an Epilogue
• Sophro the Wise: a Play for Children

(Most of the above were written forJohn Masefield's theatre).

Charles Villiers Stanfordwroteincidental musicforAttilain 1907.

Further reading

• Hatcher, John (1995)Laurence Binyon: poet, scholar of East and West.Oxford: Clarendon PressISBN0-19-812296-9
• Checkland, Olive (2002)Japan and Britain After 1859: creating cultural bridges.London: RoutledgeCurzonISBN0-7007-1747-1
• Giddings, Robert (1998)The War Poets.London: BloomsburyISBN0-7475-4271-6.
• Qian, Zhaoming (2003)The Modernist Response to Chinese Art: Pound, Moore, Stevens.Charlottesville: University of Virginia PressISBN0-8139-2176-7
• Chisholm, Hugh,ed. (1911)."Binyon, Laurence".Encyclopædia Britannica.Vol. 3 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.

External links

• Laurence Binyon author page at Dare-Gale Press
• Laurence Binyon Collectionat theHarry Ransom Center
• Works by Laurence BinyonatProject Gutenberg
• Works by or about Laurence Binyonat theInternet Archive
• Works by Laurence BinyonatLibriVox(public domain audiobooks)
• "Koya San"(poem)
• Artists Riflesaudiobook liner noteson Binyon
• Laurence BinyonatFind a Grave