Cuthbert Vail Wright (March 20, 1892 – November 28, 1948) was an American literary critic, writer, poet, and educator.

Education, military service, and teaching

Cuthbert Wright was born in Elmira, New York, to Ella Vail Wright and William Edgar Wright, an

Episcopal Episcopal may refer to: *Of or relating to a bishop, an overseer in the Christian church *Episcopate, the see of a bishop – a diocese *Episcopal Church (disambiguation), any church with "Episcopal" in its name ** Episcopal Church (United States ...

rector. He went to college from 1910 to 1913 and 1916–1917,California State Library; Sacramento; Harvard´s Military Record in the World War attending

Kent School Kent School is a private college-preparatory day and boarding school in Kent, Connecticut. Founded in 1906, it is affiliated with the Episcopal Church. It educates around 520 boys and girls in grades 9–12. Kent was one of the first schools ...

in Connecticut. From 1917 to 1919 he served in the army,National Archives at Washington DC; Washington DC, USA; Applications for Headstones for U.S. Military Veterans, 1925–1941; NAID: A1, 2110-C; Record Group Number: 92; Record Group Title: Records of the Office of the Quartermaster General being sent to France in 1918 where he saw action as a private first class. Over the years he travelled back and forth between the United States and France, from where he applied for leave to travel to various countries in Europe and the Middle East. After leaving France in 1922 he became a teacher in

Kent Kent is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Essex across the Thames Estuary to the north, the Strait of Dover to the south-east, East Sussex to the south-west, Surrey to the west, and Gr ...

, Connecticut. He received a Bachelor's degree from

Harvard Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher lear ...

, a certificate of merit from the

University of Paris The University of Paris (), known Metonymy, metonymically as the Sorbonne (), was the leading university in Paris, France, from 1150 to 1970, except for 1793–1806 during the French Revolution. Emerging around 1150 as a corporation associated wit ...

in 1930, a Master of Arts from the

University of the South The University of the South, familiarly known as Sewanee (), is a private Episcopal liberal arts college in Sewanee, Tennessee, United States. It is owned by 28 southern dioceses of the Episcopal Church, and its School of Theology is an off ...

in Tennessee, and a Master of Arts, magna cum laude, from

Laval University Laval means ''The Valley'' in old French and is the name of: People * House of Laval, a French noble family originating from the town of Laval, Mayenne * Laval (surname) Places Belgium * Laval, a village in the municipality of Sainte-Ode, Luxe ...

in Quebec in 1946. In the final eleven years of his life, Wright was head of the Department of English and Comparative Literature at Assumption College in

Worcester Worcester may refer to: Places United Kingdom * Worcester, England, a city and the county town of Worcestershire in England ** Worcester (UK Parliament constituency), an area represented by a Member of Parliament * Worcester Park, London, Engl ...

, Massachusetts.

Literary activities

Cuthbert Wright - The Story of the Catholic Church - 1926 - frontispiece and title page

In 1915 Wright published a book of poems, ''One Way of Love'' (London: Elkin Mathews), which was "strikingly Uranian" in nature. Expressing – like the work of

John Francis Bloxam John Francis Bloxam (also known as Jack Bloxam) (1873–1928) was an English Uranian poetry, Uranian author and churchman. Bloxam was an undergraduate at Exeter College, Oxford when his story, "The Priest and the Acolyte", appeared in the sole issu ...

and

Montague Summers Augustus Montague Summers (10 April 1880 – 10 August 1948) was an English author, clergyman, and teacher. As an independent scholar, he published many works on the English drama of the Stuart Restoration (1660–1688) and helped to organise ...

– a fascination with the beauty and majesty of

high church A ''high church'' is a Christian Church whose beliefs and practices of Christian ecclesiology, Christian liturgy, liturgy, and Christian theology, theology emphasize "ritual, priestly authority, ndsacraments," and a standard liturgy. Although ...

rituals, Wright's poems conjure up "gorgeous (one of his favourite adjectives) ceremonies and splendid, transcendent rituals, full of incense and gold". The choristers in his poems "are pagan demons in a Christian setting, 'childish Galahads in passionate red, / Each with his weight of crushing, golden hair'". Kaylor (2010a) considers Wright to have been "well-versed in the Uranian material being written in England and

o have O, or o, is the fifteenth letter and the fourth vowel letter of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''o'' (pronounced ), p ...

sought to influence that English Uranian audience." ''

The Scotsman ''The Scotsman'' is a Scottish compact (newspaper), compact newspaper and daily news website headquartered in Edinburgh. First established as a radical political paper in 1817, it began daily publication in 1855 and remained a broadsheet until ...

'' reviewed the volume as being "Calm, austere, and contemplative in feeling" as well as "always elevated in thought, and both smooth and scholarly, if sometimes disappointingly cold, in expression". Over twenty-five years, starting in the early 1920s, Wright contributed many reviews to ''

The New York Times Book Review ''The New York Times Book Review'' (''NYTBR'') is a weekly paper-magazine supplement to the Sunday edition of ''The New York Times'' in which current non-fiction and fiction books are reviewed. It is one of the most influential and widely rea ...

'', and throughout the 1930s and 1940s he wrote for the Catholic journal ''

Commonweal Commonweal or common weal may refer to: * Common good, what is shared and beneficial for members of a given community * Common Weal, a Scottish think tank and advocacy group * ''Commonweal'' (magazine), an American lay-Catholic-oriented magazin ...

''. Book reviews by Wright also appeared in magazines such as ''The Freeman'' and ''

The Dial ''The Dial'' was an American magazine published intermittently from 1840 to 1929. In its first form, from 1840 to 1844, it served as the chief publication of the Transcendentalists. From the 1880s to 1919 it was revived as a political review an ...

''. His historical study ''The Story of the Catholic Church'' was published in 1926 (New York: Albert & Charles Boni). A portrait of Wright by

Rafael Sabatini Rafael Sabatini (29 April 1875 – 13 February 1950) was an Italian people, Italian-born British writer of novels, writer of romance novel, romance and adventure novel, adventure novels. He is best known for his worldwide bestsellers: ''The Sea ...

was reproduced in vol. III, no. 2 (August 1922) of ''

Gargoyle In architecture, and specifically Gothic architecture, a gargoyle () is a carved or formed Grotesque (architecture), grotesque with a spout designed to convey water from a roof and away from the side of a building, thereby preventing it from ...

'', an English-language

little magazine In the United States, a little magazine is a magazine genre consisting of "artistic work which for reasons of commercial expediency is not acceptable to the money-minded periodicals or presses", according to a 1942 study by Frederick J. Hoffman, ...

published in Paris. The same issue contains a short story by Wright, 'Ganymede', about his encounter with a youth urinating on the flower beds of the Luxembourg Gardens, who "turns out to be Ganymede – the most unobtainable and most desirable of all boys". Wright frequently contributed prose to ''Gargoyle''. Cuthbert Wright died in Worcester and was buried in Saint Anne Cemetery in

Sturbridge Sturbridge is a town in Worcester County, Massachusetts, Worcester County, Massachusetts, United States. It is home to Old Sturbridge Village living museum, living history museum and other sites of historical interest such as Tantiusques. The pop ...

, Massachusetts.Ancestry.com. Massachusetts, U.S., Death Index, 1901–1980 atabase on-line Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2013.Ancestry.com. U.S., Find a Grave Index, 1600s-Current atabase on-line Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2012.

Notes

References

External links

''The Story of the Catholic Church'' (1926) by Cuthbert Wright
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wright, Cuthbert 1893 births 1948 deaths United States Army soldiers Writers from Elmira, New York American LGBTQ poets Uranians American literary critics Assumption College faculty Harvard College alumni Sewanee: The University of the South alumni Université Laval alumni

Education, military service, and teaching

Literary activities

Further reading

Notes

References

External links