John Galsworthy Life (1867-1933 )

John Galsworthy life (1867-1933)

John Galsworthy's ( 1867-1933)

His Life - John Galsworthy was one of the greatest dramatists of the modern age in English literature. Alongwith other dramatists like George Bernard Shaw and Sir James Barie he brought to the drama an awareness of the complexities of modern life. He was a prolific writer. His genius was versatile. He wrote in many literary forms. Hermon Onld has given a list of fifteen literary forms in which John Galsworthy worked. He wrote novels, plays, poems, stories and essays and in each of these he left his mark. He was a great social reformer. Although he was born in a rich family, he championed the cause of the poor and the oppressed. In his early life he gave no sign of becoming a great writer or any kind of writer at all. Yet he became one of the most outstanding novelists and dramatists of his time. He received the highest national an international awards. 

John Galsworthy was born on August 14, 1867 at Kingston Hill in Surrey. Now it is a suburb of London. His ancestors were small farmer in Devonshire. His father, whose name was also John Galsworthy, was a wealthy London lawyer and property owner. To some extent he described his own family as the Forsyte family in his novels. His father, whom he held in great affection, was the original of old Jolyon in The Forsyte Saga. His mother came of an old Worcestershire family named Bartleet. Galsworthy was brought up with all the comforts of an upper middle class family.

 John Galsworthy was educated at Harrow, one of the most famous and exclusive of English public schools, where he was the captain of the football team. At Harrow he had a creditable, but not remarkable career. He was the best dressed boy in the school. He was an athlete of some distinction and a good scholar, but there was head of his house, but there was nothing unusual about his literary tastes. No one at school detected in him signs of future greatness. In 1886 he passed on to New College, Oxford where he studied law and obtained a degree in law in 1889. At the University also he showed no marked literary taste. He was only fond of shooting and racing. None of his contemporaries was aware of the presence even in a rudimentary form of the qualities which afterwards displayed themselves in him. None of them foresaw what he would become and do.

John Galsworthy was "called to the Bar" in 1890, that is, he qualified as a barrister. He became a barrister at his father's suggestion, but he did not like his profession. He had no need to eam his living and he never practiced law. His father sent him to Canada to investigate the affairs of a mine. He travelled adventurously for two years in Canada, Australia, New Zeeland and the South Seas. During these voyages he read Dickens, Turgenev, Maupassant and Tolstoy. On his way home from Australia he met Joseph Conrad, the Polish seaman who became a great English novelist. The two remained friends till Conrad's death in 1924. 

John Galsworthy expressed, for the first time, his desire to become a writer in 1894. He wrote in a letter, "I do wish I had the gift of writing; I really think that it is the nicest way of making money going.... ". But it was Ada Galsworthy who made him into a writer. Without Ada Galsworthy he might never have become a writer. Ada was the exceptionally beautiful and talented wife of Galsworthy's cousin Arthur Galsworthy. John Galsworthy met her a week after her marriage and at once he fell deeply in love with her. Ada was very unhappy in her marriage. Gradually they grew closer and often travelled abroad together. On the platform of the Gare du Nord in Paris, when he was seeing her and her mother off, she spoke the fateful words, "Why don't you write? You're just the person". It was Easter Week, 1895, and John Galsworthy the writer was born. For ten years they maintained a secret love affair. In those days a divorce was a major social scandal. Galsworthy's father would have felt it as a deep disgrace. Both the lovers did not want to hurt the feelings of old John Galsworthy. So they waited until after his death. Galsworthy's father died in December, 1904. On January 10,1905, they left for Italy where they travelled about. They returned to London in September. They on September, 23, and settled happily down. The long ordeal was over.

 As Ada had been divorced she was avoided by people. John Galsworthy himself felt that his close friends had the right to condemn and disown him for what he was doing. These years left a permanent mark on him. That iS why he finally rebelled against the class to which he belonged and insisted on the theme of loveless marriage. Ada John Galsworthy was fully convinced o his ability. She was his inspiration. She helped and encouraged him for the rest of his life. Neither of them was happy in the absence of the other. She was to him the breath of life. When she was not at his side. Something seemed to darken in his soul, She was his best and wisest critic. They discussed every detail of his work, and she typed nearly all of it herself. When he was writing with difficulty nothing helped him so much as her playing to him. She was a fine pianist and they both loved music. He often read his day's production to Ada. He always valued her criticism. In the dedication to "The Forsyte Saga" he describes her as "One without whose encouragement, sympathy and criticism I could never have become even such a writer as I am".

As John Galsworthy developed into an eminent and widely respected literary figures of England, his fame and popularity grew. He and his wife were well received everywhere. He received honorary, degrees from various universities. In 1918 has refused a knighthood as he thought that such kind of honour was inappropriate to his profession. The order of merit, the highest British honour, was conferred upon him in 1929. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1932. He gave the prize money to the P.E.N., (Poets. Playwrights, editors and essayists, novelists) the international club of writers of which he was the first President. Galsworthy died at Grove lodge, Hampstead, in north London, on January 31, 1933.