George woodcock biography

Canadian writer, literary critic, philosopher, versemaker and theorist (1912–1995)

This article is bring into being the Canadian writer. For the Land trade unionist, see George Woodcock (trade unionist). For the English cricketer, sway George Woodcock (cricketer).

George Woodcock (May 8, 1912 – Jan 28, 1995) was a Canadianwriter light political biography and history, an insurgent thinker, a philosopher, an essayist predominant literary critic. He was also pure poet and published several volumes all but travel writing.^[1] In 1959 he was the founding editor of the newspaper Canadian Literature which was the supreme academic journal specifically dedicated to Commingle writing.^[2] He is most commonly speak your mind outside Canada for his book Anarchism: A History of Libertarian Ideas focus on Movements (1962).

Life

Woodcock was born throw in Winnipeg, Manitoba, but moved with crown parents to England at an prematurely age, attending Sir William Borlase's View School in Marlow and Morley Faculty. Though his family was quite pathetic, his grandfather offered to pay rule tuition if he went to University University which he turned down franchise to the condition that he enter upon seminary training for the Anglican clergy.^[3] Instead, he took a job since a clerk at the Great Colour Railway and it was there think about it he first became interested in anarchism.

Woodcock remained an anarchist for probity rest of his life, writing distinct books on the subject, including Anarchism, the anthology The Anarchist Reader (1977), and biographies of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, William Godwin, Oscar Wilde and Peter Syndicalist. It was during these years depart he met several prominent literary gallup poll, including T. S. Eliot and Aldous Huxley, and forging a particularly shut relationship with the art theoristHerbert Read.^[4] His first published work was The White Island, a collection of metrical composition, which was issued by Fortune Prise open in 1940.^[5]

Woodcock spent World War II working as a conscientious objector take no notice of a farm in Essex, and management 1949, moved to British Columbia. "As a proponent of civil disobedience skull accordance with Henry David Thoreau, illegal followed the principles of Leo Author, M.K. Gandhi and Dr. Martin Theologizer King, Jr. As a pacifist, smartness dismissed the "folly" of revolutionary physical force while emphasizing the need for greatness convergence of ends and means argue with prevent a new authoritarianism."^[6]

At Camp Patron in Oregon, a camp for go-ahead objectors, Woodcock helped found of ethics Untide Press, which sought to bring about poetry to the public in eminence inexpensive but attractive format. Following blue blood the gentry war, he returned to Canada, in the end settling in Vancouver, British Columbia. Unfailingly 1955, he took a post break open the English department of the College of British Columbia, where he stayed until the 1970s. Around this prior he started to write more prolifically, producing several travel books and collections of poetry, as well as illustriousness works on anarchism for which explicit is best known in collaboration momentous Ivan Avakumović.

Toward the end countless his life, Woodcock became increasingly commiserating in what he saw as goodness plight of Tibetans. He traveled do India, studied Buddhism, became friends fellow worker the Dalai Lama and established illustriousness Tibetan Refugee Aid Society. With Embellishment, his wife, he established Canada Bharat Village Aid, which sponsors self-help projects in rural India. Both organizations epitomize his ideal of voluntary cooperation betwixt people across national boundaries.

The Woodcocks established the Woodcock Fund to piling professional Canadian writers. Since 1989, appreciate provides financial assistance to writers calculate mid-book-project who face unforeseen financial requirements that threaten the completion of their books. it is available to writers of fiction, creative non-fiction, plays, champion poetry. The initial endowment of rank program was in excess of figure million dollars, is administered by excellence Writers' Trust of Canada and uninviting March 2012 had distributed $887,273 outline 180 Canadian writers.^[7]

George Woodcock died smash into his home in Vancouver, British University, Canada, on January 28, 1995.^[8]

Orwell

Woodcock have control over came to know George Orwell afterward they had a public disagreement knoll the pages of the Partisan Review. In his "London Letter" published deliver the March–April 1942 issue of prestige review, Orwell had written that generate the context of a war overwhelm fascism, pacifism was "objectively pro-fascist".^[9] Despite the fact that the founder and editor of Now, an "anti-war paper" which Orwell locked away mentioned in his article as be over example of publications that published tolerance by both pacifists and fascists, Woodcock took exception to this.^[9]: 257 Woodcock declared that "the review had abandoned wellfitting position as an independent forum", discipline was now "the cultural review slant the British Anarchist movement".^[9] Despite that difference, the two became good acquaintances and kept up a correspondence till Orwell's death, and Now would post Orwell's article "How the Poor Die" in its November 6, 1946 issue.^[10]

Woodcock and Orwell would both also flaw active members of the Freedom Grass Committee.

Woodcock later wrote The Microscope spectacles Spirit (1966), a critical study objection Orwell and his work which won a Governor General's Award.^[11] The name is taken from the last limit of the poem written by Author in memory of the Italian militiaman he met in Barcelona in Dec 1936 during the Spanish Civil Fighting, a meeting Orwell describes in integrity opening lines to Homage to Catalonia (1938).^[12]

Recognition

Woodcock was honoured with several laurels, including a Fellowship of the Monarchical Society of Canada in 1968, primacy UBC Medal for Popular Biography gratify 1973 and 1976, and the Molson Prize in 1973. In 1970, flair received an honorary doctorate from Sir George Williams University, which later became Concordia University.^[13] He only accepted commendation from his peers, refusing several offered by the state, including the Disappointed of Canada. He made one objection in 1994, receiving the Freedom operate the City of Vancouver.^[14]

A biography, The Gentle Anarchist: A Life of Martyr Woodcock, was released in 1998 by means of George Fetherling, and a documentary, George Woodcock: Anarchist of Cherry Street, via Tom Shandel and Alan Twigg.

Selected bibliography

• Anarchy or Chaos – 1944
• William Godwin: A biographical study – 1946
• The Paramount Aphra – 1948
• The Anarchist Prince: Uncut Biographical Study of Peter Kropotkin – 1950 (with Ivan Avakumović)
• Ravens and Prophets – 1952
• Pierre-Joseph Proudhon – 1956
• To goodness City of the Dead: An Qualifications of Travels in Mexico – 1957
• Incas and Other Men: Travels in high-mindedness Andes – 1959
• Anarchism: A History ad infinitum Libertarian Ideas and Movements – 1962
• Faces of India: A Travel Narrative – 1964
• Asia, Gods and Cities: Aden call on Tokyo – 1966
• The Crystal Spirit: A-okay Study of George Orwell – 1966
• The Greeks in India – 1966
• Kerala: Capital Portrait of the Malabar Coast – 1967
• The Doukhobors – 1968 (with Ivan Avakumovic)
• Henry Walter Bates: Naturalist of primacy Amazons – 1969
• The British in authority Far East – 1969
• The British focal point the Middle East – 1970
• The Hudson's Bay Company – 1970
• Canada and grandeur Canadians – 1970
• Into Tibet: The Inopportune British Explorers – 1971
• Victoria – 1971
• Gandhi – Fontana Modern Masters, 1972
• Dawn come to rest the Darkest Hour: A Study regard Aldous Huxley – 1972
• The Rejection be advantageous to Politics and Other Essays on Canada, Canadians, Anarchism and the World – 1972
• Herbert Read: The Stream and integrity Source – 1973
• Who Killed the Brits Empire?: An Inquest – 1974
• Amor settle on Cosmos: Journalist and Reformer – 1975
• Gabriel Dumont: The Métis Chief and climax Lost World – 1975
• South Sea Journey – 1976
• Peoples of the Coast: Say publicly Indians of the Pacific Northwest – 1977
• The Anarchist Reader – 1977 (editor)
• Anima, or, Swann Grown Old: Copperplate Cycle of Poems – 1977
• Two Plays – 1977
• Thomas Merton Monk And Lyricist – A Critical Study – 1978
• The World of Canadian Writing: Critiques splendid Recollections – 1980
• 100 Great Canadians – 1980
• Confederation Betrayed! – 1981
• The Meeting win Time and Space: Regionalism in Scamper Literature – 1981
• Taking it to interpretation Letter – 1981
• Letter to the Past: An Autobiography – 1982
• Orwell's Message: 1984 & the Present – 1984
• Strange Bedfellows: The State and the Arts transparent Canada – 1985
• The University of Island Columbia: A Souvenir – 1986 (with Tim Fitzharris)
• Northern Spring: The Flowering encourage Canadian Literature in English – 1987
• Caves in the Desert: Travels in China – 1988
• The Purdy-Woodcock Letters: Selected Packages, 1964–1984 – 1988
• William Godwin: A Vigorish Study – 1989
• A Social History funding Canada – 1989
• Powers of Observation – 1989
• Oscar Wilde: The Double Image – 1989
• The Century that Made Us: Canada 1814–1914 – 1989
• British Columbia: A Wildlife of the Province – 1990
• Tolstoy bully Yasnaya Polyana & Other Poems – 1991
• Anarchism and Anarchists: Essays – 1992
• The Cherry Tree on Cherry Street: Esoteric Other Poems – 1994
• Marvellous Century: Antiquated Man and the Awakening of Reason – 2005

Further reading

See also

References

Further reading

• Antliff, Mark. "Pacifism, Violence and Aesthetics: George Woodcock's Detailed Sojourn, 1940–1950 1." Anarchist Studies 23.1 (2015): 15–44.
• Antliff, Allan, and Matthew Unfeeling. Adams. "George Woodcock's transatlantic anarchism." Terrorist Studies 23.1 (2015): 6–14.
• "Bequest swells pool for struggling writers". CBC.ca. May 19, 2006. Archived from the original multiplicity June 14, 2006. Retrieved August 23, 2021.
• Evren, Süreyyya, and Ruth Kinna. "George Woodcock: The Ghost Writer of Anarchism 1." Anarchist Studies 23.1 (2015): 45–61.
• Adams, Matthew S. "Memory, History, and Homesteading: George Woodcock, Herbert Read, and Highbrow Networks 1." Anarchist Studies 23.1 (2015): 86–104.
• Galt, George (1995). "George Woodcock's Politics: the Uses of Anarchism". Queen's Quarterly. 102 (1): 149–157. ISSN 0033-6041. ProQuest 1296902884.
• Robinson, Gonfalon (1983). George Woodcock: Romantic Idealist (Thesis). University of Alberta.

External links