1、Katherine MansfieldFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaJump to: navigation, search Katherine MansfieldBorn 14 October 1888Wellington, New ZealandDied 9 January 1923 (aged 34)Fontainebleau, FrancePen name Katherine MansfieldNationality New ZealandLiterary movement ModernismSpouse(s) George Bowden, J
2、ohn Middleton MurryPartner(s) Ida Constance BakerRelative(s)Arthur Beauchamp (grandfather)Harold Beauchamp (father)Elizabeth von Arnim (cousin)Katherine Mansfield Beauchamp Murry (14 October 1888 9 January 1923) was a prominent modernist writer of short fiction who was born and brought up in colonia
3、l New Zealand and wrote under the pen name of Katherine Mansfield. Mansfield left for Great Britain when she was 19 where she encountered Modernist writers such as D.H. Lawrence and Virginia Woolf with whom she became close friends. Her stories often focus on moments of disruption and frequently ope
4、n rather abruptly. Among her best-known stories are “The Garden Party“, “The Daughters of the Late Colonel“ and “The Fly“. During the First World War Mansfield contracted extrapulmonary tuberculosis, which rendered any return or visit to New Zealand impossible and led to her death at the age of 34.C
5、ontents 1 Biography o 1.1 Early lifeo 1.2 Return to Londono 1.3 Meeting Murryo 1.4 Final years 2 Legacy 3 Works o 3.1 Collectionso 3.2 Short storieso 3.3 Katherine Mansfields works in filmo 3.4 Films about Katherine Mansfieldo 3.5 Adaptations of Katherine Mansfields Work 4 See also 5 References 6 Ex
6、ternal linksedit Biography“ The pleasure of reading is doubled when one lives with another who shares the same books. Katherine Mansfield ”Katherine Mansfield Birthplace in Thorndon, Wellington.edit Early lifeMansfield was born Kathleen Mansfield Beauchamp in 1888 into a socially prominent family in
7、 Wellington, New Zealand. The daughter of a banker in a middle-class colonial family, she was a cousin of author Countess Elizabeth von Arnim. Mansfield had two older sisters, a younger sister and a younger brother, born in 1894.1 Her father, Harold Beauchamp, became the chairman of the Bank of New
8、Zealand and was knighted.23 Her grandfather was Arthur Beauchamp, who briefly represented the Picton electorate in Parliament.34 The Mansfield family moved from Thorndon to Karori in 1893, where Mansfield spent the happiest years of her childhood; she used her memories of this time as an inspiration
9、 for the “Prelude“ story.2Her first published stories appeared in the High School Reporter and the Wellington Girls High School magazine (the family returned to Wellington proper in 1898),2 in 1898 and 1899.5 She became enamoured with a cellist, Arnold Trowell (Mansfield was an accomplished cellist,
10、 having received lessons from Trowells father),2 in 1902, although the feelings were largely unreciprocated.6 Mansfield wrote in her journals of feeling alienated to some extent in New Zealand, and, in general terms, of how she became disillusioned due to the repression of the Mori people, who were
11、often portrayed in a sympathetic or positive light in her later stories, such as How Pearl Button Was Kidnapped.1She moved to London in 1903, where she attended Queens College along with her sisters. Mansfield recommenced playing the cello, an occupation that she believed when at Queens that she wou
12、ld take up professionally,6 but she also began contributing to the school newspaper with such dedication that she eventually became editor during this period.15 She was particularly interested in the works of the French Symbolists and Oscar Wilde,1 and she was appreciated amongst her peers for her v
13、ivacious and charismatic approach to life and work.5 She met fellow writer Ida Baker (also known as Lesley Moore),1 a South African, at the college, and the pair became lifelong friends.2 Mansfield did not become involved in much political activity when she lived in London; for example, she did not
14、actively support the suffragette movement in the UK (women in New Zealand had gained the right to vote in 1893).1Mansfield began journeying into continental Europe in 19031906, mainly to Belgium and Germany. After finishing her schooling in England, Mansfield returned to her New Zealand home in 1906
15、, only then beginning to write short stories. She had several works published in the Native Companion (Australia), which was her first paid writing work, and by this time she had her mind set on becoming a professional writer.5 It was also the first occasion on which she used the pseudonym K. Mansfi
16、eld.6 During this time she rapidly wearied of the provincial New Zealand lifestyle and of her family, and two years later headed again for London.1 Her father sent her an annual allowance of 100 for the rest of her life.2 In later years she expressed both admiration and disdain for New Zealand in he
17、r journals, and she was never able to return there, partly due to her tuberculosis.1Mansfield had two lesbian relationships during this period, notable for their preeminence in her journal entries. Mansfield biographer Angela Smith has said that this is evidence of her “transgressive impetus“, altho
18、ugh Mansfield continued to have male lovers, and attempted to repress her feelings at certain times.1 Her first relationship was with Maata Mahupuku, a young Mori woman whom Mansfield had first met in Wellington, and then again in London. In June 1907 she wrote: “I want MaataI want her as I have had
19、 herterribly. This is unclean I know but true.“ The second relationship, with Edith Kathleen Bendall, took place from 1906 to 1908, and Mansfield also professed her adoration for her in her journals.7edit Return to LondonBack in London in 1908, Mansfield quickly fell into the bohemian way of life li
20、ved by many artists and writers of that era, although she published only one story and one poem during her first 15 months there.5 Mansfield sought out the Trowell family for companionship, and whilst Arnold was involved with another woman, Mansfield embarked on a passionate affair with his brother,
21、 Garnet.6 By early 1909 she had become pregnant with his child, though Trowells parents disapproved of the relationship, and the two broke up. She hastily entered into a marriage with a singing teacher 11 years older,8 George Bowden, on 2 March, but left him the same evening, having failed to consum
22、mate the marriage.6 After a brief reunion with Garnet, Mansfields mother, Annie Beauchamp, arrived in 1909. She blamed the breakdown of the marriage on a lesbian relationship between Mansfield and Baker, and she quickly had her daughter despatched to the spa town of Bad Wrishofen in Bavaria, Germany
23、. Mansfield miscarried after attempting to lift a suitcase on top of a cupboard. It is not known whether her mother knew of this miscarriage when she left shortly after arriving in Germany, but she cut Mansfield out of her will.6Mansfields time in Bavaria was to have a significant effect on her lite
24、rary outlook. She was introduced to the works of Anton Chekhov, a writer who proved to have greater influence upon her writing in the short term than Wilde, on whom she had been fixated. She returned to London in January 1910, and had over a dozen works published in A.R. Orages The New Age, a social
25、ist magazine and highly-regarded intellectual publication. She became a friend and lover of Beatrice Hastings, who lived with Orage.9 Her experiences of Germany formed the foundation of her first published collection, In a German Pension,6 in 1911, a work that was lauded by a number of critics (and
26、enjoyed for its unfavourable portrayal of Germans) but which she later described as “immature“.5 The most successful story from this work was Frau Brechenmacher Attends a Wedding.6edit Meeting MurryAlthough discouraged by the volumes relative lack of success, Mansfield submitted a lightweight story
27、to a new avant-garde magazine called Rhythm. The piece was rejected by the magazines editor, John Middleton Murry, who requested something darker. Mansfield responded with The Woman at the Store, a tale of murder and mental illness.1 Mansfield was inspired in her writing by Fauvism, a contemporary a
28、rt movement of the period, as well as Chekhov, although neither literary style had a profound effect on her writing in the long term (Fauvist literature has been described as savage).16In 1911 Mansfield and Murry began a relationship that culminated in their marriage in 1918. They led a troubled lif
29、e during this time - Mansfield left Murry twice in 191113.10 In October 1912, the publisher of Rhythm, Stephen Swift, absconded to Europe, and left Murry responsible for the debts the magazine had accumulated. Mansfield pledged her fathers allowance towards the magazine, but it was discontinued, bei
30、ng reorganized as The Blue Review in 1913 and folding after three issues.6 Mansfield and Murry were persuaded by their friend Gilbert Cannan to rent a cottage next to his windmill in Cholesbury, Buckinghamshire in 1913, in an attempt to alleviate Mansfield of her ill health.11 It has been suggested
31、that she was suffering from gonorrhoea amongst other things, but there is no real evidence for this. In January 1914 they moved to Paris, with the hope that the change of setting would make writing for both of them easier. However, Mansfield wrote only one story during her time there (Something Chil
32、dish But Very Natural) before Murry was recalled to London to declare bankruptcy.6 Mansfield had a brief affair in 1914 with French writer Francis Carco; her visiting him in Paris in February 19156 was retold in one of her short stories, An Indiscreet Journey.1Mansfields life and work were changed f
33、orever by the 1915 death of her beloved brother, Leslie Heron “Chummie“ Beauchamp,12 as a New Zealand soldier in France in World War I. She was shocked and traumatized by the experience, so much so that her work began to take refuge in the nostalgic reminiscences of their childhood in New Zealand.13
34、 In a poem describing a dream she had shortly after his death, she wroteBy the remembered stream my brother standsWaiting for me with berries in his hands.These are my body. Sister, take and eat.1Despite this turbulence in Mansfields life, she entered into her most productive period of writing in ea
35、rly 1916, and her relationship with Murry also improved.1 The couple had befriended D. H. Lawrence and his wife, Frieda von Richthofen, in 1913, and maintained a strong relationship with them until falling out in 1916. Mansfield began to broaden her literary acquaintances for the remainder of the ye
36、ar, encountering Virginia Woolf, T. S. Eliot, Lytton Strachey and Bertrand Russell through social gatherings and introductions from others.1At the beginning of 1917 Mansfield and Murry separated,1 although he continued to visit her at her new apartment.6 Baker, whom Mansfield often called, with mixt
37、ure of affection and disdain, her “wife“, moved in with her shortly afterwards.8 Mansfield entered into her most prolific period of writing post-1916, which began with several stories, including Mr Reginald Peacocks Day and A Dill Pickle, being published in The New Age. Woolf and her husband, Leonar
38、d, who had recently set up Hogarth Press, approached her for a story, and Mansfield presented “Prelude“, which she had begun writing in 1915 as The Aloe. The story is centred around a family of New Zealanders moving home, with little external plot. Although it failed to reach a wider audience and wa
39、s little noticed and criticized on its publication in 1918, it later became one of Mansfields most celebrated works.6In December 1917 Mansfield became ill, and was diagnosed with tuberculosis. Rejecting the idea of a sanatorium on the basis that it would cut her off from writing,5 she took the only
40、available option, to move abroad during the English winter.6 She moved to Bandol, France, and stayed at a half-deserted and cold hotel, where she became depressed. However, she continued to produce stories, including Je ne parle pas franais, one of her darker works (believed to have been inspired by
41、 Fyodor Dostoevskys Notes from the Underground, it is a deeply personal work that casts Murry in negative light). Bliss, the story that lent its name to her second collection of stories in 1920, was also published in 1918. Her health continued to deteriorate, and she had her first lung haemorrhage i
42、n March.6By April, Mansfields divorce from Bowden was finalized and she and Murry married, although they parted two weeks later.6 They rejoined, and in March 1919 Murry became editor of Athenaeum, a prestigious weekly journal. Mansfield wrote over 100 reviews for the magazine, and they were publishe
43、d as a collection, posthumously, in Novels and Novelists by Murry. For the winter of 191819 she and Baker stayed in a villa in San Remo, Italy. Their relationship came under strain during this period, and after writing to Murry to express her feelings of depression, he stayed over Christmas.6 Althou
44、gh her relationship with Murry became increasingly distant after 19186 and the two often lived apart,10 this intervention of his spurred her on, and she wrote The Man Without a Temperament, the story of an ill wife and her long-suffering husband. Biographer Joanna Woods has said that this work signa
45、lled a turning point for Mansfield, when she was able to display a “new objectivity that gives the story a universal dimension“.6Miss Brill, the bittersweet story of a fragile woman living an ephemeral life of observation and simple pleasures in Paris, established Mansfield as one of the preeminent
46、writers of the Modernist period on its publication in the 1920s Bliss. The title story from that collection, “Bliss“, which involved a similar character facing her husbands infidelity, also found critical acclaim. She followed with the equally praised collection The Garden Party, published in 1922.e
47、dit Final yearsMansfield spent her last years seeking increasingly unorthodox cures for her tuberculosis. In February 1922, she consulted the Russian physician Ivan Manoukhin. His “revolutionary“ treatment, which consisted of bombarding her spleen with X-rays, caused Mansfield to develop heat flashe
48、s and numbness in her legs.The Dictionary of National Biography reports that she now came to feel that her attitude to life had been unduly rebellious, and she sought, during the days that remained to her, to renew and compose her spiritual life. In October 1922, Mansfield moved to Georges Gurdjieff
49、s Institute for the Harmonious Development of Man in Fontainebleau, France, where she was under the care of Olgivanna Lazovitch Hinzenburg (later Mrs Frank Lloyd Wright). Mansfield suffered a fatal pulmonary haemorrhage in January 1923, after running up a flight of stairs to show Murry how well she was.14 She died on 9 January and was buried in a cemetery in the Fontainebleau district in the town of Avon.Mansfield p
