Joseph Campbell (1879-1944)

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Commentary
J. S. Crone, “Reviews”, in The Irish Book Lover, Vol. I, No. 3 (Oct. 1909): ‘It is a pleasant recollection of the present reviewer that he once heard the late Lord Russell, of Killowen, then in the zenith of his powers, refer to the dispossessed Celtic inhabitants of Ulster, whom he had known in his youth, in words that have clung to his memory since: ‘They were called “the mountainy men”, for the rich valleys and the fertile plains were not for them’, and the fine voice faltered and a tear glistened in the eye. It was with such thoughts one took up this handsome volume, The Mountainy Singer by Seosamh MacCathmhaoil (Maunsel, Dublin). Here we have a descendant of those very men who refused to go to Connaught—or the other place—but clung to their bare hillsides and their ancient faith, and well and sweetly he sings in spirited cadences the legend, customs and superstitions that yet linger amongst his own folk. Some of these poems have appeared in earlier volumes and some set to traditional airs have delighted London drawing-rooms. This judicious. selection of the cream of the author’s work heretofore—long may he continue—is sufficient to place him high in the ranks of contemporary singers. The author has recently been holiday-making “in Ould Donegal”, about which he has recorded his impressions with a view to publica­tion later on. We have been privileged to read a portion of the MS, and we can assure our readers that as word-pictures by a true artist they are entitled to a place beside his poems, and that is the highest praise our humble judgment can accord.’ [p.28.]

Natan Zach, ‘Imagism and Vorticism’, in Modernism: A Guide to European Literature 1890-1930 , ed. Malcolm Bradbury & James MacFarlane (Harmondsworth: Penguin 1976, 1991): ‘Despite some arguments to the contrary, the continuity of Imagist work from [T. E.] Hulme’s circle to Pound’s school can be readily traced. Joseph Campbell’s “The Dawn Whiteness” illustrates the kind of Imagist poem coming from the former [quotes]: “The dawn whiteness. A bank of slate-grey cloud lying heavily over it. The moon, like a hunted thing, dropping into the cloud.” / Slight without being trivial, the poem’s concentration on the image echoes the Symbolist stress on essential form to the exclusion of all allegedly extra-poetic matter. Though mildly suggestive of mood or state of mind, it minimizes the poet’s personal involvement, and is not manifestly symbolic in the sense of standing in for anyti-fing distinct from its own delimited surface meaning. The poem strives [233] for verbal economy, its lightness of touch recalling the Japanese Haiku.’ (pp.233-34.)

Michael Laffan, review of Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin, ed., As I was Among the Captives: Joseph Campbell’s Prison Diary 1922-1923 (Cork UP 2001), notes that Campbell regarded the death of Griffith and Collins as ‘miraculous interposition of providence’ and felt no regret at the destruction of the Public Records Office, ‘documents validating spoliation & conquest’.

Patrick Maume quotes Anne Markey’ s introduction to Joseph Campbell, translation of the Irish-language stories of Patrick Pearse, originally published in 1917, reissued by by UCD Press [2009]: ‘He assiduously strove to avoid literary ornamentation and tried instead to cultivate a colloquial style that echoed Pearse’s own vernacular. His [Campbell’s] translations are not flawless. Sometimes, indeed, they are inaccurate, as, for example, when he renders “o gach uile aird” as “from every art” (p.94) instead of “from every direction”.’ (Markey, p.xxxix.) Maume remarks: ‘In fact, Campbell is not, strictly speaking, inaccurate. He is using a Scottish/Ulster expression “art” or “airt” presumably derived from the Gaelic, which does mean “direction” as in Robert Burns: “Of a’ the airts the wind can blaw, I dearly like the west, For there the bonie lassie lives, The lassie I lo’e best”’ - with link to full text at Robert Burns website. (Diaspora E-list, 20.05.2009.)

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Quotations
“Gombeen”: ‘And so behind his web of bales, / Horse halters, barrels, pucaun sails / The gombeen like a spider sits, / Surfeited; and for all his wits, / As poor as one who never knew / The treasure of the early dew.’ (In John Montague, ed., Faber Book of Irish Verse, p. 248.)

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References
D. J. O’Donoghue, Poets of Ireland (Dublin: Hodges Figgis 1912): ‘clever young Catholic poet and artist ... writes under Irish form of his name (Joseph Campbell) is a native of Belfast and now resides near Dublin; represented in Dublin Book of Irish Verse, ed. John Cooke (1909).

Donagh MacDonagh, ed. and intro., Poems from Ireland, ed. with an intro., with a preface by R. M. Smyllie (Dublin: The Irish Times 1944), notes that he ‘lectured at Fordham University; returning to [Ireland] in the present war [i.e., 1939-45] he contributed many poems to the Irish Times under his own name and under the pseud. of ‘Ultach’; his Collected Poems appeared in 1936 [... &c.]’

Robert Hogan, ed., Dictionary of Irish Literature (Dublin: Gill & Macmillan 1979), lists The Little Cowherd of Slainge, a play printed in Uladh, No. 1, and cites contemporaneous review of same, ending “Campbell has not yet found his voice”. Remarks that there was a Austin Clarke broadcast on Campbell, 1938; Campbell himself broadcast on Jan. 28 1942. Campbell had friendships with Colum and F. J. Bigger [‘the Ulster politician’]; actor, playwright and editor in Ulster literary movement; m. Nancy Maude in London [c.1911]; Quotes: ‘Who would unlook me / Must file for himself a key of three words– / Vision, Energy, Bleakness’, qualities the Campbell though characteristic of Irish poetry; also ‘I am the mountainy singer– / The voice of the peasant’s dream, / The cry of the wind on the wooded hill, / The leap of the fish in the stream.’ Also quotes from Irishry: ‘As the spent radiance / Of the winter sun, / So is a woman / With her travail done. // Her brood gone from her, / And her thoughts as still / As the waters / Under a ruined mill.’

Brian M. Walker, et al., eds., Faces of Ireland (Belfast: Appletree 1992), selects “Harvest Song”, and remarks that he set the life of Christ among the people and fields of Ulster’s countryside.

Seamus Deane, gen. ed., The Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing (Derry: Field Day 1991), Vol. 2, selects “Who Buys Land” [‘Who buys land / Buys many stones, Who buys flesh / Buys many bones ...’] from The Rushlight, “When Rooks Fly Homeward”, “I am the Gilly of Christ”, “As I Came Over the Grey, Grey Hills”, from The Gilly of Christ (1907); “I am the Mountainy Singer” (b), from The Mountainy Singer (1909); “The Gombeen”, “The Old age Pensioner”, from Irishry (1913) [759-62]. Biog., 780-81. Note also that the editor of the James Joyce section in The Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing, Vol. 2, remarks that Campbell’s Judgement: A Play in two Acts (Maunsel 1912) uses the words ‘bastard’ and ‘whore’ (on p.25) and further adds that Campbell is behind the reference to ‘Mountainy Mutton’ in Joyce’s Gas from a Burner.

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Notes
Brian Fallon calls Campbell a Georgian poet, with Colum and F.R. Higgins, in Irish Times ‘Reassessment’ [see Higgins, q.v.], while Terence Brown compare him to Walter de la Mare (See Oxford Companion to Irish Literature, 1996).

Lock-up: Campbell is rumoured to have sought internment to escape an unhappy marriage, according to Francis Stuart on the information of Peadar ODonnell.

Sugar Loaf: Lilly [Eliz.] Yeats had a vision of a ‘tall woman [...] full of charm’ and her lover, who dies of tuberculosis, in the house in Glencullen, Co. Wicklow, occupied by the Campbells in July 1914: ‘the house was very lonely and buried away, a big old house with a view of the Sugarloaf mountains. It was partly furnished by the Campbells and partly by furniture belonging to the landlord. [...].’ (Letter to Oliver Elton, 28 Aug. 1916.)

Namesake: Robert Campbell - “Mountain Man” (1804 -1879), an American frontiersman who began life in Plumridge, Co. Tyrone, and emigrated in 1822, following his elder brother Hugh. He made his name exploring the Rocky Mountains as a trapper and trader and became a recognised authority and diplomat in settler relations with the indigenous population - soon to be displaced. In his first outing he sheltered with Pawnee and later suffered attacks from Blackfeet. He fought at the Battle of Pierre"s Hole in 1832, an event afterwards retold by Washington Irving as The Adventures of Captain Bonneville (1837) [drama]. Campbell pursued a successful commercial career with several partners and was elected president of State Bank of Missouri in 1846. He was appointed colonel in the state militia in the Mexican-American War, 1846 and declared himself a Unionist-with-slavery in the lead-up to the Civil War, defending the right to own slaves though he emancipated his own for moral reasons. In 869 he was appointed to Board of Indian Commissioners. He married Virginia Kyle whom he met when he was 31 and she 13 to whom he proposed at 16. (See Wikipedia - online.)

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