James Henry Cousins (22 July 1873 – 20 February 1956) was an Anglo-Irish writer, playwright, actor, critic, editor, teacher and poet. He used several pseudonyms, including Mac Oisín and the

Hindu Hindus (; ) are people who religiously adhere to Hinduism. Jeffery D. Long (2007), A Vision for Hinduism, IB Tauris, , pages 35–37 Historically, the term has also been used as a geographical, cultural, and later religious identifier for ...

name Jayaram.

Life

Cousins was born at 18, Kevor Street in

Belfast Belfast ( , ; from ga, Béal Feirste , meaning 'mouth of the sand-bank ford') is the capital and largest city of Northern Ireland, standing on the banks of the River Lagan on the east coast. It is the 12th-largest city in the United Kingdom ...

, Ireland, the descendant of

Huguenot The Huguenots ( , also , ) were a religious group of French Protestants who held to the Reformed, or Calvinist, tradition of Protestantism. The term, which may be derived from the name of a Swiss political leader, the Genevan burgomaster Be ...

refugees. His father was James Cousins, a mariner, and Susan, née Davis. Largely self-educated at night schools, he worked some time as a clerk became private secretary and speechwriter to Sir Daniel Dixon, 1st Baronet, the Lord Mayor of

. In 1897 he moved to

Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of the Wicklow Mountains range. At the 2016 c ...

where he became part of a literary circle which included

William Butler Yeats William Butler Yeats (13 June 186528 January 1939) was an Irish poet, dramatist, writer and one of the foremost figures of 20th-century literature. He was a driving force behind the Irish Literary Revival and became a pillar of the Irish liter ...

George William Russell George William Russell (10 April 1867 – 17 July 1935), who wrote with the pseudonym Æ (often written AE or A.E.), was an Irish writer, editor, critic, poet, painter and Irish nationalist. He was also a writer on mysticism, and a centra ...

and

James Joyce James Augustine Aloysius Joyce (2 February 1882 – 13 January 1941) was an Irish novelist, poet, and literary critic. He contributed to the modernist avant-garde movement and is regarded as one of the most influential and important writers of ...

. He is believed to have served as a model for the Little Chandler character in Joyce's short story collection

Dubliners ''Dubliners'' is a collection of fifteen short stories by James Joyce, first published in 1914. It presents a naturalistic depiction of Irish middle class life in and around Dublin in the early years of the 20th century. The stories were writ ...

. Cousins was significantly influenced by Russell's ability to reconcile

mysticism Mysticism is popularly known as becoming one with God or the Absolute, but may refer to any kind of ecstasy or altered state of consciousness which is given a religious or spiritual meaning. It may also refer to the attainment of insight in ...

with a pragmatic approach to social reforms and by the teachings of Madame Blavatsky. He had a lifelong interest in the paranormal and acted as reporter in several experiments carried out by

William Fletcher Barrett Sir William Fletcher Barrett (10 February 1844 in Kingston, Jamaica – 26 May 1925) was an English physicist and parapsychologist. Life He was born in Jamaica where his father, William Garland Barrett, who was an amateur naturalist, Congr ...

, Professor of physics at

Trinity College Dublin , name_Latin = Collegium Sanctae et Individuae Trinitatis Reginae Elizabethae juxta Dublin , motto = ''Perpetuis futuris temporibus duraturam'' (Latin) , motto_lang = la , motto_English = It will last i ...

and one of the founders of the

Society for Psychical Research The Society for Psychical Research (SPR) is a nonprofit organisation in the United Kingdom. Its stated purpose is to understand events and abilities commonly described as psychic or paranormal. It describes itself as the "first society to co ...

. Cousins worked as a teacher in

The High School, Dublin The High School is a 12–18 mixed, Church of Ireland, independent secondary school in Rathgar, Dublin, Ireland. It was established in 1870 at Harcourt Street before moving to Rathgar in 1971 and amalgamated with The Diocesan School for Girl ...

. Cousins produced several books of poetry whilst in Ireland as well as acting in the first production of Cathleen Ní Houlihan (under the stage name of H. Sproule) with the famous Irish revolutionary and beauty

Maud Gonne Maud Gonne MacBride ( ga, Maud Nic Ghoinn Bean Mhic Giolla Bhríghde; 21 December 1866 – 27 April 1953) was an English-born Irish republican revolutionary, suffragette and actress. Of Anglo-Irish descent, she was won over to Irish nationalism ...

in the title role. His plays were produced in the first years of the twentieth century in the

Abbey Theatre The Abbey Theatre ( ga, Amharclann na Mainistreach), also known as the National Theatre of Ireland ( ga, Amharclann Náisiúnta na hÉireann), in Dublin, Ireland, is one of the country's leading cultural institutions. First opening to the p ...

, the most famous being "the Racing Lug". After a dispute with W.B. Yeats, who objected to 'too much Cousins' the Irish National Theatre movement split with two-thirds of the actors and writers siding with Cousins against Yeats. He also wrote widely on the subject of

Theosophy Theosophy is a religion established in the United States during the late 19th century. It was founded primarily by the Russian Helena Blavatsky and draws its teachings predominantly from Blavatsky's writings. Categorized by scholars of religion ...

and in 1915 travelled to

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

with the voyage fees paid for by Annie Besant the President of the

Theosophical Society The Theosophical Society, founded in 1875, is a worldwide body with the aim to advance the ideas of Theosophy in continuation of previous Theosophists, especially the Greek and Alexandrian Neo-Platonic philosophers dating back to 3rd century CE ...

. He spent most of the rest of his life in the sub-continent, apart from a year as Professor of English Literature at Keio University in Tokyo and another lecturing in New York. Towards the end of his life he converted to

Hinduism Hinduism () is an Indian religion or '' dharma'', a religious and universal order or way of life by which followers abide. As a religion, it is the world's third-largest, with over 1.2–1.35 billion followers, or 15–16% of the global p ...

. At the core of Cousins's engagement with Indian culture was a firm belief in the "shared sensibilities between Celtic and Oriental peoples". Whilst in India he became friendly with many key Indian personalities including the poet

Rabindranath Tagore Rabindranath Tagore (; bn, রবীন্দ্রনাথ ঠাকুর; 7 May 1861 – 7 August 1941) was a Bengali polymath who worked as a poet, writer, playwright, composer, philosopher, social reformer and painter. He resh ...

, the Indian classical dancer Rukmini Devi Arundale, the painter Abdur Rahman Chughtai and

Mahatma Gandhi Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (; ; 2 October 1869 – 30 January 1948), popularly known as Mahatma Gandhi, was an Indian lawyer, anti-colonial nationalist Quote: "... marks Gandhi as a hybrid cosmopolitan figure who transformed ... anti- ...

. He gave the William Miller Memorial Lectures at Madras in 1938 on "The Idea, Expression, and Fulfillment of Beauty," and he was the person who brought change into the life of poetry of the Great Renowned Kannada Poet and Writer Kuvempu. He wrote a joint autobiography with his wife Margaret Elizabeth Cousins (formerly Gretta Gillespie), a suffragette and one of the co-founders of the Irish Women's Franchise League and

All India Women's Conference The All India Women's Conference (AIWC) is a non-governmental organisation (NGO) based in Delhi. It was founded in 1927 by Margaret Cousins in order to improve educational efforts for women and children and has expanded its scope to also tackle ...

(AIWC). In his ''The Future Poetry'' Sri Aurobindo has acclaimed Cousins' ''New Ways in English Literature'' as "literary criticism which is of the first order, at once discerning and suggestive, criticism which forces us both to see and think." He has also acknowledged that he learnt to intuit deeper, being alerted by Cousins' criticisms of his poems. In 1920 Cousins came to Pondicherry to meet the Mother and Sri Aurobindo. The appreciation is palpable in the following citations: From ''The Future Poetry'' by Sri Aurobindo:

"It will be more fruitful to take the main substance of the matter for which the body of Mr.Cousins' criticism gives a good material. Taking the impression it creates for a starting-point and the trend of English poetry for our main text, but casting our view farther back into the past, we may try to sound what the future has to give us through the medium of the poetic mind and its power for creation and interpretation. The issues of recent activity are still doubtful and it would be rash to make any confident prediction; but there is one possibility which this book strongly suggests and which it is at least interesting and may be fruitful to search and consider. That possibility is the discovery of a closer approximation to what we might call the mantra in poetry that rhythmic speech which, as the Veda puts it, rises at once from the heart of the seer and from the distant home of the Truth, — the discovery of the word, the divine movement, the form of thought proper to the reality which, as Mr. Cousins excellently says, " ''lies in the apprehension of a something stable behind the instability of word and deed, something that is reflection of the fundamental passion of humanity for something beyond itself, something that is a dim foreshadowing of the divine urge which is prompting all creation to unfold itself and to rise out of its limitations towards its Godlike possibilities. Poetry in the past has done that in moments of supreme elevation; in the future there seems to be some chance of its making it a more conscious aim and steadfast endeavour."

Vegetarianism

Cousins and wife Margaret were interested in anti-vivisection,

theosophy Theosophy is a religion established in the United States during the late 19th century. It was founded primarily by the Russian Helena Blavatsky and draws its teachings predominantly from Blavatsky's writings. Categorized by scholars of religion ...

, vegetarianism and

women's suffrage Women's suffrage is the right of women to vote in elections. Beginning in the start of the 18th century, some people sought to change voting laws to allow women to vote. Liberal political parties would go on to grant women the right to vot ...

.Commire, Anne; Klezmer, Deborah. (1999). ''Women in World History: A Biographical Encyclopedia''. Yorkin Publications. p. 160. They were both strict vegetarians and in 1905 founded the Irish Vegetarian Society. Cousins lectured on "The Cruelties and Diseases Connected with Flesh-Eating" which was awarded first prize at the

Vegetarian Federal Union The Vegetarian Federal Union (VFU) was a British vegetarianism organisation founded in 1889, which operated until 1911. History In July 1889, a group of individuals from the London Vegetarian Society met and drew up plans to form what would bec ...

in June 1907.

Works

*POEMS BY JAMES H. COUSINS :The Oxford Book of English Mystical Verse. Ed. Nicholson & Lee. Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1917. :Padraic Colum (1881–1972). :Anthology of Irish Verse. 1922. *BIBLIOGRAPHY :The Legend of the Blemished King and Other Poems (1897) :The Quest (1906) :The Bell-Branch (1908) :The Wisdom of the West (1912) :Etain the Beloved and Other Poems (1912) :The Bases of Theosophy (1913) :The Renaissance in India (1918) :The King's Wife (1919) :Sea-Change (1920) :The Cultural Unity of Asia (1922) :Work and Worship: Essays on Culture and Creative Art (1922) :The New Japan: Impressions and Reflections (with 74 illustrations) (1923) :Heathen Essays (1925) :A Tibetan Banner (1926) :Above the Rainbow and Other Poems (1926) :A Wandering Harp: Selected Poems (1932) :A Bardic Pilgrimage (1934) :Collected Poems (1940) :The Faith Of The Artist. (1941) :The Work Promethean (1970) *BIOGRAPHIES/CRITICISM :A Wandering Harp: James H. Cousins, a Study. C.N. Mangala. (B.R. Publishing, 1995). :James Henry Cousins: A Study of His Works in the Light of Theosophical Movement. Dilip Kumar Chatterjee. (South Asia Books, 1994). :James Cousins. William A. Dumbleton. (Twayne Publishing, 1980). *RELATED LINKS :James H. Cousins: Poems – An index of poems.
/ref>

References

External links

* * *
The Future Poetry
by Sri Aurobindo
Renaissance in India
by Sri Aurobindo {{DEFAULTSORT:Cousins, James 1873 births 1956 deaths Anti-vivisectionists Converts to Hinduism Irish dramatists and playwrights Irish expatriates in India Irish Hindus Irish male dramatists and playwrights Irish male poets Irish occult writers Irish people of French descent Irish poets Irish suffragists Irish Theosophists Irish vegetarianism activists Keio University faculty Sri Aurobindo Writers from Belfast

Life

Vegetarianism

Works

See also

References

External links