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Home / A Short Inquiry Concerning the Hermetic Art by a Lover of Philatethes

A Short Inquiry Concerning the Hermetic Art by a Lover of Philatethes

Florence Farr
FlorenceFarrFace.jpg
Born

Florence Beatrice Farr


(1860-07-07)7 July 1860

Bickley, Kent, UK
Died 29 April 1917(1917-04-29) (aged 56)

Colombo, Ceylon (Sri Lanka)
Other names Mary Lester

Florence Beatrice Emery (née Farr; seven July 1860 – 29 April 1917)[1] was a British Due west End leading extra, composer and director. She was also a women's rights activist, journalist, educator, vocalist, novelist, and leader of the occult order, the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn.[2] She was a friend and collaborator of Nobel laureate William Butler Yeats, poet Ezra Pound, playwright Oscar Wilde, artists Aubrey Beardsley and Pamela Colman Smith, Masonic scholar Arthur Edward Waite, theatrical producer Annie Horniman, and many other literati of London'due south fin de siècle era, and fifty-fifty past their standards she was "the bohemian's bohemian".[3] Though not every bit well known as some of her contemporaries and successors, Farr was a "first-wave" feminist of the late 19th and early 20th centuries; she publicly advocated for suffrage, workplace equality, and equal protection under the law for women, writing a book and many manufactures in intellectual journals on the rights of "the modern adult female".

Early life [edit]

Florence Beatrice Farr was built-in in Bickley, Kent, England (present a suburb of London) in 1860, the youngest of the eight children of Mary Elizabeth Whittal and Dr. William Farr.[4] She was named subsequently nursing pioneer Florence Nightingale by her father, a physician and hygienist who was a friend and colleague of Nightingale's. Dr. Farr was known as an advocate of equal education and professional rights for women,[five] who doubtlessly influenced his daughters' attitudes in their later lives.

Her family sent her to school at Cheltenham Ladies' College in 1873. One of her childhood friends was May Morris, the girl of Jane Morris, the renowned Pre-Raphaelite artist's model, who introduced her to the artistic and intellectual circles of London society. Farr, May Morris and other friends posed for Sir Edward Burne-Jones' Pre-Raphaelite painting "The Golden Stairs" when she was 19 years old. The painting is exhibited at the Tate Gallery in London.[3] From 1877 to 1880, Farr attended Queen'due south College, the commencement women's college in England. After leaving college, she took a pedagogy position, simply before long her aspirations turned to theatre.

Theatrical career [edit]

Farr's first acting experience was in apprentice productions with the Bedford Park Dramatics Guild, in which her sister Henrietta and brother-in-law Henry were agile members. Beginning in 1882, Farr served an eight-month apprenticeship under actor-manager J. Fifty. Toole at Toole's Theatre in King William Iv Street about Charing Cross. She adopted the phase proper name Mary Lester in deference to her begetter's wishes, who did not want the Farr proper name associated with the theatre. Her start professional phase advent was equally "Kate Renshaw", a schoolgirl, in Henry J. Byron'south Uncle Dick'southward Darling.[six]

In 1883 her father died, leaving her a small-scale inheritance to alive on.[v] She continued taking small roles at the Folly, but changed her stage name back to Florence Farr when she began performing at the Gaiety Theatre in May. Her commanding presence and beautiful speaking vocalization were noted by George Bernard Shaw. She before long attained modest success on London's Westward Cease stages. In 1884 she married fellow actor Edward Emery. It turned out to be a disastrous marriage, and she chafed under the restrictions expected of a Victorian wife.[six] In 1888, her husband left for an extended tour of America, and they never saw each other again. She eventually obtained a divorce in 1895 on the grounds of abandonment and never remarried.[3]

In early 1890, Farr moved in with her sister, Henrietta, and brother-in-law, painter and stage designer Henry Marriott Paget, to Bedford Park, a bohemian London enclave of intellectuals, artists and writers. Bedford Park was known for its "free thinkers" and the "New Woman"(a term coined by Sarah Grand), where women participated in discussions on politics, art, literature and philosophy on an equal basis with men.[7] An early feminist, Farr was known for advocating equality for women in politics, employment, wages, etc., amid her intellectual circle of acquaintances.[v] Yeats also lived in Bedford Park, and it's likely she beginning made his acquaintance when her brother-in-police was painting Yeats' portrait.[3]

While in Bedford Park, Farr starred in the play A Sicilian Idyll: A Pastoral Play in Two Scenes by John Todhunter (an associate of Yeats and fellow member of the Gilt Dawn) in the office of "Priestess Amaryllis", who summons the Goddess Selene to wreak revenge on her unfaithful lover. Shaw was in the audition to review the play, which he called "an hour's transparent Arcadian brand-believe",[8] but was greatly impressed with Farr'due south performance, as well as her "startling beauty, large expressive eyes, crescent eyebrows, and luminous smile."[vii]

Shaw wished to mold her into his arcadian vision of "The New Adult female" and exist the star of his plays. Shaw wrote that she reacted vehemently confronting Victorian sexual and domestic morality and was dauntless in publicly championing unpopular causes such as candidature for the welfare of prostitutes.[five] In a alphabetic character to Shaw she wrote, "…a race is likely to get degenerate so long every bit the sex activity question resolves itself ultimately into the question of how women tin can make the best bargain and, in then doing, deny themselves the liberty of free selection."[9]

For Yeats she was, like Maud Gonne, a poetic muse, whose resonant vocalization was perfect for reciting his poetry. He found in her "a tranquil dazzler like that of Demeter's image near the British Museum reading-room door, and an incomparable sense of rhythm and a cute voice, the seeming natural expression of the epitome."[ten] In his review of A Sicilian Idyll, Yeats wrote, "Mrs. Edward Emery (Florence Farr) …won universal praise with her hit beauty and subtle gesture and fine delivery of the verse. Indeed her acting was the characteristic of the whole performance that struck 1 nearly, after the poetry itself. I do not know that I have any give-and-take too strong to express my admiration for its grace and power…I have never heard verse better spoken."[6] Both men wrote leading parts in their plays for Farr, who used her influence with Annie Horniman to accept them produced.

Farr was also the beginning adult female in England to perform in Ibsen's plays, in particular the function of Rebecca West in the beginning English language production of Rosmersholm, at the Vaudeville Theatre in 1891, which gained her critical acclamation.[8] The character of Rebecca West is a 'New Woman' who rejects the ethical systems of Victorian Era Christianity, which for Florence Farr was a virtual typecast function.

Producer and director [edit]

In 1893, Horniman anonymously financed Farr's first venture as a director, a serial of plays at the Avenue Theatre on the Embankment. She commissioned her friend, artist Aubrey Beardsley, to create the poster for the flavor. Farr had starred equally Blanche, a slumlord's daughter, in Shaw'due south starting time play, Widowers' Houses, and she approached both Shaw and Yeats to write plays for her production at the Artery. Yeats delivered the curt play The Land of Heart's Want, but Shaw had non finished his play in fourth dimension for the series opening. A Comedy of Sighs by John Todhunter was speedily substituted, with Farr in the leading part, but the play was badly received and the entire venture was near a disaster.[iii]

After receiving a desperate cable from Farr, Shaw delivered his Arms and the Man. With only i week of rehearsal, Farr originated the supporting soubrette role of Louka, the vivacious and insolent servant girl who steals the affections of the hero from the play's atomic number 82 ingenue, which Farr had conceded to the well-known actress Alma Murray. A assuming satire of romantic idealism, the play was a great success with both audiences and critics, and still stands as 1 of Shaw's greatest works.[three] But Farr was growing closer to Yeats (that they became lovers is speculated but not proven) and distancing herself from Shaw, so Artillery was the last play by Shaw she e'er performed in.[3]

Throughout the 1890s, Yeats used Farr'south 'golden voice' as part of his quest to encourage the rebirth of spoken poetry. In 1898, in Yeats' The Countess Cathleen, she played Aleel, a bard and seer who could see into the spirit realm, and sang all of her lines in verse while accompanying herself on the psaltery. Farr became a regular contributor to the performance of Yeats' metrical plays, and in 1898 he made her the stage manager for his Irish gaelic Literary Theatre.[3] Only during that aforementioned menses of her life Farr was sidetracked from her theatrical career, much to the chagrin of Shaw ("...and at present you think to undo the work of all these years by a phrase and a shilling's worth of esoteric Egyptology," he wrote her in 1896)[11] by her involvement with Yeats in the secret occult social club The Hermetic Order of the Gilt Dawn.

Aureate Dawn [edit]

The Golden Dawn is based on an initiated lodge arrangement similar to that of Freemasonry; however women are admitted on an equal basis with men. Farr was initiated into the Isis-Urania Temple of the Order of the Golden Dawn in London by Yeats in July 1890[12] taking the magical motto Sapientia Sapienti Dona Information (Latin: "Wisdom is a gift given to the wise"). Annie Horniman was too a member of Isis-Urania Temple, which led to Farr's theatrical collaborations with her and Yeats. Farr became Praemonstratrix of the temple in 1894,[13] taking charge of the educational system, and giving classes in tarot divination, scrying and Enochian magic.[3] Spiritualism and Theosophy were very popular in the late Victorian Era only, unlike some of her contemporaries, Farr skilful magic, including the classic mystical techniques of invocation and evocation.[xiv]

She published her outset philosophical paper, A Short Inquiry apropos the Hermetic Art by a Lover of Philatethes in 1894[5] and wrote several of the Social club'south hole-and-corner educational activity papers, called the "Flying Rolls". With the resignation in 1897 of William Wynn Westcott, one of the co-founders of the Order, Farr replaced him every bit "Chief Good in Anglia", becoming the leader of the English language lodges, and the official representative of Samuel MacGregor-Mathers, the simply remaining founder, who lived in Paris.[iii]

By the end of 1899, personal disputes arose inside the Aureate Dawn, which Farr described as an 'astral jar' between other senior members (Adepts), and a undercover social club within the Isis-Urania Guild chosen The Sphere Group, created past Farr in 1896.[15] There were besides factions within the Guild that resented a woman having dominance equally Principal Adept.[3] Farr somewhen believed that the temple should be closed downward,[16] writing to Mathers in January 1900 and offering her resignation as his representative,[17] but that she was willing to carry on until a successor was found.[16] Mathers' reply shocked and amazed her,[16] for it claimed that Westcott had committed fraud and forged some of the foundational documents and charters of the Order. After waiting a few days she consulted with Yeats, and they jointly wrote to Westcott requesting an explanation of, and a reply to, Mathers' charges.[18] Westcott denied the charges, and a 7-member commission of Adepts was formed to farther investigate Mathers, asking for proof. Mathers sent a belligerent answer, refusing to produce proof, asserting his dominance and dismissing Farr from her position equally his representative on 23 March.[19] The Adepts in London connected their investigation, and subsequently expelled Mathers in 1901. Farr, Yeats and Horniman (who returned later on having been expelled before by Mathers) attempted to reorganize the Order, only met with limited success. Farr remained in her Master Adept position for a time, just resigned in January 1902 in the wake of a fraud scandal concerning associates of Mathers that exposed the once undercover society to public ridicule.[20]

Afterwards life [edit]

After Farr severed her clan with the Golden Dawn she joined the Theosophical Order of London,[three] and went on to write and produce (with Olivia Shakespear) two Egyptian-themed plays, The Shrine of the Golden Hawk and The Dear of Hathor. Farr was as well involved in the operation, direction and musical composition of a number of plays for the Lyceum, Court and New Century Theatres in London, between 1902 and 1906.[7] Besides collaborating with Yeats and his Abbey Theatre, Farr gave frequent performances of his poetry, which she set to the music of her psaltery. Farr toured in Great U.k., Europe and America in 1906 and 1907 to accept the 'new art' of Irish literary theatre to wider audiences. While in America she met and collaborated with breathtaking painter and Tarot card artist Pamela Colman Smith, who worked as Farr'southward stage manager.[three]

Farr also wrote regular articles during this time, particularly about women's rights, theatre and aboriginal Egyptian faith, in the British periodical of fine art and politics, The New Historic period, and for Theosophical journals, some of which accept been anthologized into books.[21] In her essay "Our Evil Stars" (New Age, October 1907), Farr writes that reformation of public health and marriage laws are non enough to liberate women. "Nosotros must kill the force in united states of america that says we cannot become all we desire, for that force is our evil star that turns all opportunity into grotesque failure....And so let the states each recognise the truth that our outset business is to change ourselves, and and then we shall know how to change our circumstances."[nine]

Farr lectured at the Leeds Arts Social club, in 1906 with Yeats on the art of speaking to a psaltery and in 1908 on 'The Theatre and the Arts' where she talked virtually the applied considerations of designing and building a theatre, the history of Greek theatre and read poems by Yeats and Homer accompanied past the psaltery.[21]

Through the Theosophical Society she had met Sir Ponnambalam Ramanathan, a spiritual teacher and future member of the Tamil parliament in Ceylon. Farr was greatly impressed by his plans for the education of young women in his native country, and she committed herself to helping him when he was ready.

In 1912, Farr learned that Ramanathan had established his Uduvil Ramanathan Girls College, and at the age of l-two, she sold all her possessions and moved to Ceylon, returning to her first vocation, that of a teacher. Farr was appointed Lady Master by Ramanathan and the administration of the school was turned over to her. Certainly the organizational skills she learned every bit the Praemonstratrix of the Golden Dawn served Farr in her new position, and due to her tolerance and respect for the Tamil traditions, the school thrived under her assistants. Farr also kept upwardly her correspondences with Yeats, and sent him her translations of Tamil poesy.[three]

And then in 1916, a lump in her breast was diagnosed as cancer, and she underwent a mastectomy. In Farr'southward concluding letter to Yeats, she included a humorous drawing of herself with her mastectomy scar, and wrote: "Last December I became an Amazon and my left breast and pectoral muscle were removed. Now my left side is a cute slab of flesh adorned with a handsome fern blueprint made past a cut and 30 stitches." But the cancer had spread, and Florence Farr died a few months afterwards at the age of 56 in a hospital in Colombo, in April 1917. In accordance with her wishes, her body was cremated and the ashes scattered past Ramanathan in the sacred Kalyaani River.[7]

Farr'due south final letter to Yeats

In his verse form "All Souls' Dark", Yeats wrote:

"On Florence Emery I call the next,
Who finding the first wrinkles on a face
Admired and beautiful,
And by the foreknowledge of the futurity vexed;
Diminished dazzler, multiplied commonplace;
Preferred to teach a school
Abroad from neighbor or friend,
Among dark skins, permit foul years to wear
Hidden from eyesight to the unnoticed finish."[22]

Works [edit]

  • Florence Farr (Dec 1995). The Dancing Faun. Elkin Mathews. ISBN978-1-872189-76-5.
  • Florence Farr. Egyptian Magic: Occult Mysteries in Ancient Egypt. Kessinger. ISBN978-1-56459-322-1.
  • "The Mystery of Fourth dimension: A Masque". Theosophical Review. 36 (211): 9–nineteen. 1905.
  • "A Dialogue of Vision". Theosophical Review. 39 (229): 77–84. 1906.
  • "The Tetrad, or Structure of the Mind". Occult Review. eight (ane): 34–40. 1908.
  • "Egyptian Employ of Symbols". Occult Review. 7 (3): 46–149. 1908.
  • "On the Kabalah". Occult Review. 7 (4): 213–218. 1908.
  • "On the Play of the Image-Maker". Occult Review. 8 (2): 87–91. 1908.
  • "The Philosophy Called Vedanta". Occult Review. vii (six): 333–338. 1908.
  • "The Rosicrucians and Alchemists". Occult Review. 7 (5): 259–264. 1908.
  • The Music of Speech. London: Elkin Mathews. 1909. OCLC 11703141.
  • Modern Woman: Her Intentions. Frank Palmer. 1910.
  • The Solemnization of Jacklin: Some Adventures on the Search for Reality. London: A.C. Fifeld. 1912.
  • Darcy Kuntz, ed. (April 1996). The Enochian Experiments of the Golden Dawn. Gold Dawn Studies. Holmes. ISBN978-1-55818-340-7.
  • The Way of Wisdom: An Investigation of the Meanings of the Messages of the Hebrew Alphabet Considered As a Remnant of the Chaldean Wisdom. Holmes. 2001. ISBN978-1-55818-290-5.
  • Florence Farr (2001). Darcy Küntz (ed.). The Magic of a Symbol. Holmes. ISBN978-one-55818-337-vii.
  • Florence Farr; Olivia Shakespear (September 2002). The Serpent's Path: The Magical Plays of Florence Farr. Holmes. ISBN978-ane-55818-414-5.
  • Florence Farr (March 2005). La Magia Egipcia (in Spanish). Obelisco. ISBN978-84-7720-911-nine.
  • The Book of the Grand Words of Each Mystery in Egyptian Magic. Kessinger. 2005. ISBN978-1-4253-0233-7.
  • The Gnostic Magic of Egypt. Kessinger. 2005. ISBN978-ane-4253-0232-0.
  • The Legend of Ra and Isis. Kessinger. 2005. ISBN978-1-4253-0231-3.

References [edit]

Footnotes [edit]

  1. ^ Kiberd, declan (nine November 2018). "Sodom and Begorrah". Times Literary Supplement. 6032: 32.
  2. ^ King 1989, folio 41
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j thou l chiliad n Greer (1994)
  4. ^ Wise, Caroline. "Florence Farr, Priestess and Skilful". Fellowship of Isis . Retrieved 29 August 2020.
  5. ^ a b c d e University College of London bio
  6. ^ a b c Boisseau (2004)
  7. ^ a b c d Johnson (1974)
  8. ^ a b Jayawardena (1995)
  9. ^ a b Litz (1996)
  10. ^ Peters (1980)
  11. ^ Bax (1971)
  12. ^ King 1978, page 24
  13. ^ F.Male monarch, 1989, pages 51–52
  14. ^ Rex, 1989, page 52
  15. ^ King, 1989, folio 66
  16. ^ a b c King 1989 folio 67
  17. ^ Wilson, folio 54
  18. ^ Male monarch 1989 page 68
  19. ^ Rex 1989 page 69
  20. ^ Gilbert (1998)
  21. ^ a b Steele, Tom (2009). Alfred Orage and the Leeds Arts Gild 1893-1923. The Orage Press. pp. 126–128, 148–149.
  22. ^ Yeats, The Collected Poems

Bibliography [edit]

  • Boisseau, Robin Jackson (5 May 2004). "The Women of the Abbey Theatre, 1879-1925". Academy of Maryland. Archived from the original on 13 June 2007. Retrieved sixteen August 2007.
  • Farr, Florence (c1863-1916). "Farr, Florence". Administrative/Biographical History, Reference code(due south): GB 0096 MS 982. University of London, Senate House Library Drove. Retrieved 2007-08-31 .
  • Farr, Florence; Yeats, W. B.; Shaw, K.B. (1971). Clifford Bax (ed.). Florence Farr, Bernard Shaw and Westward. B. Yeats. (Letters). Shannon, Irish Academy Press. ISBN978-0-7165-1394-0. OCLC 148919.
  • Gilbert, R. A. (September 1998). The Gilded Dawn Scrapbook: The Rise and Autumn of a Magical Order. Weiser Books. ISBN978-1-57863-037-0.
  • Greer, Mary K. (1996). Women of the Golden Dawn: Rebels and Priestesses. Park Street Printing. ISBN978-0-89281-607-one.
  • Howe, Ellic (1972). Magicians of the Aureate Dawn: A Documentary History of a Magical Order, 1887-1923. Cerise Wheel Weiser. ISBN978-0-87728-369-0.
  • Jayawardena, Kumari (1995). The White Adult female's Other Burden: Western Women and Due south Asia During British Dominion. Routledge. ISBN978-0-415-91105-4.
  • Johnson, Josephine (1975). Florence Farr: Bernard Shaw'south New Adult female. Colin Smythe. ISBN978-0-901072-15-three.
  • Rex, Francis (1989). Modern Ritual Magic: The Rise of Western Occultism. Avery Publishing Group. ISBN978-one-85327-032-1.
  • King, Francis (1977). The Magical World of Aleister Crowley. Weidenfeld and Nicolson. ISBN978-0-297-77423-five.
  • Litz, A. Walton (1996). "Florence Farr: A Transitional Woman". In Maria DiBattista & Lucy McDiarmid (eds.). High and Low Moderns: Literature and Culture, 1889-1939. Oxford Academy Press, United states. ISBN978-0-nineteen-508266-one.
  • Peters, Margot (1980). Bernard Shaw and the Actresses. Doubleday & Co. ISBN0-385-12051-half dozen.
  • Tully, Caroline (2009). "Florence and the Mummy". Women's Voices in Magic. Megalithica Books. pp. 15–243.
  • Wilson, Colin (2005). Aleister Crowley: The Nature of the Beast. Aeon Books. ISBN978-ane-904658-27-6.
  • Yeats, William Butler (1996). "All Souls' Night". In Richard J. Finneran (ed.). The Collected Poems of West. B. Yeats (2nd ed.). Scribner. p. 132. ISBN978-0-684-80731-7.

External links [edit]

  • Works by or about Florence Farr at Net Archive
  • Florence Farr's papers at Senate Firm Library, University of London
  • Excerpts from M.K. Greer's Women of the Aureate Dawn
  • The National Library of Ireland'southward exhibition on Yeats features much about their collaboration and Farr's ain Psaltery.
  • Biography at the Gilded Dawn
  • Works by or about Florence Farr in libraries (WorldCat itemize)
  • Florence Farr: The scattered ashes of sacred wisdom

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Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florence_Farr