9. Ibid., 128.
10. Folgore da San Gimignano, “Di giugnio,” in I Sonetti Dei Mesi (Siena: Edizioni Cantagalli, 1991), 45. English translation by Richard Aldington, A Wreath for San Gemignano (New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce, Inc. 1945), 23.
11. Giacomo Leopardi, “L’Infinito,” in Canti: Poems, trans. Jonathan Galassi (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2010), 106.
12. Percy Shelley, Note to “Ode to the West Wind,” in Shelley: Poetical Works, ed. Thomas Hutchinson (London: Oxford University Press, 1970), 577.
2003 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD ACCEPTANCE
National Book Award 2003 Acceptance, available at http://www.nationalbook.org/nbaacceptspeech​_shazzard.html#.VL0gJ8Yqq9Y. Shirley Hazzard spoke these words on being announced winner of the 2003 National Book Award. She spoke immediately after author Stephen King’s speech accepting an award for lifetime achievement.
THE NEW YORK SOCIETY LIBRARY DISCUSSION, SEPTEMBER 2012
On September 7, 2012, as part of the first international symposium on Shirley Hazzard, a distinguished panel discussed her life and work. The panel consisted of Gail Jones, Jay Parini, Martin Stannard, Brigitta Olubas, and Annabel Davis-Goff. It was moderated by Jonathan Galassi and introduced by the Australian Consul-General to New York, Phil Scanlan. A recording of this panel, including Shirley Hazzard’s comments, is available at https://www.nysoclib.org/events/shirley-hazzard-literary-icon.
INDEX
Page numbers refer to the print edition but are hyperlinked to the appropriate location in the e-book.
abstractions, 7, 32, 38–40, 56, 98
academics, 39, 114
Accademia della Crusca, 31
accident, accidental, 46–47
Achilles, 15–16, 25
Actium, Battle of, 22
Adam, 19
Aeneas, 19, 22, 25, 27
Aeneid, The (Virgil), 12, 13, 17, 23, 29
Agamemnon, 3, 43
A la recherche du temps perdu (Proust), 76–84
Alexander the Great, 18, 168
amateurism, ix–xvi, 36
American hostages, in Iran, 136–141
Amnesty International, xviii, 109, 125, 127, 131–132, 138
Anschluss, 129
anti-hero, 19–21, 25
antihumanism, 49
Antonines, 169
Aphrodite, 19
Apollo, 18, 19, 45, 46
Argentina, 61, 131, 168
Aristophanes, 114
arms, armor, 13, 16, 25, 26, 132, 176
Arno (river), 179–180
art: and authorized criticism, 8, 39; directness of life of, 7, 38; as discipline, 7, 39; human achievement of, 185–186; and illusion, 28; individual apprehension of, ix; and loss, xiv, 14, 33; Montale on, 11, 29; paradox of, 96; and politics, xi–xii; and posterity, xiv, 40–51; power of, 9; private response to, 8; as response to truth, 4; submission to, 8, 39; and technology, 7–8, 39
artist, the: individuality of, 11; role of, 14, 33, 48, 50, 51
artistic posterity, 41–42, 46, 48–49
artistic purpose, 30, 48–51
artistic vocation, Auden on, 14
artists: Hazzard characters as, xii; Rome as gathering place for, 98
arts, the: language and, 3–4, 31; literature and, 38
atomic bomb, 142–145
Auden, W. H., xiv, 4, 8, 14–16, 21, 26, 29, 31, 48, 51, 71, 99; four categories of loss, 14–15, 29; in Spain, 26
Augustine, Saint, 19–20, 169
Austen, Jane, 21
Australia, ix, xii, xv, xxi, 16, 72, 73, 142–145, 168, 177, 180; literature of, 67–73, 177; social order of, 177
Austria, xvii, 109, 129, 131
Austrian Nazi Party, Waldheim’s involvement in, xvii, 129
autobiography, xx, 9, 59, 87
ayatollah. See Khomeini, Ayatollah Ruhollah
Bangladesh, 120
Barzun, Jacques, 5, 34, 71
Baudelaire, Charles, 24, 25, 26, 50
Belgium, 139
belles lettres, x, xvi
Bellow, Saul, 45
“the Big Wow-Wow,” 21
biography, xiii, xv, xvi, 90, 99, 187n1
Bloom, Alexander, xi
bomb: atomic, xix–xx, 142–145; hydrogen, 143; neutron, 144
Bonaparte, Napoleon, 94
bookshops, on UN territory, xvii, 112–115, 132
Boswell, James, 85, 87
brevity, as literary value, 5, 34
Brezhnev, Leonid, 132
Brombert, Victor, 25
Brooke, Rupert, 47
Brooks, Cleanth, 51
Browning, Robert, 86
Bulstrode, Mrs. (Middlemarch character), 36
Burchardt, Jakob, 176
bureaucracy, xi, xviii, 38, 65, 119, 132, 134, 138
Burns, Robert, 21
Byron, Lord [George Gordon], 10, 17, 21, 22, 26, 35, 40, 41, 44, 45, 51
Caesar, Augustus, 13, 37
Cambodia, 120, 128, 139; relief for, 139
canon. See literary canon
Canton, xxi, 149–166
Carter, Jimmy, 138, 141
censorship: of Confucius by the UN, 125; of Solzhenitsyn by the UN, 112, 115, 125
character: Hazzard’s, ix, 163; literary, xv, 20, 36, 58, 59, 60, 68, 71, 75
Château, The (Maxwell), 105
Chateaubriand, François-René de, 44
Chesterton, G. K., 40
Childe Harold (Byron), 42
Chile, 49, 125, 131, 137
Chinese pirates, 153
cholera, xv, 63
Christ, as anti-hero, 19
Christianity, 18, 19, 32, 172; and aesthetics, xviii; Christian hero, 19; Christian ideal, 19, 145; Christian thought, xiii; era of, 18, 32
Churchill, Winston, 33
CIA (Central Intelligence Agency), 130
citizen, Hazzard’s sense of her responsibilities as, x, xvii
citizenry, world, 120
citizens: investigations by, 110; movements, xviii, xix; and the UN, 119, 125, 132
City University of New York, 125
civilization, 28, 64, 99, 125, 169, 171, 175.
civilized society, 30
classical: authors, 19, 23, 94; era, xiii; literature, 20, 32; philology, 174; sites, around Herculaneum, 173; world, 28
Cleopatra, 22
Clough, Arthur Hugh, 24, 65, 175
Cocteau, Jean, 11
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 31
Collier, Peter, 81–82
colonial: Hong Kong, 149–150, 161, 164; privilege, xx
“Combat, The” (Muir), 25
communications, 7, 11, 38, 51
comprehension, 7, 39, 71, 89, 176
consciousness, 3, 11, 13, 30, 32, 45, 47, 48, 71, 83, 143; human, 3, 32, 48, 71; Western, 13; of women, 47; of the writer, 11, 13, 30, 35, 45
Confucius, 114, 116, 125
conservatism, Hazzard’s perceived, xii
Constant, Benjamin, 88–90
correspondence: of Hazzard, xvii, 188; of Maxwell, 103; writers’, 48; of Zélide, 88
Countenance of Truth (Hazzard), x
cowardice, 110
critics, literary, xi, 6–8, 30, 35, 38–39, 47, 59, 67, 77–78, 99
criticism: literary, xiv, 6, 11, 35, 38, 99; of the UN, xii, xvii, 109–141, 188n13
curiosity, public, 58
Cyprus, 131
Daiches, David, x
daily life: of the ancient world, 167; as heroic, 24; language as medium for, 31; literature in, 3
D’Annunzio, Gabriele, 27
Dante, 20, 29, 126
Daoudy, Adib, 137
Day Lewis, Cecil, 27
Dead Sea Scrolls, 169
de Charrière, Madame. See Zélide
de Charrière, Monsieur (Charles-Emmanuel), 88
Defeat of an Ideal (Hazzard), xvii, 188–189n13
de Staël, Madame Germaine, 89–90
Depression, the (Great), 143
d’Hermenches, Constant, 86
Dickens, Charles, 10, 38, 40
Dido, 19, 20, 22, 24
disbelief, 23–24, 50
discrimination, by UN against female staff, 110, 120
dissidents, xi, xvi, 17, 28, 109, 125, 137, 189n15
Don Juan (Byron), 21, 40, 41
Dostoyevsky, Fyodor, 25, 29, 50
doublethink, 113
Douglas, Norman, 32, 171
drama, 6, 37
Drummond, Eric, 114, 123
Dryden, John, 37
Dubliner, 25
Dubuffet, Jean, 49–50
duty, 20, 24, 113, 123
Eclogues (Virgil), 18
Edward VIII, 22
Eliot, George, 10, 36–37, 74, 127
Eliot, T. S., 5, 25, 27, 34
Empson, William, 37
English language, 35, 37, 183
Enlightenment, the, 89, 90
Ennius, 39–40
Enright, D. J., 81–82
epic, 13, 16, 19, 21–22, 37, 169
epic hero, 19
ethical choices, of Hazzard’s protagonists, xi
ethical dilemmas, of Hiroshima bombing, xx, 142
ethical proof, Hazzard’s as author, xiv
Everyman, 20, 25, 27
Excellent Women (Pym), 74–75
expatriatism, ix, 12, 60
explication, 7, 11, 32, 38, 49, 9
Eye of the Storm, The (White), 67–73
falsehood, 5, 33
fame, xiii, 41, 43, 47, 51
fascism, 13, 27, 114, 131
FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation), xvii, 122, 123, 130
fiction: Hazzard as reviewer of, xv; Hazzard as writer of, ix, x, xi, xvii, 145; and the hero, 20, 36; and pleasure, 184; relation of novelist to, 9, 10; William Maxwell’s love of, 103; by Zélide, 87
film world, 58
Flaubert, Gustave, ix, x, 4, 5, 25, 32, 34, 77, 84
Florence, 12, 50, 95, 98, 175–180
Flying Cloud airfield, China, 158–159
Ford, Ford Madox, 40
foreigner, xx, 71, 92, 98, 175
Forster, E. M., 176
freedom of information, 113, 115–116, 124
Freud, Sigmund, 24
Fugitive, The (Proust), 76, 81
Gabriel (in Paradise Lost), 37, 194–195n77
Garrick, David, 44
Gauss Seminar Series, xiii, 191
Geneva, xvii, 89, 112, 115, 179
genius, 10, 25, 37, 43, 55, 67, 77, 85, 89, 97, 124, 127, 170
genocide, 131
Georgics (Virgil), 17
Getty, J. Paul, 172–173
Getty Museum, 172–173
Gibbon, Edward, xvi, 78, 169
Gigante, Marcello, 174
“La Ginestra” (Leopardi), 42, 99
Gladwyn, Lord, 122
globalized world, xx
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, 98
Gozzano, Guido, 45
Great Fire, The (Hazzard), xi, xxi
Great War. See World War I
Greece, 22, 45, 131
Greene, Graham, xv, 25, 102, 188n12
Guardian (UK newspaper), 128
Gulag Archipelago, The (Solzhenitsyn), 112–114
Guizot, François, xv–xvi, 78
Hamlet, 20, 37, 40, 44; Garrick’s cello performance of soliloquy, 44
Hammarskjöld, Dag, 122, 130
Hardy, Thomas, 10, 24, 99
Hazzard, Shirley: characterized as a conservative, xii; correspondence of, xvii; employed at UN, ix; as expatriate, ix; friendship with New York Intellectuals, ix, xi; as international author, ix–xxi; international perspective of, ix, x, xix; leaving Australia, ix; marriage to Steegmuller, ix, 102; as public intellectual, ix
Hazzard, Shirley, works of: Countenance of Truth, x; Defeat of an Ideal, xvii, 189n13, 203n10, 205n17; essays in New Republic and Partisan Review, xii; essays in New York Times, xiii, xvii, 115, 189, 197, 198, 199, 202; The Great Fire, xi, xxi; People in Glass Houses, xi; The Transit of Venus, xi; travel writings, xx; works published in New Yorker, ix, xvi, 102, 103, 206
Heian court, in Japan, 46
Heidegger, Martin, 30, 31, 33
Hephaestos, 15–16
Herculaneum, 42, 170–173
hero, 19–28, 41, 132, 176
heroic, the, xiv, 13, 18, 22, 71
heroine, 60, 75
heroism, 129; collapse of, xiii
Hiroshima, xix–xx, 142–145
historian, 6, 35, 78, 91
history, 13, 18, 21, 22, 27, 51, 64, 114, 138, 141, 145, 150, 169
“History” (Montale), 18
History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, The (Gibbon), 169
Homer, 19, 22, 25, 29, 30, 32, 39, 41, 95, 153, 167, 169
Hong Kong, xx, 81, 142, 149–158, 161
Horace, 3, 27, 43, 45, 171
Horatio, 40
Hugo, Victor, 25
human rights, xvi, xviii, 109, 112–114, 120, 125, 127, 131, 132, 134, 136, 137, 138, 189n15; Human Rights Day, 109; movement, 132
humanism, xiii–xiv, 6, 20, 23, 37, 90, 111, 176–177
humanistic values, 177
hypocrisy, 21, 61, 69
idealism, 24, 110
“idiot,” the, 18, 25
Iliad (Homer), 15, 22
illusion: in art and literature, 15, 21, 24, 28; and disillusion, 15, 21, 24, 28; Leopardi on poetry and, 23, 96; Montale on, 15, 21, 28, 29, 45; related to civilization, 175–176; of social continuity and order, 11
individual: apprehension of art, ix; experience of travel, xx; gestures, 145; lives, 169; quality, 176; response to art, 39; responsibility, 37; rights of UN employees not protected, xvi; UN hostility to, 131, 132, 137; voices in literature, 6, 37; writers, 21
individualism, 18, 177
individuality, 183–184
individuals, humanitarian action by, xviii, 131
information, 6, 11, 35, 112–116, 129, 134–135, 136, 142, 185
intellectual, 7, 30, 95, 98, 102, 110, 111, 112, 113, 118; Hazzard as, ix–xxi
international: agencies, 120; civil servants, rights of, 139; civil service, 123, 129–130; community, 137; conference on human rights, 136; conventions, 139; Hazzard as ix–xxi; human rights, 189n15; law, 122; Partisan Review as, x; politics, ix; relations, 118; staff of the UN, 112; territory of the UN, 113–115, 130; UN and League of Nations as “international enterprises,” 118; women’s conference, 128
internationalists, 109, 111
interpretation, 7, 8, 72
intimacy, 7, 8, 9, 39, 88
Iran, xix, 127–128, 134, 136–141
irony, 59, 71, 114, 124, 169
Issues and Answers (ABC television program), 127
Italian government, neglect of antiquities by, 171–172
Italy, xiii, xxi, 12, 43, 45, 90, 92, 94, 97, 98, 171, 175–180
Jaeger, Werner, 18, 28, 32
Japan, 22, 44, 46, 72, 142, 144, 161, 165
jargon, 7, 38
Jarrell, Randall, 48
Jerome, Saint, 19
Johnson, Samuel, 6, 35, 50, 175
Judt, Tony, xviii
Juvenal, 14
Kafka, Franz, 55
Kai Tak airfield, Hong Kong, 156
Keaton, Buster, 83
Keats, John, 42, 99
Kessler, Ronald, 133
Keynes, John Maynard, 111, 118, 121
KGB, 130
Kheel, Theodor, 134
Khomeini, Ayatollah Ruhollah, 128, 134, 138
Kilmartin, Terence, 76–81
King, Stephen, 183, 208
Kirkup, James, 44
knight, as exemplar, 20
Knight, Carlo, 172
Kure, Japan, 142
Lake Geneva, 89
language: abstract, 39; ancient, 33, 48, 183; Auden on, 48; Chinese, 46, 154; degradation of, 8, 39; English, xxi, 35, 37, 79–80, 83, 183–184; illustrating character, 36; immediacy of, 4, 33; inspired, 33; Italian, 31; Japanese, 46; poetic, xiii; powe
r of, 17, 30; as primary medium, 3–8, 31; responsibilities of, 6, 31; Shakespeare’s, 31; Spark on inflections of meaning in, 57; White’s distinctive, 71; writer’s vigilance over, 35; written, 173, 183
laurel crown, 29, 41, 45–46
League of Nations, 111, 114, 123, 127, 131; High Commissioner for Refugees of the, 117; and international governments, 117–118, 121, 123
Left, the (political), xii, 188n8
“Lemons, The” (Montale), 46
Leopardi: A Study in Solitude (Origo), 92–100
Leopardi, Giacomo, xv, xvi, 23, 32, 42–43, 51, 64, 94–100, 171, 178; Canti, 97; Canzoni, 97
“Letter to Lord Byron” (Auden), 26
Lewin, André, 115–116
Lie, Trygve, 122, 129–130; collaborations with US State Department and FBI, 130
Lippe-Weissenfeld, Prince Alfred zur, 131
literary canon, ix, xiii, 39
literary form, 13
literary hero, 19, 26
literature: authentic response to, xiv; classical, 20; in contemporary world, xiii–xiv; and criticism, 7, 38–39; disillusion in, 24; emotion and, 11; and human subject, 15; individual speech in, 37; Japanese, 46; King on high, xxi; Leopardi on, 51; and loss, 14; love of, 9; pleasure in, 3, 184; and politics, xi; public role of, xix; relationship to society, xi; Seneca on beauty of, 39; and truth, 11, 30; value of, xiv; virtue in, 24
logos, 31
loss: Auden on, 14, 21, 26; death and, 47; of humanistic values, 177; Leopardi on, 97–99; literature and, xiv, 14–15; of need for silence, 51
Machiavelli, Niccolò, 20, 50, 95, 126
Madame Bovary (Flaubert), 40, 77
Malaparte, Curzio, 64
Malibu, replica Villa dei Papiri at, 172–173
Malraux, André, 27
man of honor, 20
Marc Antony, 22
Marston, John, 49
mass advertising, 7, 38
mass communications. See communications
mass culture, 7, 29, 38
mass society, 7
Maxwell, William (Bill), xv, xvi, 101–105
Maynes, Charles, 133
Mayor, Andreas, 76
Mazower, Mark, xii, 189n17
McCarran Internal Security Subcommittee, 133
McCarthy, Joseph, 122, 130
McCarthyism, 110; surveillance of UN employees, xviii
McDonald, James, 117
medieval: character types, 37; morality plays, 6, 20; romance, 20
Mediterranean, the, 168, 172, 176
Memento Mori (Spark), 75
memory, 3, 13, 18, 21–22, 24–25, 27–28, 30, 42–43, 45, 46, 70, 80, 82, 144