Robert Calverl(e)y Trevelyan (; 28 June 1872 – 21 March 1951) was an English poet and translator, of a traditionalist sort, and a follower of the lapidary style of

Logan Pearsall Smith Logan Pearsall Smith (18 October 1865 – 2 March 1946) was an American-born British essayist and critic. Harvard and Oxford educated, he was known for his aphorisms and epigrams, and was an expert on 17th century divines. His ''Words and Idio ...

Life

Trevelyan was the second son of

Sir George Trevelyan, 2nd Baronet Sir George Otto Trevelyan, 2nd Baronet, (20 July 1838 – 17 August 1928) was a British statesman and author. In a ministerial career stretching almost 30 years, he was most notably twice Secretary for Scotland under William Ewart Gladstone and ...

, and his wife Caroline ''née'' Philips, who was the daughter of

Robert Needham Philips Robert Needham Philips DL (1815 – 28 February 1890) was an English merchant and manufacturer in the Lancashire textiles business, a Liberal Party politician, and the grandfather of the Whig historian G. M. Trevelyan. He lived in Manchester a ...

MP, a Liberal Member of Parliament and textile merchant from Lancashire. Trevelyan was the brother of

Sir Charles Trevelyan, 3rd Baronet Sir Charles Philips Trevelyan, 3rd Baronet (28 October 1870 – 24 January 1958) was a British Liberal Party (UK), Liberal Party, and later Labour Party (UK), Labour Party, politician and landowner. He served as Secretary of State for Education ...

, and of the historian

G. M. Trevelyan George Macaulay Trevelyan (16 February 1876 – 21 July 1962) was an English historian and academic. He was a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, from 1898 to 1903. He then spent more than twenty years as a full-time author. He returned to th ...

. He was born in

Weybridge Weybridge () is a town in the Borough of Elmbridge, Elmbridge district in Surrey, England, around southwest of central London. The settlement is recorded as ''Waigebrugge'' and ''Weibrugge'' in the 7th century and the name derives from a cro ...

and educated at

Wixenford Wixenford is an area of the civil parish of Wokingham Without in which Ludgrove School stands. It adjoins Wokingham and is in the English county of Berkshire. Name The area was developed by the former Wixenford School, which closed in 1934. That ...

(where he was known as "the Dodo" and was a particular friend of Frederick Lawrence), then at

Harrow Harrow may refer to: Places * Harrow, Victoria, Australia * Harrow, Ontario, Canada * The Harrow, County Wexford, a village in Ireland * London Borough of Harrow, England * Harrow, London, a town in London * Harrow (UK Parliament constituency) * ...

. From 1891 to 1895 he studied at

Trinity College, Cambridge Trinity College is a Colleges of the University of Cambridge, constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Founded in 1546 by King Henry VIII, Trinity is one of the largest Cambridge colleges, with the largest financial endowment of any ...

, where he became one of the

Cambridge Apostles The Cambridge Apostles (also known as the Conversazione Society) is an intellectual society at the University of Cambridge founded in 1820 by George Tomlinson, a Cambridge student who became the first Bishop of Gibraltar. History Student ...

. He studied Classics and then law; his father wanted him to follow a career as a

barrister A barrister is a type of lawyer in common law jurisdiction (area), jurisdictions. Barristers mostly specialise in courtroom advocacy and litigation. Their tasks include arguing cases in courts and tribunals, drafting legal pleadings, jurisprud ...

, but his ambition was to be a poet. Described as a "rumpled, eccentric poet", and sometimes considered a rather ineffectual person, he was close to the

Bloomsbury Group The Bloomsbury Group was a group of associated British writers, intellectuals, philosophers and artists in the early 20th century. Among the people involved in the group were Virginia Woolf, John Maynard Keynes, E. M. Forster, Vanessa Bell, a ...

, who called him 'Bob Trevy'. He had a wide further range of social connections:

George Santayana George Santayana (born Jorge Agustín Nicolás Ruiz de Santayana y Borrás, December 16, 1863 – September 26, 1952) was a Spanish-American philosopher, essayist, poet, and novelist. Born in Spain, Santayana was raised and educated in the Un ...

from 1905; Isaac Rosenberg;

Bernard Berenson Bernard Berenson (June 26, 1865 – October 6, 1959) was an American art historian specializing in the Renaissance. His book ''The Drawings of the Florentine Painters'' was an international success. His wife Mary is thought to have had a large ...

;

Bertrand Russell Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, (18 May 1872 – 2 February 1970) was a British philosopher, logician, mathematician, and public intellectual. He had influence on mathematics, logic, set theory, and various areas of analytic ...

;

G. E. Moore George Edward Moore (4 November 1873 – 24 October 1958) was an English philosopher, who with Bertrand Russell, Ludwig Wittgenstein and earlier Gottlob Frege was among the initiators of analytic philosophy. He and Russell began de-emphasizing ...

;

E. M. Forster Edward Morgan Forster (1 January 1879 – 7 June 1970) was an English author. He is best known for his novels, particularly '' A Room with a View'' (1908), ''Howards End'' (1910) and '' A Passage to India'' (1924). He also wrote numerous shor ...

with whom he and

Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson (6 August 1862 – 3 August 1932), known as Goldie, was a British political scientist and philosopher. He lived most of his life at Cambridge, where he wrote a dissertation on Neoplatonism before becoming a fellow. ...

travelled to

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

in 1912. His

pacifist Pacifism is the opposition to war or violence. The word ''pacifism'' was coined by the French peace campaigner Émile Arnaud and adopted by other peace activists at the tenth Universal Peace Congress in Glasgow in 1901. A related term is ''a ...

principles extended to sheltering

John Rodker John Rodker (18 December 1894 – 6 October 1955) was an English writer, modernist poet, and publisher of modernist writers. Biography John Rodker was born on 18 December 1894 in Manchester, into a Jewish immigrant family. The family moved ...

, "on the run" as a

conscientious objector A conscientious objector is an "individual who has claimed the right to refuse to perform military service" on the grounds of freedom of conscience or religion. The term has also been extended to objecting to working for the military–indu ...

during

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

; when he became liable to

conscription Conscription, also known as the draft in the United States and Israel, is the practice in which the compulsory enlistment in a national service, mainly a military service, is enforced by law. Conscription dates back to antiquity and it conti ...

by the raising of the maximum age in 1918, he volunteered for the Friends' War Victims Relief Service, serving in

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

, August 1918 to March 1919. Trevelyan married in 1900 the Dutch musician Elizabeth van der Hoeven; the artist

Julian Trevelyan Julian Otto Trevelyan (20 February 1910 – 12 July 1988) was an English artist and poet. Early life Trevelyan was the only child to survive to adulthood of Robert Calverley Trevelyan and his wife Elizabeth van der Hoeven. His grandfather wa ...

was their son.

Works

Trevelyan wrote a number of verse plays; ''The Bride of Dionysus'' (1912) was made into an opera by Sir Donald Tovey.

List of works

* ''Mallow and Asphodel'' (1898) poems * ''Polyphemus and Other Poems'' (1901) * ''Sisyphus: An Operatic Fable'' (1908)
''The Bride of Dionysus a music-Drama and Other Poems''
(1912) * ''The New Parsifal: An Operatic Fable'' (1914) * ''The Foolishness of Solomon'' (1915) * ''The Pterodamozels: An Operatic Fable'' (1916) * ''The Death of Man'' (1919) poems * ''Translations from Lucretius'' (1920) * ''The Oresteia of Aeschylus'' (1922) translator * ''The Antigone of Sophocles'' (1924) translator * ''The Ajax of Sophocles'' * ''The Idylls of Theocritus'' (The Casanova Society, 1925) translator * ''Poems and Fables'' (

Hogarth Press The Hogarth Press is a book publishing Imprint (trade name), imprint of Penguin Random House that was founded as an independent company in 1917 by British authors Leonard Woolf and Virginia Woolf. It was named after their house in London Boro ...

, 1925) * ''Thamyris: Is There a Future for Poetry?'' (1925) polemic * ''The Deluge & Other Poems'' (Hogarth Press, 1926) * ''Meleager'' (Hogarth Press, 1927) * ''Three Plays: Sulla - Fand - The Pearl Tree'' (Hogarth Press, 1931) * ''Rimeless Numbers'' (Hogarth Press, 1932) * ''Selected Poems'' (1934) * ''Beelzebub'' (Hogarth Press, 1935) * ''De Rerum Natura by Lucretius'' (1937) translator * ''The Collected Works of R. C. Trevelyan'' (1939) two volumes * ''Aftermath'' (Hogarth Press, 1941) * ''Translations from Leopardi'' (1941) * ''Translations from Horace, Juvenal, & Montaigne. With Two Imaginary Conversations'' (1941) * ''A Dream'' (privately published, 1941) * ''The Eclogues and the Georgics of Virgil'' (1944) translator * ''Windfalls: Notes & Essays'' (1944) * ''From the Chinese'' (1945) translator * ''Sophocles: Oedipus at Colonus'' (1946) translator * ''From the Shiffolds'' (Hogarth Press, 1947) * ''Translations from Latin Poetry'' (1949) * ''Translations from Greek Poetry'' (1950)

Notes

External links

The Robert Calverley Trevelyan fonds at the Victoria University Library at the University of Toronto
consists of twelve letters written to Mrs. Rosebery concerning writing, travel, friends, social activities and other matters. {{DEFAULTSORT:Trevelyan, R. C. 1872 births 1951 deaths Younger sons of baronets People educated at Wixenford School People educated at Harrow School Alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge English male poets Greek–English translators Latin–English translators English conscientious objectors Macaulay family (Lewis) Translators of Virgil Trevelyan family