Richard Aldington - Icon Profile | Alexandria
Richard Aldington (1892-1962), born Edward Godfree Aldington, stands as one of the most enigmatic figures of early modernist literature, whose work as a poet, novelist, and critic both illuminated and complicated our understanding of the First World War generation. A founding member of the Imagist movement alongside Ezra Pound and H.D. (who became his first wife), Aldington helped revolutionize English-language poetry through precise imagery and unadorned language.
First emerging in London's literary circles around 1911, Aldington's early poetry appeared in Poetry magazine and the seminal anthology "Des Imagistes" (1914). His promising literary career was dramatically interrupted by World War I, where he served as an infantry officer from 1916 to 1918, an experience that would profoundly shape his later works and worldview. The war's impact manifested most powerfully in his semi-autobiographical novel "Death of a Hero" (1929), which broke new ground in its bitter critique of militarism and pre-war English society.
Aldington's literary journey took unexpected turns through his controversial biographical works, most notably "Lawrence of Arabia: A Biographical Enquiry" (1955), which challenged the heroic narrative surrounding T.E. Lawrence and sparked fierce debate in academic circles. His complex relationship with modernism, marked by both intimate involvement and later disillusionment, reflects broader tensions within 20th-century literary movements. Less known but equally significant was his work as a translator of French and Italian literature, which helped introduce continental modernism to English-speaking audiences.
Today, Aldington's legacy resonates in multiple dimensions: as a war poet who captured the disillusionment of a generation, as a biographer who dared to challenge established narratives, and as a modernist who both shaped and critiqued the movement from within. His life and work continue to raise intriguing questions about the relationship between literature and historical truth, the role of the artist in times of conflict, and the price of challenging accepted narratives. The recent rediscovery of his correspondence has opened new avenues for understanding this complex figure who straddled multiple literary worlds while remaining, in many ways, an outsider to them all.