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Abstract
This article examines Michael Field's avant-guard poetic dramas post 1895, in particular the Roman Trilogy (The World at Auction, The Race of Leaves, and Julia Domna), to suggest they should be read for their extraordinary poetic experimentation, which precedes, prefigures and is at the heart of modernism's innovations in the genre. It argues that influenced by the works of Friedrich Nietzsche, particularly The Birth of Tragedy, Michael Field turned to Latin decadence and to contemporary German philology to re-energise the genre. The essay also suggests that the Trilogy's emphasis on dance foreshadows the impact of Ballet Russes on modern aesthetics.
Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1 There is a small number of published works on Michael Field's plays, including Taft (Citation2001), Bickle (Citation2006, Citation2010) Parejo Vadillo (2007, 2013) and Olverson (Citation2015).
2 Michael Field dates the action of the play in 212 ce. Current scholarship suggests that the killing of Geta occurred in December 211 ce.
3 A transcription of this letter appears in Michael Field's unpublished 26-volume diary, ‘Works and Days’, Add. MS 46785, fol. 56, entry by Katharine Bradley: ‘I am rather anxious you should drive us out of the enchanted centuries of decadence into an age of purer blood’. Further references to the diary are given parenthetically in the text by manuscript and folio number. Entries by Bradley are denoted K. B. and those by Cooper as E. C.
4 See Michael Field's ‘Preface’ to Attila, My Attila! They proofread Equal Love as they were doing the final revisions for Attila, My Attila! (MS 46783, fol. 160v [E. C.]). On Attila, My Attila! and sexuality, see Bristow (Citation2014).
5 ‘My own Love’ is Bradley.
6 But I have read more Ni[e]tzsche … & what have I discovered!! That every thought, almost, that Bernard presented this spring with the marvellous personality of voice & language that is his, came straight from Ni[e]tsche without acknowledgement. When I think that B. stood in the way of our reading Ni[e]tzsche, & represented him as a German Whitman, lacking the American's quality —I recoil against the doer of this infamy. The man is in an asylum … & another man simply day by day charms people with the madman's originality, & never even say “all this was suggested by Ni[e]tzsche.” I knew B. to be ungenerous, I never knew he could be such an intellectual scamp as this! Shame on him! Michael Field, (MS 46784, fol. 4 [E. C.]).
7 On the day of publication of Julia Domna (9 April 1903), the women would confide in their diary that they wished to write a revised version of the play: ‘We feel profoundly a new Race of Leaves must be written—of Commodus from within, of Commodus & Marcia—Then the great Trilogy will, by the grace of Heaven be completed’ (MS 46792, fol. 47v, E.C.).
8 Richard Garnett suggested the story of Marcia and Ecclectus (see MS 46784, fol. 11, E.C.).
9 Books I–IV of Herodian describe the reigns of Commodus, Pertinax, Severus and Caracalla. They read John Dryden's translation of Lucian (see MS 46784, fol. 52v, E.C. ) in Dryden (Citation1710–11).
10 The first translation into English was by Thomas Common in 1896.
11 A second impression of Thus Spake Zarathustra was published in Nietzsche (Citation1899). Michael Field's replications differ slightly from the English translation. Tille's reads: ‘One must have chaos within to enable one to give birth to a dancing star’; ‘A thousand paths there are which have never yet been walked, a thousand healths and hidden islands of life. Unexhausted and undiscovered ever are man and the human earth’; ‘Verily, a place of healing shall earth become! And already a new odour lieth round it, an odour which bringeth salvation – and a new hope’.
12 The first translation of the text into English appeared in Nietzsche (1909). Michael Field's summary/translation can be found in this first edition (93–145).
13 I have dealt with these issues in Parejo Vadillo (Citation2007).
14 Here, one can also hear a reference to Lionel Johnson's critique of Attila, My Attila!
15 They would, however, write prologues in later works. See, for example, Michael Field (Citation1911), published anonymously as by ‘The author of Borgia‘.
16 For more on Michael Field and Wagner, see Parejo Vadillo (Citation2013).
17 Cooper is referring here to the review in the Chronicle of Attila, My Attila!
18 A good account of the history of this society can be found in Schuchard (Citation2008).