Butler, Eliza Marian (Elsie) (1885-1959)

Identity Statement

Reference code(s)	: GB 0367 EMB
Held at	: Institute of Modern Languages   Click here to find out how to view this collection at http://modernlanguages.sas.ac.uk/library ›
Full title	: Butler, Eliza Marian (Elsie) (1885-1959)
Date(s)	: 1919-1959
Level of description	: Collection (Fonds)
Extent	: 3 files
Name of creator(s)	: Butler | Eliza Marian (Elsie) | 1885-1959 | Professor of German
Detailed catalogue	: Click here to view repository detailed catalogue

Context

Administrative/Biographical history:

Eliza Butler, or Elsie as she was more generally known, was born in Bardsea, Lancashire, into an old Irish family. She learnt German initially from her Norwegian governess and was then sent at the age of 11 to a private school in Hannover. From there at the age of 15 she went on to a college in Paris for British, American and French girls. At 18 she moved on to a reform college in household management in the Harz region of Germany at Reifenstein. At the age of 21 she entered Newnham College, Cambridge.

Having decided to concentrate her studies on German, she travelled to Bonn in 1913 but her adverse impressions and experiences there almost quenched her resolve. During her brief stay she became deeply interested in Hebbel and his works. On the outbreak of war the following year she returned to England. She devoted herself to various tasks including teaching in girls' schools.

Already bilingual in German/English, she began to learn Russian and was put in charge of a party of four nurses bound for the Russian front. Travelling through Norway, Sweden, Finland and Bessarabia she reached Odessa and Reni. She worked in a field hospital which followed the Russian advance until they were a few miles from the Serbian frontline in Macedonia. Her experiences during this time left deep and lasting impressions on her and her attitude to Germany and its people.

She caught malaria and was invalided back to England in 1918. Here she faced a dilemma, to abandon or to continue her German studies in the light of her feelings for Germany. She received sound guidance from Professor J.G. Robertson, who recommended that she study Heine, whose feelings for Germany mirrored her own to a considerable extent. Her nomination for the Newnham College Jubilee Fellowship gave her the opportunity to travel and study without financial worries for the next three years. She returned to Germany to visit Leipzig (1923) and Berlin (1924). Her doctoral thesis on the Saint-Simonians in Germany was published in 1926.

She returned to Germany yet again in 1927 (Berlin) to pursue a deepening interest in Prince Pückler-Muskau. Her studies and findings confirmed one of the abiding themes of her subsequent research - the occult. Her first publication after this visit, The Tempestuous Prince earned her enemies and harsh criticism. This reaction caused her a crisis of confidence in her way forward.

In response she created the 'Sherry Club' which was composed of a handful of kindred spirits. From this stemmed another book, on Sheridan (1931). Again the critics were hostile, and again their reaction caused her to doubt her ability. She escaped to India in the company of a friend and her experiences of Hindu society at this time were as beneficial as they were profound. They culminated eventually in her book on The Tyranny of Greece over Germany (1935), which again provoked an outraged response particularly in Germany where translation was banned.

In spite of all this she was invited to take the Henry Simon Chair of German Language and Literature in the University of Manchester in 1936. By way of some kind of preparation for this she returned to Germany but was utterly appalled by what she saw of the excesses of the National Socialist regime. A few years later she wrote her book on Rilke (1941) with these feelings still running strongly.

In 1945 she became the Schröder Professor of German at Cambridge and the following year gave her inaugural lecture on 'The Direct Method in German Poetry'. Her research was still concerned with magic and the occult, particularly the figure of Faust in folklore and literature. Between 1948 and 1952 she published three volumes on this theme in connection with her studies of Goethe. Her scholarship was impeccable although her stance was against 'received wisdom' and out of kilter yet again with prevailing thought. Her work was not even mentioned at the Goethe celebrations of 1949.

She gave vent to her feelings in an unpublished sketch which has since been lost, 'The Goethe Bicentenary or Chaos is come again'. If her unconventional views made her unpopular with her peers, her students loved and respected her.

She returned to Germany three times after the World War Two, at the instigation of the British Foreign Office, to give a series of lectures. In 1951 she retired but remained research-active until her death. Her last major undertaking was a book on Napoleon and the poets for which she translated many examples of European poetry into English. She was awarded honorary degrees by London and Oxford Universities. Apart from her scholarly works, Elsie Butler wrote several novels and an autobiography, Paper Boats (1959).

Content

Scope and content/abstract:

Professional papers of Eliza (Elsie) Marian Butler, 1919-1959, comprising:
Teaching papers, including student handouts with examples of German poetry of the 19th and 20th centuries and lecture notes on Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Rainer Maria Rilke: Poetry and Rainer Maria Rilke; Rilke and Orpheus; Rilke and Orpheism; Rilke and Russia; Germany and Greece; Goethe on his times; Legend and literature in Faustian rituals
Research notes and papers including: Napoleon and the Poets (unfinished manuscript of a book dealing with Napoleon's influence on European poetry); papers relating to EMB's biography Rainer Maria Rilke, (Cambridge, 1941);
Correspondence, 1937-1951, mainly relating to EMB's books, Myth of the Magus and Ritual Magic: correspondents include Bertrand Russell, 1948; Lord David Cecil, 1950; Professor Günther Müller, University of Bonn, 1948-1951; Edward Sackville-West, 1948; C.S. Lewis, 1940; Michael Burt, 1947-1948; William Keith Chambers Guthrie, 1948; Thomas Mann, 1948; Leonid Pasternak (artist), 1937; Gertrude Ouckama Knoop (wife of Gerhard and friend of Rilke); Ronald Peacock (Professor of German at Manchester University); Michael Polanyi (Fellow of the Royal Society and Professor of Chemistry, Manchester University), 1948; Professor Gerard van Rijnberk, 1948; John Tresidder Sheppard, 1948; Hermann Sinsheimer (author and theatre critic), 1948; Professor Leonard Ashley Willoughby, 1948; Nancy Wunderly-Volkart (friend of Rainer Maria Rilke), 1940.

Access & Use

Language/scripts of material:
English and German

System of arrangement:

The papers are arranged in three classes: Teaching, Research and Correspondence.

Conditions governing access:

Researchers should apply to consult material at least forty-eight hours in advance by letter, facsimile, e-mail or telephone. The Library staff need a name and contact number, a concise and clear idea of the nature of the enquiry and a date and time for consultation.

Conditions governing reproduction:

Photocopies may be made, although this is at the discretion of the Librarian and is dependent on the nature of the material.

Finding aids:

List, copy deposited at the National Register of Archives (Ref: NRA 29443).

Archival Information

Archival history:

The papers were donated to the Institute of Germanic Studies in 1960 by Butler's long-time friend, Miss Isaline Blew Horner, Fellow and Librarian of Newnham College, Cambridge. However, they represent only a fraction of Professor Butler's output.

Immediate source of acquisition:

Presented to IGS by Miss I B Horner, 1960.

Allied Materials

Related material:

National Register of Archives: Click here to view NRA record

Publication note:

Description Notes

Archivist's note:
Compiled by Jennifer Hogarth, revised by Alan Kucia as part of the RSLP AIM25 Project.

Rules or conventions:
Compiled in compliance with General International Standard Archival Description, ISAD(G), second edition, 2000 and National Council on Archives Rules for the Construction of Personal Place and Corporate Names 1997.

Date(s) of descriptions:
Revised Apr 2002