David Park Barnitz (June 24, 1878 – October 10, 1901)
was an American
poet
A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator ( thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems ( oral or wri ...
best known for his 1901 volume ''The Book of Jade'', a classic of
Decadent poetry published anonymously by San Francisco bookseller William Doxey.
Life events
Later that autumn, mid-west newspapers were reporting the sudden death of a 23-year-old
Harvard graduate and
Orientalist scholar, David Park Barnitz (1878–1901), who was, the obituaries said, the anonymous author of "a volume of poems...which was spoken of as of unusual merit." That book was The Book of Jade—one of the poems from The Book of Jade having been published in the Overland Monthly in March 1901 under a new title, but under Park Barnitz's own name. And while the newspapers were saying that Barnitz had died accidentally, of an "enlarged heart", it was soon being whispered that Barnitz had actually killed himself.
A student of Dr. Carl M. Belser, Prof. Charles Lanman, and Prof. William James—"a student so intense in his application", the Lutheran papers wrote, "that Professor James of Harvard pronounced him brilliant"—Park Barnitz earned his A.M. (the equivalent of a PhD) at the age of twenty-one, at which time Barnitz was also admitted to membership of the American Oriental Society, "his name being suggested by Prof. Lanman, and was the youngest person ever admitted." In The Book of Jade, in the poem "Harvard: On His Twenty-First Year", Barnitz caricatured these instructors, writing of how "Professors sit on lofty stools upcurl'd,/Through Yankee noses drooling all day long;/ I find all these things quite ridiculous."
Barnitz, however, became more influential in poetry than Asian studies. He adopted the decadent style favoured by
gothic
Gothic or Gothics may refer to:
People and languages
*Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes
**Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths
**Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken b ...
and macabre poets including
Thomas Lovell Beddoes
Thomas Lovell Beddoes (30 June 1803 – 26 January 1849) was an English poet, dramatist and physician.
Biography
Born in Clifton, Bristol, England, he was the son of Dr. Thomas Beddoes, a friend of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and Anna, sister o ...
,
Count Stenbock,
James Thomson (B.V.),
H. P. Lovecraft, and the German
Bonaventura Bonaventura may refer to:
* Bonaventura (given name), given name
* Bonaventura (surname), surname
* Bonaventura (VTA), light-rail station in San Jose, United States of America
* ''Signor Bonaventura'', an Italian comic strip
* Bonaventura Heinz Hou ...
. A classmate of fellow poet
Wallace Stevens
Wallace Stevens (October 2, 1879 – August 2, 1955) was an American modernist poet. He was born in Reading, Pennsylvania, educated at Harvard and then New York Law School, and spent most of his life working as an executive for an insurance compa ...
, Park Barnitz was a visionary who prefigured
modernism
Modernism is both a philosophy, philosophical and arts movement that arose from broad transformations in Western world, Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement reflected a desire for the creation of new fo ...
in his adoption of new paradigms and literary styles as a form of mask. This turn has been seen as matching his intellectual cynicism and
misanthropy
Misanthropy is the general hatred, dislike, distrust or contempt of the human species, human behavior or human nature. A misanthrope or misanthropist is someone who holds such views or feelings. The word's origin is from the Greek words Î¼á¿–Ï ...
. The decadents, Barnitz wrote, though they "do not lecture at Harvard", "seem to me the most delightful of contemporary French writers." "All these slaves of the opal," Barnitz goes on, "as one of their obscurest members proclaims them, with their one great man (
Verlaine
Verlaine (; wa, Verlinne) is a municipality of Wallonia located in the province of Liège, Belgium.
On January 1, 2006, Verlaine had a total population of 3,507. The total area is 24.21 km2 which gives a population density
Population d ...
) and their hundred pathetic poets, it is surely a fitting thing to admire. 'How nice of them,' one feels like saying, 'to be so dear!' They have not produced a new art, but they have amused."
In the Spring of 2015,
Hippocampus Press
Hippocampus Press is an American publisher that specializes in, "the works of H. P. Lovecraft and his literary circle." Founded in 1999, and based in New York City, Hippocampus is operated by founder Derrick Hussey.
As of 2017, it has issued ...
published a new and expanded edition of ''The Book of Jade'' (ed. David E. Schultz and Michael J. Abolafia), with previously unpublished and un-reprinted writings by Barnitz.
In 2019, the prelude of ''The Book of Jade'' was translated to French by French Poet Tom Buron and published by L'Angle Mort.
See also
*
List of unsolved deaths
This list of unsolved deaths includes well-known cases where:
* The cause of death could not be officially determined.
* The person's identity could not be established after they were found dead.
* The cause is known, but the manner of death (homi ...
References
External links
The Book of JadeThe only comprehensive David Park Barnitz site
*
Book Jade New Critical
{{DEFAULTSORT:Barnitz, David Park
1878 births
1901 deaths
1901 suicides
19th-century American poets
19th-century American male writers
American male poets
Decadent literature
Harvard University alumni
Unsolved deaths