Ivor Brown
Encyclopedia
Ivor John Carnegie Brown (25 April 1891–22 April 1974) was a British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 journalist
Journalist
A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...

 and man of letters.

Biography

Born in Penang
Penang
Penang is a state in Malaysia and the name of its constituent island, located on the northwest coast of Peninsular Malaysia by the Strait of Malacca. It is bordered by Kedah in the north and east, and Perak in the south. Penang is the second smallest Malaysian state in area after Perlis, and the...

, Malaya
British Malaya
British Malaya loosely described a set of states on the Malay Peninsula and the Island of Singapore that were brought under British control between the 18th and the 20th centuries...

, Brown was the younger of two sons of Dr. William Carnegie Brown, a specialist in tropical diseases, and his wife Jean Carnegie. At an early age he was sent to Britain, where he attended Suffolk Hall preparatory school and Cheltenham College
Cheltenham College
Cheltenham College is a co-educational independent school, located in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, England.One of the public schools of the Victorian period, it was opened in July 1841. An Anglican foundation, it is known for its classical, military and sporting traditions.The 1893 book Great...

. After additional private instruction, he was accepted into Balliol College, Oxford
Balliol College, Oxford
Balliol College , founded in 1263, is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England but founded by a family with strong Scottish connections....

, graduating with double degrees in Classics and Literae Humaniores
Literae Humaniores
Literae Humaniores is the name given to an undergraduate course focused on Classics at Oxford and some other universities.The Latin name means literally "more humane letters", but is perhaps better rendered as "Advanced Studies", since humaniores has the sense of "more refined" or "more learned",...

.

Early career

Excelling on the civil service examination, Brown spent two days as a civil servant in the Home Office
Home Office
The Home Office is the United Kingdom government department responsible for immigration control, security, and order. As such it is responsible for the police, UK Border Agency, and the Security Service . It is also in charge of government policy on security-related issues such as drugs,...

 in 1913 before realising he was unsuited for the job and quit in order to become a freelance writer. At this time he was involved in left-wing politics, and was a conscientious objector
Conscientious objector
A conscientious objector is an "individual who has claimed the right to refuse to perform military service" on the grounds of freedom of thought, conscience, and/or religion....

 during World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

. Though he started authoring books at this time, his ability to write quickly and over a wide range of topics soon marked him out for a career in journalism. After writing for The New Age
The New Age
The New Age was a British literary magazine, noted for its wide influence under the editorship of A. R. Orage from 1907 to 1922. It began life in 1894 as a publication of the Christian Socialist movement; but in 1907 as a radical weekly edited by Joseph Clayton, it was struggling...

, he received a position in the London office of The Manchester Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...

in 1919.

Drama criticism

Though his contributions ranged over a number of subjects, Brown developed a particular interest in the theatre
Theatre
Theatre is a collaborative form of fine art that uses live performers to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place. The performers may communicate this experience to the audience through combinations of gesture, speech, song, music or dance...

. He became a drama critic for the Saturday Review
Saturday Review (London)
The Saturday Review of politics, literature, science, and art was a London weekly newspaper established by A. J. B. Beresford Hope in 1855....

 in 1923 and was named the Shute lecturer in the art of the theatre at Liverpool University three years later. In 1929, Brown joined The Observer
The Observer
The Observer is a British newspaper, published on Sundays. In the same place on the political spectrum as its daily sister paper The Guardian, which acquired it in 1993, it takes a liberal or social democratic line on most issues. It is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper.-Origins:The first issue,...

as their drama critic. In the decade that followed, he emerged as the most influential and insightful drama critic in the British press, a status acknowledged in 1939 with his appointment as professor of drama in the Royal Society of Literature
Royal Society of Literature
The Royal Society of Literature is the "senior literary organisation in Britain". It was founded in 1820 by George IV, in order to "reward literary merit and excite literary talent". The Society's first president was Thomas Burgess, who later became the Bishop of Salisbury...

 and his selection as director of drama for the Council for the Encouragement of Music and the Arts
Arts Council of Great Britain
The Arts Council of Great Britain was a non-departmental public body dedicated to the promotion of the fine arts in Great Britain. The Arts Council of Great Britain was divided in 1994 to form the Arts Council of England , the Scottish Arts Council, and the Arts Council of Wales...

 the following year.

Attacks on modernist poetry

Brown made quite a show of his unwillingness to follow fashionable literary and cultural nostrums. Some of his best writings are beautifully crafted and - whatever one thinks of Brown - often hilarious polemics on modern poetry, music and manners. This can be seen (sometimes with a startling effect on today's reader) in such works as I Commit to the Flames, in which, for example, he is particularly scathing about Eliot and Pound:

Mr T. S. Eliot offers the public the balderdash of his Waste-Land (pretentious bungling with the English language) and immediately becomes a pundit, bestriding the Atlantic with his cultural messages....our immunity from such poetry continually weakens; it has now been discovered that half-baked intellectuals will worship baby-talk and even persuade other people to pay for it....Gibberish levels all minds....Hence the popularity of modern verse....the source of the trouble is a general flight from reason....belief in the omnipotence of the sub-conscious for faith in self-determination of the will by reason guided.


And again:

....the Prophet Ezra at large among the alphabet, his Ps and Qs in a fine frenzy rolling....Mr. Pound 'uses quotations and translations and reminiscence and single words which are often meant to convey a large burden outside themselves' [here quoting Grigson]. This is one of T. S. Eliot's antics, as readers of The Waste-land have somewhat painfully discovered....Why, too, should he [the reader] grub about The Waste-land in order to root up the dubious truffles of Mr. Eliot's scholarship?

Writings on Shakespeare

Brown had a particular interest in Shakespeare, publishing several books about his life and career, and one on the poet's love life. He also wrote a play about Shakespeare's lost love Anne Whateley
Anne Whateley
Anne Whateley is the name of a woman who is sometimes supposed to have been the intended wife of William Shakespeare before he married Anne Hathaway. Most scholars believe that Whateley never existed, but that her name in a document concerning Shakespeare's marriage is merely a clerical error...

 in 1937, published in 1947, and broadcast on the BBC in 1953, starring Irene Worth
Irene Worth
Irene Worth, CBE was an American stage and screen actress who became one of the leading stars of the English and American theatre. -Early life:...

 as Anne and John Gregson
John Gregson
John Gregson was an English actor.He was born Harold Thomas Gregson, of Irish descent, and grew up in Wavertree, Liverpool, where he was educated at Greenbank Road primary school, later St Francis Xavier School...

 as Shakespeare.

Editorship of The Observer

In February 1942, J. L. Garvin
James Louis Garvin
For the basketball player, see James Garvin James Louis Garvin , was an influential British journalist, editor, and author...

, was forced out after 34 years as editor of The Observer because of a political dispute with the paper's owner, Waldorf Astor
Waldorf Astor, 2nd Viscount Astor
Waldorf Astor, 2nd Viscount Astor was an American-born British politician and newspaper proprietor.-Early life:...

. After a succession of temporary editors, Brown was named as Garvin's successor in August. The paper at the time was undergoing considerable changes spearheaded by Waldorf's son, David Astor, with the introduction of new writers, many of them talented émigrés from the Continent, and an ideological shift from an independent conservative stance to a far more liberal one. Brown's appointment was widely viewed as short-term, with Astor waiting in the wings to succeed him and already performing as many of the duties as editor as his war service permitted. Though uncomfortable with many of the new writers (possibly because of his growing political conservatism) Brown left the political side of The Observer to Astor and the paper's assistant editor, Donald Tyerman
Donald Tyerman
Donald Tyerman CBE was an English journalist and editor.Tyerman was born in Middlesbrough. He contracted polio at the age of three and was paralysed from the neck down, although over the next ten years he did eventually get back full use of the whole of his body except his legs - he needed splints...

, and concentrated on the paper's coverage of cultural matters. Brown served as editor until David Astor officially succeeded him in 1948, after which he continued as The Observers drama critic until he was replaced by Kenneth Tynan
Kenneth Tynan
Kenneth Peacock Tynan was an influential and often controversial English theatre critic and writer.-Early life:...

 in 1954.

Final years

Brown spent his final years concentrating on writing books. He would eventually publish over 75 books covering a wide range of topics and genres, but he was best known for his works on literature and the English language. He was chairman of the British Drama League from 1954 to 1962 and a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, and he was named a CBE
Order of the British Empire
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is an order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by George V of the United Kingdom. The Order comprises five classes in civil and military divisions...

in 1957. He died in London in 1974.

Works

  • "I Commit to the Flames" (1934)
  • The Heart of England" (1935)
  • Mind Your Language (1939)
  • A Word in your Ear (1942)
  • Dickens in His Time
  • Shakespeare
  • Shakespeare in His Time
  • How Shakespeare Spent the Day
  • The Way of My World (1954)
  • London (1960)
  • Chosen Words
  • Shaw in His Time
  • The Women in Shakespeare's Life.
  • A Charm of Names (1972)
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