Dame Edith Sitwell
Who is Dame Edith Sitwell
Dame Edith Louisa Sitwell (7 September 1887 – 9 December 1964) was a British poet and critic and the eldest of the three literary Sitwells. She reacted badly to her eccentric, unloving parents and lived much of her life with her governess. She never married but became passionately attached to Russian painter Pavel Tchelitchew, and her home was always open to London's poetic circle, to whom she was generous and helpful.
Sitwell published poetry continuously from 1913, some of it abstract and set to music. With her dramatic style and exotic costumes, she was sometimes labelled a poseur, but her work was praised for its solid technique and painstaking craftsmanship. She was a recipient of the Benson Medal of the Royal Society of Literature.
Early life
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Dame Edith Sitwell Poems
- When Cold December
When cold December
Froze to grisamber
The jangling bells on the sweet rose-trees-
Then fading slow...
- The Web Of Eros
Within your magic web of hair, lies furled
The fire and splendour of the ancient world;
The dire gold of the comet's wind-blown hair;
The songs that turned to gold the evening air...
- The Fan
Lovely Semiramis
Closes her slanting eyes:
Dead is she long ago.
From her fan, sliding slow,...
- Interlude
Amid this hot green glowing gloom
A word falls with a raindrop's boom…
Like baskets of ripe fruit in air...
- Clowns' Houses
Beneath the flat and paper sky
The sun, a demon's eye,
Glowed through the air, that mask of glass;
All wand'ring sounds that pass...
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Dame Edith Sitwell Quotes
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Comments about Dame Edith Sitwell
- B3ckybr0wn: lovely little bit of bryher - here in kaye webb’s peacock edition for penguin, published in 1964, ten years after the first ed. was drawn in by the introduction (‘a masterpiece’ says dame edith sitwell[!]) but stayed for the nature writing rather than the saxons and danes
- Queeredr: "i am not eccentric. it's just that i am more alive than most people. i am an unpopular electric eel set in a pond of goldfish."
~ dame edith sitwell, (1887-1964), british poet and critic and the eldest of the three literary sitwells
- Andr6wmale: i wrote about the brilliant american writer james purdy, whose strange hallucinatory books foresaw the madness of trump's america. his ashes will be interred next to dame edith sitwell's grave on wednesday.
- Queeredr: 7)
"i am patient with stupidity
but not with those who are proud of it."
~ dame edith sitwell, (1887-1964), british poet, critic and delightful eccentric (as much as she insisted she was not an eccentric)
- Dean_frey: "i have a great feeling of gratitude. the mirror published my first poem - in 1913 - when no other paper or publisher would have anything to do with my work."
- edith sitwell
this goodwill towards her paper allowed doreen spooner to take this amazing shot of dame edith, in 1962.
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