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Fantasia, v. 1, issue 1, January 1941
Page 17
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FANTASIA 17 Oakland, Calif., in 1890. There, after working for three years in the real-estate office of his uncle, he met Joaquin Miller, Jack London and Bierce. In 1896 he married, separating from his wife in 1904 because of "tempermental difficulties". In 1918, his wife committed suicide by taking poison; this was an event which evidently exercised a ponderous influence on Sterling, and was strangely portentous. Sterling's first volume of poetry was "The Testimony of the Suns", published in 1903 and consisted of 43 poems, and a poetical dedication to Bierce. The book derived its title from that of the twelfth poem. He did not achieve any degree of prominence until the publication of "A Wine of Wizardry" in 1907. Bierce submitted the manuscript of this classic fantasy to Harpers, Scribners, Atlantic, Century, Metropolitan and Booklovers Magazine. They all rejected it! Finally, Bierce published it himself in Cosmopolitan in Summer of 1907. After this, Sterling began to turn out volumes of poetry with almost annual regularity. By far the greater part of his work was published by A.M. Robertson of San Francisco. George Sterling died by his own hand on November 17, 1926, in his room at the Bohemian Club, where he had lived for some years. Attendants of the club who found his body said that he had not left the room for three days. Some of his papers he had burned, while others were found arranged in neat piles. An empty bottle of cyanide of potassium was found lying near his bed. His tragic suicide was attributed to various causes : depression, discouragement, dipsomania and poverty. A note written to a friend two weeks before his death seemed to confirm the latter explanation. Said Frank Belknap Long, Jr. of Sterling: "He was too fine and brave a spirit to quail before mere poverty, and like most poets he did not live altogether for the things of this world. But he was not a young man, and the smallness of his income unquestionably caused him a great deal of anxiety...". Between 1903 and 1926 Sterling produced twelve volumes of lyric poetry, one of which was published posthumously, five volumes of dramatic poetry, and a critical work -- a study of Robinson Jeffers. His life was not too different, in its tragedy, from that of Poe. But his own philosophy -- as expressed in the epic dramatic poem "Lilith" -- was, as Theodore Dreiser said: "...the eternal balance between good and evil, pleasure and pain.". His poems are incomparable in their sheer beauty and stunning magnitude of scope. No commentary of mine can even meagerly describe the dazzlingly lustrous webs of fantasy he spun from the coarse fibres of the English tongue. "Black, inexorable reefs, whereon the freezing billows mount and mourn...There is no wind along the summer grass -- day rains upon unshaken dews...Dragons clutch at you with bellies like Hell's roof, and eyes of ice...The moon, a silver bowl, pours witch-wine on the world..." These from "Lilith". What unparalleled magic weaves through all his writings. What subtle harmonies and riotous, uninhibited splendors seduce the senses upon the reading alone! "Where wattled monsters redly gape, that guard, a cowled magician peering on the damned...Where arctic elves have hidden wintry gems, and treasuries of frozen anadems, alight with timid sapphires of the snows...Orbs that graven monsters clasp...Unresting hydras wrought of bloody light...Black incense glow, and scarlet bellied snakes sway to the tawny flutes of sorcery...A crimson spider hidden in a skull...A vial squat whose scarlet venom crawls..." A smattering only. And Sterling's magnificent "A Wine of Wizardry", from which the last few quotations are taken, occupies five letter-size pages, single-spaced in type of this size (elite). I know that Sterling's poetry means a great deal to me. And I speak not with prejudice -- for prejudice does not enter in where genius is concerned. I say unhesitatingly and unreservedly that admirers of Sterling are fantasy fans, and that Sterling's truly tremendous achievements belong in the collection of every fantasy fan. THE END
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FANTASIA 17 Oakland, Calif., in 1890. There, after working for three years in the real-estate office of his uncle, he met Joaquin Miller, Jack London and Bierce. In 1896 he married, separating from his wife in 1904 because of "tempermental difficulties". In 1918, his wife committed suicide by taking poison; this was an event which evidently exercised a ponderous influence on Sterling, and was strangely portentous. Sterling's first volume of poetry was "The Testimony of the Suns", published in 1903 and consisted of 43 poems, and a poetical dedication to Bierce. The book derived its title from that of the twelfth poem. He did not achieve any degree of prominence until the publication of "A Wine of Wizardry" in 1907. Bierce submitted the manuscript of this classic fantasy to Harpers, Scribners, Atlantic, Century, Metropolitan and Booklovers Magazine. They all rejected it! Finally, Bierce published it himself in Cosmopolitan in Summer of 1907. After this, Sterling began to turn out volumes of poetry with almost annual regularity. By far the greater part of his work was published by A.M. Robertson of San Francisco. George Sterling died by his own hand on November 17, 1926, in his room at the Bohemian Club, where he had lived for some years. Attendants of the club who found his body said that he had not left the room for three days. Some of his papers he had burned, while others were found arranged in neat piles. An empty bottle of cyanide of potassium was found lying near his bed. His tragic suicide was attributed to various causes : depression, discouragement, dipsomania and poverty. A note written to a friend two weeks before his death seemed to confirm the latter explanation. Said Frank Belknap Long, Jr. of Sterling: "He was too fine and brave a spirit to quail before mere poverty, and like most poets he did not live altogether for the things of this world. But he was not a young man, and the smallness of his income unquestionably caused him a great deal of anxiety...". Between 1903 and 1926 Sterling produced twelve volumes of lyric poetry, one of which was published posthumously, five volumes of dramatic poetry, and a critical work -- a study of Robinson Jeffers. His life was not too different, in its tragedy, from that of Poe. But his own philosophy -- as expressed in the epic dramatic poem "Lilith" -- was, as Theodore Dreiser said: "...the eternal balance between good and evil, pleasure and pain.". His poems are incomparable in their sheer beauty and stunning magnitude of scope. No commentary of mine can even meagerly describe the dazzlingly lustrous webs of fantasy he spun from the coarse fibres of the English tongue. "Black, inexorable reefs, whereon the freezing billows mount and mourn...There is no wind along the summer grass -- day rains upon unshaken dews...Dragons clutch at you with bellies like Hell's roof, and eyes of ice...The moon, a silver bowl, pours witch-wine on the world..." These from "Lilith". What unparalleled magic weaves through all his writings. What subtle harmonies and riotous, uninhibited splendors seduce the senses upon the reading alone! "Where wattled monsters redly gape, that guard, a cowled magician peering on the damned...Where arctic elves have hidden wintry gems, and treasuries of frozen anadems, alight with timid sapphires of the snows...Orbs that graven monsters clasp...Unresting hydras wrought of bloody light...Black incense glow, and scarlet bellied snakes sway to the tawny flutes of sorcery...A crimson spider hidden in a skull...A vial squat whose scarlet venom crawls..." A smattering only. And Sterling's magnificent "A Wine of Wizardry", from which the last few quotations are taken, occupies five letter-size pages, single-spaced in type of this size (elite). I know that Sterling's poetry means a great deal to me. And I speak not with prejudice -- for prejudice does not enter in where genius is concerned. I say unhesitatingly and unreservedly that admirers of Sterling are fantasy fans, and that Sterling's truly tremendous achievements belong in the collection of every fantasy fan. THE END
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