J. C. Powys' Autobiography: A Reader's Companion - Site POWYS

34 Autobiography
King’s (193) — King’s College, Cambridge.
Kipling (301, 305) — Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936),
English poet, fiction-writer, and patriot. JCP
lectured on him at Cambridge in 1902; see
Roberts, “John Cowper Powys and the Cambridge
Summer Meetings” (197). He won the Nobel Prize
for Literature in 1907.
Knight of the Red Cross (324) — The hero of Book
1 of Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queene.
Knight Templar (325) — See “Templars.”
Knipe, Mr. (24, 42) — Rev. Thomas Wenham
Knipe, Rector of St. Peter’s, Dorchester, for whom
Charles F. Powys worked as curate.
“know not what they do” (516) — See “They
know not ...”
Koelle, Constantine (176) — A friend of JCP’s at
Cambridge (1862–c.1943), who entered the
Church. For photos, see Dunnet (8–12, 14), who
also provided the details given here.
Kraft-Ebbing (251) — JCP’s attempt at spelling the
name of Richard von Krafft-Ebing (1840–1902),
German neurologist, author of Psychopathia
Sexualis (1886).
Kruger, Mr. (305) — Stephanus Johannes Paulus
Kruger (1825–1904), South African rebel against
British rule at the time of the Boer War.
Ku Klux Klan (577) — The anti-black secret
organization prominent in the southern United
States at this period.
Kubla Khan (514) — Here the reference is to the
poem by S. T. Coleridge.
“Kulaks” (622) — (Russian) Landowners, rich
farmers, victims of revenge after the Russian
Revolution of 1917, liquidated by Stalin.
Kwang-Tze (53, 430, 454, 570, 649) — Kwang-tze or
Chuang-tze was a Chinese follower of Lao-tze
(q.v.) in the third century BC, and the most
important popularizer of Taoism. JCP dedicated
Ducdame to him, introduced him (disguised as a
terra-cotta jar!) in the late fantasy Up and Out
(57), and wrote an article about him in the Dial
LXXV (December 1923), 430–4, reprinted in Powys
Review 7 (Winter 1980), 45–8. Herbert Williams
notes (85–6) that JCP’s interest was probably
fostered by Phyllis Playter, who considered
herself a Taoist.
L
La Motte Foucqué (125) — In fact, Friedrich,
Baron de la Motte Fouqué (1777–1843), German
writer, also author of Undine (1811). The correct
title of his novel mentioned here is Theodolph
the Icelander, also mentioned (and mistitled) in
Wolf Solent (430).
La Rochefoucaud (230, 441) — François, Duc de la
Rochefoucauld (1613–1680), French author best
known for his maxims in Réflexions ou sentences
et maximes morales (1665).
“laborare est orare” (361) — Translated from the
Latin in text, a phrase much stressed by Carlyle in
Past and Present.
Lachesis (570) — ”The Measurer”, one of the
Fates, with Clotho and Atropos.
“lacking in all moral scruple” (200) — JCP also
mentions this charge in a letter in Wilkinson’s
Welsh Ambassadors (148–9). H. P. Collins noted
that “Dr. Gooch has assured me with emphasis
that for his part he never entertained such a
judgement and would certainly never have
voiced it” (21n).
lacrimae rerum (464) — Literally, the tears of
things (Latin). From Vergil’s Aeneid (Book 1,
l.462).
lady we both knew well (429) — Frances Gregg.
See “beautiful girl ...”
laid in the cold ground (225) — Adapted from
Shakespeare’s Hamlet (IV v 69–70).
“laid upon me” (525) — 1 Corinthians 9:16. Also
quoted in In Defence of Sensuality (188).
Lamb, Charles (159, 254, 262, 299, 461, 475, 606) —
English essayist and critic (1775–1834), whose
essays appeared as Essays of Elia and Last Essays.
For his collation of the Beaumont and Fletcher
folio (254), see “Old China” (Last Essays); for the
House of Business (606), see “The South-Sea
House” (Essays); for his “typical Scotchman”
(286), see “Imperfect Sympathies” (Essays). I have
not traced his vision of “the Lake Country
without its mountains” (461). Lamb’s Essay on the
New and Old Schoolmaster (159), in fact “The Old
and the New Schoolmaster,” may be found in
Essays. JCP wrote an essay on Lamb in Visions and
Revisions, and a lecture on him appears in
Singular Figures. See also “Elia’s ‘Dream-
Children’,” and “O city ...”
Lamia (555, 610) — A female demon; often a snake
disguised as a woman, as in Keats’s “Lamia.”
Lancashire Witches, The (125, 143) — A novel by
Harrison Ainsworth (q.v.), published in 1848.
Lancelot Gobbo (411) — A clown in
Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice.
Landor (366, 602) — Walter Savage Landor
(1775–1864), English poet and prose writer. The
poem in question at 366 is “The Death of
Artemidora” (JCP’s spelling is incorrect).
“Epicurus, Leontion, and Ternissa” (see 602) is
one of his Imaginary Conversations (1824–1829).
So, “Landorian” (612).
Lang (387, 621) — Andrew Lang (1844–1912), Scots
poet, essayist, and translator. He translated
Homer’s Odyssey with H. S. Butcher (1879), and
the Iliad with Walter Leaf and Ernest Myers (1883).