Richard Aldington

Aldington, Richard - ôlˈdĭngtən, 1892–1962, English poet and novelist. While studying at the Univ. of London, he became acquainted with Ezra Pound and H. D. (Hilda Doolittle), whom he married in 1913. He was one of the leading imagists and helped edit the Egoist, the principal imagist organ. His early poems, extraordinary in their verbal precision, were published under the title Images (1915). Images of War and Images of Desire followed in 1919, the latter marking a departure from pure imagism. Aldington's first novel, Death of a Hero (1929), was a bitter indictment of war. It was followed by The Colonel's Daughter (1931), equally biting in its satiric intent. Aldington was at his best when in an angry state of artistic and intellectual rebellion; experiments with milder satire proved less effective. After World War II he published little poetry. His most important work was in biography—Wellington (1946); Portrait of a Genius, But… (1950), a study of D. H. Lawrence; Lawrence of Arabia (1955), a harshly critical portrait of T. E. Lawrence; and Portrait of a Rebel: the Life and Work of Robert Louis Stevenson (1957).

See his autobiographical Life for Life's Sake (1941); study by N. T. Gates (1974).

The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition Copyright© 2004, Columbia University Press. Licensed from Lernout & Hauspie Speech Products N.V. All rights reserved.