Georges Cuvier, and then Germany for
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832) was a German poet, playwright, novelist, scientist, statesman, theatre director, and critic. His works include plays, poetry, literature, and aesthetic criticism, as well as t ...
, before ending in England with
Charles Darwin
Charles Robert Darwin ( ; 12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was an English naturalist, geologist, and biologist, widely known for his contributions to evolutionary biology. His proposition that all species of life have descended ...
. Reviewing ''The Book of Earth'' for ''
Nature
Nature, in the broadest sense, is the physical world or universe. "Nature" can refer to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general. The study of nature is a large, if not the only, part of science. Although humans are ...
'', F. S. Marvin wrote, "It deals with a much more difficult subject from the point of view of poetic presentation, namely biology, or rather geology as a preface to zoology and evolution as crowning geology." Nevertheless, it does not "belie the...expectations" raised by its predecessor.
''The Last Voyage''
Before Noyes had begun proper work on the final volume in the trilogy, ''The Last Voyage'', two events occurred which were to influence it greatly: his first wife's death and his conversion to Roman Catholicism. Death is a major theme in ''The Last Voyage'', as its very title suggests. The tone, more sombre than that of its predecessors, is also more religious – though religion was hardly absent from the earlier volumes – and, as might be expected, more specifically Catholic.
''The Last Voyage'' begins at night in mid-Atlantic, where an ocean liner, "a great ship like a lighted city", is battling through a raging storm. A little girl is mortally ill. The ship's surgeon prepares to operate, but with little hope of success, for the case is complicated and he is no specialist. Luckily, the captain knows from the
wireless
Wireless communication (or just wireless, when the context allows) is the transfer of information between two or more points without the use of an electrical conductor, optical fiber or other continuous guided medium for the transfer. The most ...
news that a top specialist from
Johns Hopkins Hospital
The Johns Hopkins Hospital (JHH) is the teaching hospital and biomedical research facility of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, located in Baltimore, Maryland, U.S. It was founded in 1889 using money from a bequest of over $7 million (1873 m ...
is on another liner 400 miles away – within wireless range. The ship's surgeon will be able to consult him, and stay in touch with him throughout the operation. Suddenly, the little girl's chances of survival are much improved. In a manner of speaking, all the scientific discoveries and inventions of the past are being brought to bear in the attempt to save her life. When the poet asks a casually-met fellow-passenger, "You think they'll save her?" the stranger replies, "''They'' may save her", and then adds enigmatically, "But who are ''They''?"
Reflecting, the poet realises that ''They'' are all the seekers and discoverers of scientific truths through the ages – people like
William Harvey
William Harvey (1 April 1578 – 3 June 1657) was an English physician who made influential contributions in anatomy and physiology. He was the first known physician to describe completely, and in detail, the systemic circulation and propert ...
,
Louis Pasteur and
Joseph Lister
Joseph Lister, 1st Baron Lister, (5 April 182710 February 1912) was a British surgeon, medical scientist, experimental pathologist and a pioneer of antiseptic surgery and preventative medicine. Joseph Lister revolutionised the craft of ...
in the field of medicine or
Michael Faraday
Michael Faraday (; 22 September 1791 – 25 August 1867) was an English scientist who contributed to the study of electromagnetism and electrochemistry. His main discoveries include the principles underlying electromagnetic inducti ...
,
James Clerk Maxwell
James Clerk Maxwell (13 June 1831 – 5 November 1879) was a Scottish mathematician and scientist responsible for the classical theory of electromagnetic radiation, which was the first theory to describe electricity, magnetism and li ...
and
Heinrich Hertz
Heinrich Rudolf Hertz ( ; ; 22 February 1857 – 1 January 1894) was a German physicist who first conclusively proved the existence of the electromagnetic waves predicted by James Clerk Maxwell's equations of electromagnetism. The unit ...
in the development of the wireless. Nevertheless, despite the united efforts of all, the little girl dies, and in the darkness of that loss the poet finds that only in
Faith
Faith, derived from Latin ''fides'' and Old French ''feid'', is confidence or trust in a person, thing, or In the context of religion, one can define faith as " belief in God or in the doctrines or teachings of religion".
Religious people ofte ...
can a flicker of light be found. Science cannot defeat death in the long run, and sometimes, as in the little girl's case, not even in the short run, but if "Love, not Death" is the ultimate reality, death will not have the final word. Of course, the "last voyage" of the title is not just that of the little girl or of Noyes' wife – though there are lyrics mourning her in Section XIII and another in the Dedication at the end – but of everyman and everywoman.
F. S. Marvin, who reviewed all three volumes of ''The Torch-Bearers'' for ''Nature'', wrote that "the third volume is certainly the best from the artistic point of view. It contains one well-conceived and highly interesting incident, around which the author's pictures of the past and incidental lyrics are effectively grouped, and it leads up to a full and eloquent exposition of the religious synthesis with which the history of science inspires him."
''The Last Man''
In 1940 Noyes published a science fiction novel, ''The Last Man'' (US title: ''No Other Man''), in which the human race is almost wiped out by a powerful
death ray
The death ray or death beam was a theoretical particle beam or electromagnetic weapon first theorized around the 1920s and 1930s. Around that time, notable inventors such as Guglielmo Marconi, Nikola Tesla, Harry Grindell Matthews, Edwin R. Sco ...
capable of killing everyone, friend or foe, unless they are in a steel chamber deep under the surface of the sea. The inventor's chief assistant unscrupulously sells the plans to the leading nations of the world, who declare they will use the ray only as a "last resort". When events spiral out of control, however, they all activate it, killing everyone living on the earth.
[Holland, Charles]
"Review of Alfred Noyes, ''The Last Man''
'' St Dunstan's Red and White''.
When the death ray strikes, a 29-year-old Englishman named Mark Adams is trapped in a sunken submarine. Managing to escape, he finds himself the only survivor in Britain. He travels to Paris in the hope of finding another survivor. There he discovers a clue which gives him hope. His search leads him to Italy, where he finally finds the other survivor, an American girl named Evelyn Hamilton. At the time when the death ray struck, she was in a
diving bell
A diving bell is a rigid chamber used to transport divers from the surface to depth and back in open water, usually for the purpose of performing underwater work. The most common types are the open-bottomed wet bell and the closed bell, which c ...
deep below the surface of the Mediterranean, where, under the guidance of Mardok, an immensely wealthy magnate and scientific genius, she was engaged in photographing the floor of the sea. Her companion turns out to be the villain of the story. Knowing the power of the ray, for whose development he had been largely responsible, he had made sure that, at the time of its activation, he was safely out of its reach, along with an attractive young woman with whom he could later begin the repopulation of the planet. Evelyn, however, finds him repulsive, and the arrival of the upstanding, handsome young Englishman further upsets Mardok's plan. In the ensuing competition between the two men for the girl, Mark Adams' surname is a clear hint at which of the two is better fitted to be
Adam to Evelyn's
Eve
Eve (; ; ar, حَوَّاء, Ḥawwāʾ; el, Εὕα, Heúa; la, Eva, Heva; Syriac: romanized: ) is a figure in the Book of Genesis in the Hebrew Bible. According to the origin story, "Creation myths are symbolic stories describing how the ...
. The two young people fall in love, but Mardok kidnaps Evelyn. After her escape and Mardok's death,
[ the novel concludes with the young couple's discovery of some other survivors at Assisi.
For Charles Holland, reviewing the novel in the 1940s, Noyes' combination of "such elements of human interest as apologetics, art, travel and a captivating love story" mean that the reader of ''The Last Man'' is assured of both "an intellectual treat and real entertainment".][ Eric Atlas, writing in an early ]science fiction fanzine
A science-fiction fanzine is an amateur or semi-professional magazine published by members of science-fiction fandom, from the 1930s to the present day. They were one of the earliest forms of fanzine, within one of which the term "''fanzine''" wa ...
, found the novel, despite some flaws, "well worth the reading – perhaps twice". The philosophico-religious theme, he wrote, "detracts in no way from the forceful characterizations...of Mark and Evelyn". Besides, most of the novel is set "in Italy, where Noyes' descriptive powers as a poet come to the fore". ''The Last Man'' seems to be the novel which introduced the idea of a doomsday weapon. It is thought to have been among the influences on George Orwell's ''Nineteen Eighty-Four
''Nineteen Eighty-Four'' (also stylised as ''1984'') is a dystopian social science fiction novel and cautionary tale written by the English writer George Orwell. It was published on 8 June 1949 by Secker & Warburg as Orwell's ninth and fina ...
''.[Rose, Jonathan]
"The Invisible Sources of ''Nineteen Eighty-Four''"
'' The Journal of Popular Culture'' Vol. 26 Issue 1 (2004): 93–108.
Later years
In 1940, Noyes returned to North America, where he lectured and advocated the British war position.[ The following year, he gave the Josiah Wood lectures at Mount Allison University, New Brunswick, Canada. Titled ''The Edge of the Abyss'', they were first published in Canada in 1942 and then, in a revised version, in the United States the same year][ and in Britain two years later. In ''The Edge of the Abyss'', Noyes ponders the future of the world, attacking totalitarianism, bureaucracy, the pervasive power of the state, and the collapse of moral standards. George Orwell reviewed the book for '']The Observer
''The Observer'' is a British newspaper published on Sundays. It is a sister paper to ''The Guardian'' and '' The Guardian Weekly'', whose parent company Guardian Media Group Limited acquired it in 1993. First published in 1791, it is the ...
'' and, like ''The Last Man'', it is considered a probable influence on ''Nineteen Eighty-Four
''Nineteen Eighty-Four'' (also stylised as ''1984'') is a dystopian social science fiction novel and cautionary tale written by the English writer George Orwell. It was published on 8 June 1949 by Secker & Warburg as Orwell's ninth and fina ...
''.[
In his review, Orwell wrote that ''The Edge of the Abyss'' "raises a real problem" – the "decay in the belief in absolute good and evil", with the result that the "rules of behaviour on which any stable society has to rest are dissolving" and "even the prudential reasons for common decency are being forgotten". Indeed, in Orwell's view, Noyes "probably even underemphasises the harm done to ordinary common sense by the cult of 'realism', with its inherent tendency to assume that the dishonest course is always the profitable one". On the other hand, Orwell finds Noyes' suggested remedy, a return to Christianity, "doubtful, even from the point of view of practicality". He agrees that the "real problem of our time is to restore the sense of absolute right and wrong", which in the past had ultimately rested on "faith", but he thinks that Noyes "is probably wrong in imagining that the Christian faith, as it existed in the past, can be restored even in Europe". Orwell offers no suggestion, however, as to what, other than faith, could serve as a basis for morality.
Noyes remained in retirement in California for some years.][ In 1943, he published ''The Secret of Pooduck Island'', a children's story set off the coast of ]Maine
Maine () is a state in the New England and Northeastern regions of the United States. It borders New Hampshire to the west, the Gulf of Maine to the southeast, and the Canadian provinces of New Brunswick and Quebec to the northeast and ...
. It features a family of squirrels threatened by natural enemies (skunks, weasels) and humans, the ghost of a Native American man who suffered a terrible sorrow in the colonial era, and a teenage boy who has ambitions to be an artist and who is able to help both the squirrels and the ghost. It is, however, far more profound and terrible than the lighthearted accounts of animal behaviour seem on the surface to indicate; a mysterious voice keeps whispering words of mystery to the artist Solo, and most of the characters turn out to be incarnations of the various follies and stupidities of mankind: the fierce lonely boy-artist (who is nearly locked up as insane by the petty spiteful villagers) and the pudgy but wise priest, as well as the solemn ghost of Squando, being the only exceptions against which the others are contrasted. The entire "secret" of Pooduck Island consists in the gleams of the supernatural that blaze through the canopy of the material world, like a glimpse of the ocean through an arch in the woods that Solo names the "Eye" of the island. The mysterious Voice, who is hinted to be Glooskap himself, appears indirectly as an invisible model for a portrait of the Squirrel family, who think they are seated on a stump: but the picture records him.
In 1949, Noyes returned to his home on the Isle of Wight
The Isle of Wight ( ) is a Counties of England, county in the English Channel, off the coast of Hampshire, from which it is separated by the Solent. It is the List of islands of England#Largest islands, largest and List of islands of England#Mo ...
.[ As a result of increasing blindness, he dictated all his subsequent works.][ In 1952 he brought out another book for children, ''Daddy Fell into the Pond and Other Poems''. The title poem has remained a firm favourite with children ever since. In 2005, it was one of the few poems that featured in both of two major anthologies of poetry for children published that year, one edited by ]Caroline Kennedy
Caroline Bouvier Kennedy (born November 27, 1957) is an American author, attorney, and diplomat serving in the Biden administration as the United States Ambassador to Australia since 2022. She previously served in the Obama administration as th ...
, the other by Elise Paschen
Elise Paschen (born January 1959) is an American poet and member of the Osage Nation. She is the co-founder and co-editor of Poetry in Motion, a program which places poetry posters in subways and buses across the country.
Career and education
Th ...
.
In 1955, Noyes published the satirical fantasy
Fantasy is a genre of speculative fiction involving magical elements, typically set in a fictional universe and sometimes inspired by mythology and folklore. Its roots are in oral traditions, which then became fantasy literature and d ...
novel ''The Devil Takes A Holiday'', in which the Devil
A devil is the personification of evil as it is conceived in various cultures and religious traditions. It is seen as the objectification of a hostile and destructive force. Jeffrey Burton Russell states that the different conceptions of ...
, in the guise of Mr Lucius Balliol, an international financier, comes to Santa Barbara, California
Santa Barbara ( es, Santa Bárbara, meaning "Saint Barbara") is a coastal city in Santa Barbara County, California, of which it is also the county seat. Situated on a south-facing section of coastline, the longest such section on the West Co ...
, for a pleasant little holiday. He finds however, that his work is being so efficiently performed by humankind that he has become redundant. The unwonted soul-searching this leads him to is not only painful but also – owing to a tragicomic
Tragicomedy is a literary genre that blends aspects of both tragic and comic forms. Most often seen in dramatic literature, the term can describe either a tragic play which contains enough comic elements to lighten the overall mood or a serious ...
twist at the end – ultimately futile.
Noyes' last book of poetry, ''A Letter to Lucian and Other Poems'', came out in 1956, two years before his death by polio.
''The Accusing Ghost''
In 1957, Noyes published his last book, ''The Accusing Ghost, or Justice for Casement'' (US title: ''The Accusing Ghost of Roger Casement''). In 1916, the renowned human rights campaigner Roger Casement was hanged for his involvement in the Irish Nationalist revolt in Dublin known as the Easter Rising. To forestall calls for clemency, the British authorities showed public figures and known sympathizers selected pages from some of Casement's diaries – known as the ''Black Diaries
The ''Black Diaries'' are diaries purported to have been written by the Irish revolutionary Roger Casement, which contained accounts of homosexual liaisons with young men. They cover the years 1903, 1910 and 1911 (two) and were handed in to Sco ...
'' – that exposed him as a promiscuous homosexual. In an era of institutionalised homophobia, this underhand tactic worked and the protests and petitions for Casement's reprieve failed.[Tilzey, Paul]
"Roger Casement: Secrets of the Black Diaries"
BBC, 2009.
Among those who read these extracts was Noyes, who was then working in the News Department of the Foreign Office and who described the pages as a "foul record" of "the lowest depths that human degradation has ever touched". Later that year in Philadelphia
Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, largest city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the List of United States cities by population, sixth-largest city i ...
, when Noyes was about to give a lecture on the English poets, he was confronted by Casement's sister, Nina, who denounced him as a "blackguardly scoundrel" and cried, "Your countrymen hanged my brother Roger Casement."[
Worse was to come. After Casement's death, the British authorities held the diaries in conditions of extraordinary secrecy, arousing strong suspicions among Casement's supporters that they were forged. In 1936, there appeared a book by an American doctor, William J. Maloney, called ''The Forged Casement Diaries''. After reading it, W. B. Yeats wrote a protest poem, "Roger Casement", which was published with great prominence in '']The Irish Press
''The Irish Press'' (Irish: ''Scéala Éireann'') was an Irish national daily newspaper published by Irish Press plc between 5 September 1931 and 25 May 1995.
Foundation
The paper's first issue was published on the eve of the 1931 All-Ireland ...
''.[Conner, Lester I. ''A Yeats Dictionary: Persons and Places in the Poetry of William Butler Yeats''. Syracuse, New York: Syracuse University Press, 1998, p. 24.] In the fifth stanza of the poem, Yeats named Alfred Noyes and called on him to desert the side of the forger and perjurer. Noyes immediately responded with a letter to ''The Irish Press'' in which he explained why he had assumed the diaries were authentic, confessed he might have been misled,[ and called for the setting up of a committee to examine the original documents and settle the matter. In response to what he called Noyes' "noble" letter, Yeats amended his poem, removing Noyes' name.][
Over twenty years later, Casement's diaries were still being held in the same conditions of secrecy. In 1957, therefore, Noyes published ''The Accusing Ghost, or Justice for Casement'', a stinging rebuke of British policy][ in which, making full amends for his previous harsh judgement, he argued that Casement had indeed been the victim of a ]British Intelligence
The Government of the United Kingdom maintains intelligence agencies within three government departments, the Foreign Office, the Home Office and the Ministry of Defence. These agencies are responsible for collecting and analysing foreign and d ...
plot.[
In 2002, a ]forensic
Forensic science, also known as criminalistics, is the application of science to criminal and civil laws, mainly—on the criminal side—during criminal investigation, as governed by the legal standards of admissible evidence and criminal p ...
examination of the ''Black Diaries'' concluded that they were authentic.[
]
Death
Noyes' last poem, ''Ballade of the Breaking Shell'', was written in May 1958, one month before his death.[Noyes, Hugh. "Preface" to Noyes, Alfred, ''Collected Poems in One Volume: Second Edition''. London: John Murray, 1963, p. 7.] He died at the age of 77, and is buried in the Roman Catholic cemetery at Totland
Totland is a village, civil parish and electoral ward on the Isle of Wight. Besides the village of Totland, the civil parish comprises the western tip of the Isle of Wight, and includes The Needles, Tennyson Down and the hamlet of Middleton.
Th ...
, Isle of Wight
The Isle of Wight ( ) is a Counties of England, county in the English Channel, off the coast of Hampshire, from which it is separated by the Solent. It is the List of islands of England#Largest islands, largest and List of islands of England#Mo ...
.[
]
Works
Poetry
*''The Loom of Years'' (1902)
*''The Flower of Old Japan'' (1903)
*''The Forest of Wild Thyme'' (1905)
* ''The Highwayman'' (1906)
*''Drake'' (1906–08)
*''Forty Singing Seamen and Other Poems'' (1907)
*''The Golden Hynde'' (1908)
*''Tales of the Mermaid Tavern'' (1913)
*''Watchers of the Sky'' (1922)
*''The Book of Earth'' (1925)
*''The Last Voyage'' (1930)
*''Shadows on the Down'' (1941)
*''Collected Poems'' (1950)
*''Daddy Fell into the Pond'' (1952)
*''A Letter to Lucian'' (1956)
Other works
''The Thames in Literature''
pp. 123–127, July 1907, '' The Bookman''
''William Morris''
(1908) Biography.
*''Rada'' (1914) Drama.
*''Walking Shadows'' (1918) Short Stories.
*''The Hidden Player'' (1924) Short Stories.
*''Some Aspects of Modern Poetry'' (1924) Criticism.
*''The Opalescent Parrot'' (1929) Criticism.
*''The Return of the Scare-Crow'' (''The Sun Cure'' in America) (1929) Novel.
* ''The Unknown God'' (1934) Intellectual Autobiography.
*''Orchard's Bay'' (1936) Essays.
* ''Voltaire'' (1936) Biography
*''The Last Man'' (1940) Novel.
*''Pageant of Letters'' (1940) Criticism.
*''The Secret of Pooduck Island'' (1943) Children's story.
*''Two Worlds for Memory'' (1953) Autobiography.
*''The Devil Takes A Holiday'' (1955) Novel.
*''The Accusing Ghost'' (1957)
Films based on Noyes' works
* '' Dick Turpin's Ride''
Songs based on Noyes' works
* Eight songs set by to music by Elgar in the 1924 '' Pageant of Empire''
*''Bacchus and the Pirates'' (Michael Brough)
* ''Everywhere (1987 music video by Fleetwood Mac)
* Madrigals Book XI ''Carmina Silvicola'' ( Clive Strutt)
*''The Highwayman'' by Phil Ochs
*''Let My Love Be Heard'' by Jake Runestad
Jake Runestad (born 20 May 1986) is an American composer and conductor of classical music based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He has composed music for a wide variety of musical genres and ensembles, but has achieved greatest acclaim for his wo ...
, setting of Noyes’ ''A Prayer''
*''The Highwayman'' by Loreena McKennitt
Loreena Isobel Irene McKennitt, (born February 17, 1957) is a Canadian singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and composer who writes, records, and performs world music with Celtic and Middle Eastern influences. McKennitt is known for her r ...
References
External links
*
*
*
*
Works by Alfred Noyes
at Hathi Trust
HathiTrust Digital Library is a large-scale collaborative repository of digital content from research libraries including content digitized via Google Books and the Internet Archive digitization initiatives, as well as content digitized locally ...
''Escapes radio adaptation of Noyes' "The Log of the ''Evening Star''"
{{DEFAULTSORT:Noyes, Alfred
1880 births
1958 deaths
Alumni of Exeter College, Oxford
Christian apologists
Converts to Roman Catholicism from atheism or agnosticism
English Catholic poets
English children's writers
English fantasy writers
English memoirists
English Roman Catholics
English science fiction writers
People from Aberystwyth
People from Ventnor
writers from Wolverhampton
Princeton University faculty
Roman Catholic writers
English male poets
English male short story writers
English short story writers
English male novelists
20th-century English poets
20th-century English novelists
20th-century British short story writers
20th-century English male writers