Commonplace 119 George & Heroism. PART ONE The Classical Hero
As well as being the actual day Marty McFly and Doc turn up in their 'Back to the Future' travels, today (October 21st 2015) is the day Daisy died. It is also the 210th anniversary of the Battle of Trafalgar and the death of Horatio Nelson. Nelson is a British National Hero - possibly our greatest - and we should have a bank holiday to commemorate his life, and the sacrifices made by those brave boys who fell in battle. I am partial, of course, as I come from Portsmouth, and live a short way from where Nelson last sailed from England - which is a few yards from the place where Thomas Wainewright (see Commonplace 95) was ferried onto the convict ship Susan that transported him to Tasmania in late 1837 - the dockside is situated just opposite the corner where George Meredith's birthplace once stood.
Nelson has never been featured on a UK banknote, but he should be. The tradition of putting heroic figures on banknotes here in the UK is relatively new - the first £20 note with a famous face on the reverse was the William Shakespeare issue from about 50 years ago click. Here is a list of heroines and heroes who have been featured:
Elizabeth Fry (social reformer and prison reformer)
Charles Darwin (naturalist and author of On The Origin of Species)
Adam Smith (one of the fathers of economics)
Matthew Boulton and James Watt (worked together on the first steam engine)
A public vote was undertaken click this year to replace the famous face on the next issue of the £20 note (Jane Austen will appear on the next £10 and Winston Churchill on the £5 from 2016). I would like one of my heroes chosen - Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, Alan Turing, Edith Cavell, George Orwell, Rosalind Franklin, Thomas Paine, or William Blake would suit me. (Oscar Wilde was Irish, but he would be my top choice if he had qualified.) Of course, whoever is chosen might not last long as our queen makes way (one way or another) for King Charles III or even King William V. Whatever, when all the bank notes and coins have to change again, I will bet good money (haha) George Gissing's jolly old eek click will never appear on any of them - possibly to avoid any confusion with Rudyard Kipling, his doppelgänger - and probably because he was never heroic .
You may know of the biographies of George that are given the Title: The Heroic Life. Of all the English words I might consider to describe George, 'heroic' would be so far down the list as to be below 'vampiric' and 'necromancer'. What on earth did he do to win the title 'heroic'? And, what constitutes 'heroism'? I can't answer the first part of these (I've tried to, but I just can't explain how the words 'Gissing' and 'Heroic' could ever feature in a sentence - unless it was 'Gissing wasn't at all heroic in any shape or form'), but let's turn to the Classics and the Romans and Greeks to see what George might have used as role models, if he hadn't been using Schopenhauer and Darwin.
We all know the Greeks and Romans wrote legends celebrating the achievements of their Heroes (they didn't have bank notes haha). This piece is lifted from this website and I thank them for it click, and I'm sure there are many interesting points they cover on other topics:
Here are the main characteristics of the epic classical hero of Greek and Roman literature:
How does George fare in this?
Well, he was never a Titan of Literature but he did write a short story entitled 'Phoebe' - she was a Titan. He was not half mortal, half god - but he did suffer delusions of grandeur when he considered himself to be 'aristocratic'. Quelle absurdité!
He never performed extraordinary feats - well, not in a good way. In fact, he spent a good deal of his energy on avoiding any situation where he might be called upon to be 'heroic' - usually delegating the difficult tasks, or weaselling his way out of confrontation and responsibility. If that is heroic, I'll eat mon chapeau.
He did not have a 'noble character'. He was weak, self-serving, apt to excuse his own failings, envious, cruel and egoistical, only concerned with his own gratification in the areas he was concerned about. In trivial matters he could appear to be magnanimous, but this was a pose put on to manipulate people and situations round to his advantage. And he was a thief and a liar, a snob, a serial wife and child abandoner, and a man not afraid to exploit the weakness of others. In fact, he was the opposite of 'heroic' - il était un goujat!
Maybe these were the 'fatal flaw', as all the shenanigans culminated in him finding himself 800 miles from home with no decent medical care or. Quelle cauchemard!
The suffering of the character is physical - well, he was a martyr to many maladies, including syphilis. He tended towards introspection, and was never happier than when he was miserably examining his ,any small ills and whipping them up into big ones. Of course, iffy health meant no-one could expect anything of him. In fact, he was what was termed neurasthenic click as well as syphilitic. Pauvre Georges.
Death must occur in an unusual way - he didn't throw himself off Niagara Falls or poison himself, or drown in a pool (except in his fiction) and he died at home in his bed. He was in the full-flow of paresis, and chanting and raving about Rome and the Barbarians just before he went.
Did he fight for his own honour or did he make use of others to do it for him? Throughout his life, he moaned about being alone but he was surrounded by people - he told Gabrielle Fleury he had no emotional ties to his family, so that she would take him on, and so make her responsible for his care. George seems to regard his own honour as a moveable thing, and if a word might be used to describe this it would be opportunistic.
As for the broader aims -
...only the well born can be thought to be virtuous – heroism is only for the few – slaves, artisans, and ordinary plebs have no business studying ethics and cannot be successful at turning themselves into heroic types. This is the basis of George's hatred of Demos, but, as with most major negative reactions, it is the likeness to our real selves they represent that makes us over-react. Why else is George always described as the son of a chemist/botanist and not son of a shop-keeper? He wanted to be thought of as better than a shop-keeper, and spent most of his life trying to act like he wasn't. But, he was, at times, very working class - think of what he ate and yet he complained of the working class not knowing how to prepare decent food and stuffing their faces on cakes and treacle - when he stuffed his face on whatever was stuffed in the pot that he cooked over the fire when Morley Roberts turned up. And the lentils he made Nell eat - he no doubt kept up his tobacco quotas as they starved.
They caution against shame, cowardice intemperance and foolishness. Say no more.
George did not want to be a hero and he would have been highly critical if the term had been applied to anyone who did not warrant it. He was not one to want to deceive himself, even when he was striving to deceive others. As much as he wanted to be highly regarded, he would want it to be for the right things, for the things that were true of him. It is preposterous and patronising to apply a term so wide of the mark on anyone, and I'm sure George would agree with me on this.
Last word goes to George Bernard Shaw:
Every reasonable man (and woman) is a potential scoundrel and a potential good citizen. What a man is depends upon his character; what a man does, and what we think of what he does, depends upon his circumstances. Wise words, Mr Shaw; wise words.
JOIN ME IN PART TWO TO CHECK OUT GEORGE'S ROMANTIC HERO CREDENTIALS.
As well as being the actual day Marty McFly and Doc turn up in their 'Back to the Future' travels, today (October 21st 2015) is the day Daisy died. It is also the 210th anniversary of the Battle of Trafalgar and the death of Horatio Nelson. Nelson is a British National Hero - possibly our greatest - and we should have a bank holiday to commemorate his life, and the sacrifices made by those brave boys who fell in battle. I am partial, of course, as I come from Portsmouth, and live a short way from where Nelson last sailed from England - which is a few yards from the place where Thomas Wainewright (see Commonplace 95) was ferried onto the convict ship Susan that transported him to Tasmania in late 1837 - the dockside is situated just opposite the corner where George Meredith's birthplace once stood.
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| Truly Heroic Horatio Nelson click |
- Charles Dickens (writer)
- Sir Edward Elgar (composer)
- Michael Faraday (scientist)
- Sir John Houblon (first Governor of the Bank of England)
- Sir Isaac Newton (scientist)
- Florence Nightingale (nursing and statistical s )
- William Shakespeare (poet/playwright)
- George Stephenson (engineer)
- 1st Duke of Wellington (general/statesman)
- Sir Christopher Wren (architect)
Elizabeth Fry (social reformer and prison reformer)
Charles Darwin (naturalist and author of On The Origin of Species)
Adam Smith (one of the fathers of economics)
Matthew Boulton and James Watt (worked together on the first steam engine)
A public vote was undertaken click this year to replace the famous face on the next issue of the £20 note (Jane Austen will appear on the next £10 and Winston Churchill on the £5 from 2016). I would like one of my heroes chosen - Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, Alan Turing, Edith Cavell, George Orwell, Rosalind Franklin, Thomas Paine, or William Blake would suit me. (Oscar Wilde was Irish, but he would be my top choice if he had qualified.) Of course, whoever is chosen might not last long as our queen makes way (one way or another) for King Charles III or even King William V. Whatever, when all the bank notes and coins have to change again, I will bet good money (haha) George Gissing's jolly old eek click will never appear on any of them - possibly to avoid any confusion with Rudyard Kipling, his doppelgänger - and probably because he was never heroic .
 |
| Rudyard Kipling by John Collier 1891 Britain's favourite poet? |
We all know the Greeks and Romans wrote legends celebrating the achievements of their Heroes (they didn't have bank notes haha). This piece is lifted from this website and I thank them for it click, and I'm sure there are many interesting points they cover on other topics:
Here are the main characteristics of the epic classical hero of Greek and Roman literature:
He is of royal birth or even, like the
Titan Prometheus, half mortal, half god.
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|
He must perform extraordinary feats.
|
|
His is a noble character which is close
to perfectly ideal but for a fatal flaw.
|
|
The suffering of the character is
physical.
|
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Death must occur in an unusual way.
|
|
The hero fights for his own honour; his
deeds belong to the community only after his death.
|
The notion of virtue implicit in these
characteristics is implicit in the philosophy of the time. Reading
Plato’s Republic, Aristotle's Ethics, and the meditations of Marcus
Aurelius, for instance, what comes through is that only the well born can be
thought to be virtuous – heroism is only for the few – slaves, artisans, and
ordinary plebs have no business studying ethics and cannot be successful at
turning themselves into heroic types. The virtues include courage, pride,
honour, justice, magnificence – things to watch out for are shame, cowardice,
intemperance, foolishness...
 |
| The Oath of the Horatii by Jacques-Louis David 1785 |
Well, he was never a Titan of Literature but he did write a short story entitled 'Phoebe' - she was a Titan. He was not half mortal, half god - but he did suffer delusions of grandeur when he considered himself to be 'aristocratic'. Quelle absurdité!
He never performed extraordinary feats - well, not in a good way. In fact, he spent a good deal of his energy on avoiding any situation where he might be called upon to be 'heroic' - usually delegating the difficult tasks, or weaselling his way out of confrontation and responsibility. If that is heroic, I'll eat mon chapeau.
He did not have a 'noble character'. He was weak, self-serving, apt to excuse his own failings, envious, cruel and egoistical, only concerned with his own gratification in the areas he was concerned about. In trivial matters he could appear to be magnanimous, but this was a pose put on to manipulate people and situations round to his advantage. And he was a thief and a liar, a snob, a serial wife and child abandoner, and a man not afraid to exploit the weakness of others. In fact, he was the opposite of 'heroic' - il était un goujat!
Maybe these were the 'fatal flaw', as all the shenanigans culminated in him finding himself 800 miles from home with no decent medical care or. Quelle cauchemard!
The suffering of the character is physical - well, he was a martyr to many maladies, including syphilis. He tended towards introspection, and was never happier than when he was miserably examining his ,any small ills and whipping them up into big ones. Of course, iffy health meant no-one could expect anything of him. In fact, he was what was termed neurasthenic click as well as syphilitic. Pauvre Georges.
Death must occur in an unusual way - he didn't throw himself off Niagara Falls or poison himself, or drown in a pool (except in his fiction) and he died at home in his bed. He was in the full-flow of paresis, and chanting and raving about Rome and the Barbarians just before he went.
Did he fight for his own honour or did he make use of others to do it for him? Throughout his life, he moaned about being alone but he was surrounded by people - he told Gabrielle Fleury he had no emotional ties to his family, so that she would take him on, and so make her responsible for his care. George seems to regard his own honour as a moveable thing, and if a word might be used to describe this it would be opportunistic.
 |
| Rosa Luxemberg (1871-1919) click |
...only the well born can be thought to be virtuous – heroism is only for the few – slaves, artisans, and ordinary plebs have no business studying ethics and cannot be successful at turning themselves into heroic types. This is the basis of George's hatred of Demos, but, as with most major negative reactions, it is the likeness to our real selves they represent that makes us over-react. Why else is George always described as the son of a chemist/botanist and not son of a shop-keeper? He wanted to be thought of as better than a shop-keeper, and spent most of his life trying to act like he wasn't. But, he was, at times, very working class - think of what he ate and yet he complained of the working class not knowing how to prepare decent food and stuffing their faces on cakes and treacle - when he stuffed his face on whatever was stuffed in the pot that he cooked over the fire when Morley Roberts turned up. And the lentils he made Nell eat - he no doubt kept up his tobacco quotas as they starved.
They caution against shame, cowardice intemperance and foolishness. Say no more.
George did not want to be a hero and he would have been highly critical if the term had been applied to anyone who did not warrant it. He was not one to want to deceive himself, even when he was striving to deceive others. As much as he wanted to be highly regarded, he would want it to be for the right things, for the things that were true of him. It is preposterous and patronising to apply a term so wide of the mark on anyone, and I'm sure George would agree with me on this.
Last word goes to George Bernard Shaw:
Every reasonable man (and woman) is a potential scoundrel and a potential good citizen. What a man is depends upon his character; what a man does, and what we think of what he does, depends upon his circumstances. Wise words, Mr Shaw; wise words.
JOIN ME IN PART TWO TO CHECK OUT GEORGE'S ROMANTIC HERO CREDENTIALS.
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