W. H. Hudson: the Man, the Novelist, the Naturalist.

Abstract

William Henry Hudson (1841-1922) was born in Argentina of New Engl and parents, lived in London for over forty-five years and actually became a British subject in 1900. Although the publication of Green Mansions in 1904 and the unveiling in Hyde Park of the controversial Rima Memorial sculptured by Jacob Epstein in 1925 exp and ed an always small readership, Hudson's loyal following consisted mainly of other writers who championed him as the great stylist--Edward Garnett, Edward Thomas, Morley Roberts, John Galsworthy, Ford Madox Ford, Joseph Conrad, Violet Hunt and Ezra Pound. Sorting through their essays, reviews, portraits and reminiscences leads to a discovery of many unsupported and often excessive eulogies. The mythological Hudson comes across as the enigma, the Olympian, the prophet, the genius. I believe this trend of hero-worship springs both from the desire on the part of readers to promote a neglected author and from the image Hudson constructed for himself. In the complete works in twenty-four volumes, a melange of fiction, poetry, ornithology, autobiography, out-of-door essays and preservationist pamphlets for the Bird-Society and Humanitarian League, Hudson presents himself as the embodiment of ever-changing Nature which cannot be confined by a field, a description, a label, a single word. The legends that Hudson and his followers created ultimately helped conceal him as a human being and distort worthwhile accomplishments. This study containing biographical findings from letters, autobiography and portraits along with literary criticism seeks to dispel and re-evaluate three specific myths. In each of three chapters I begin with the legend itself, its sources and related offshoots. From there I show how this particular misconception of the man leads not only to a misunderst and ing of his writings, but to a distortion of at least one central aspect of his philosophy. First I show how Hudson described as prematurely dead in London made full use of his adopted country and how misnamed a nostalgic, he believed in time as a continuity and in creativity as primarily retrospective. Second I question the notion of Hudson as a hermit and misanthrope by exploring the various contacts and intimacies of his life and by revealing the many personalities in his books. I suggest that what has been perceived as indifference to his fellow man is really Hudson's preference for certain character types and an expressed awareness of all human things as transitory and therefore miniscule against the eternal flux of Nature. Third I explain how Hudson, although he insisted on being called an ordinary field naturalist, tried to exp and the vocation into a religious-aesthetic science. In my conclusion I discuss Hudson, the wide reader, who wished to remain independent of any one influence. His attempt at pure eclecticism fits in with his vision of Nature and his unattainable hope to take the "whole wide world" for his field. This study endeavors to shed light on W. H. Hudson and his work, to show, at least in this case, how such myths are made and to revive interest in a fairly prolific author.