Dear Alex,

About my last letter, I keep thinking and worrying that it might have annoyed you. If so I want to apologize and take it all back. As you know, your account of reading Emily Dickinson's poems stimulated me to try to close a gap in my literary horizon, even at this late date. Emily's sponteneity and spirituality impressed me, and I wondered what place she occupied in F O Matthiessen's American Renaissance. - It took me a few days to find out because initially I couldn't find the book. The answer is, none. And then I started to read An American Renaissance to find out what Matthiessen had done with (or to) history. It's a long - 670 page - book, and I'm not sure that I will take the time to read enough to find out. Meanwhile I searched the Internet to find out more about Matthiessen, and what I found surprised me, and may shock you. From http://rictornorton.co.uk/matthies.htm I copied the following:


"The highly respected cultural historian and Harvard professor F. O. Matthiessen (1902–50), met his future lover the painter Russell Cheney aboard an ocean liner in 1924. In short order they became in indissoluble bond, and for twenty years they always lived together for several months each year, although they were often separated from one another when Matthiessen had to do scholarly research or when Cheney's painting took him abroad or his ill health (tuberculosis) took him to sanatoriums. During these periods they wrote more than 3,000 letters, only a tenth of which have been published. Matthiessen's magnum opus was American Renaissance: Art and Expression in the Age of Emerson and Whitman, a landmark revaluation of American literature and culture (which was required reading while I was at university). He later became engrossed by the causes of the political left. Cheney was twenty years older than Matthiessen, who was searching for a father, but their relationship can only be called a marriage. There were occasional lapses of infidelity, followed by excoriating confessions. In their correspondence, Cheney adopted the name Rat, and Matthiessen the name Devil. Cheney sketched Matthiessen as a devil at the head of his letters, with horns and forked tail, and sometimes Matthiessen attempted similar caricatures, with less success.Matthiessen was uneasy about the sordid and promiscuous gay subculture, which he avoided; he proudly told his closest friends about his love for Cheney, but they lived in a closet, or at least a cocoon of their own making. Although he told Cheney they were living the life described by Whitman, it is characteristic of his "straight" facade that he never discussed Whitman's gay themes in his critical essays on the poet. He felt that his life with Cheney – stable, monogamous, non-effeminate, largely faithful, all-embracing – was "entirely new – neither of us know of a parallel case. We stand in the middle of an uncharted, uninhabited country. That there have been other unions like ours is obvious, but we are unable to draw on their experience. We must create everything for ourselves. And creation is never easy." Cheney died in 1945 of a heart attack following an asthma attack, age 63. Matthiessen could not bear the loneliness after such intense love and companionship, and killed himself five years later, age 48. It is clear that Matthiessen had posterity in mind as he wrote and that he hoped these letters would become a testimony to gay love and an important resource for other gay couples to draw upon. They should have been published immediately after his death, but the exact nature of his suicidal depression was not made public knowledge and it was felt prudent to delay publication of the letters for almost thirty years. 








y subculture, which he avoided; he proudly told his closest friends about his love for Cheney, but they lived in a closet, or at least a cocoon of their own making. Although he told Cheney they were living the life described by Whitman, it is characteristic of his "straight" facade that he never discussed Whitman's gay themes in his critical essays on the poet. He felt that his life with Cheney – stable, monogamous, non-effeminate, largely faithful, all-embracing – was "entirely new – neither of us know of a parallel case. We stand in the middle of an uncharted, uninhabited country. That there have been other unions like ours is obvious, but we are unable to draw on their experience. We must create everything for ourselves. And creation is never easy." Cheney died in 1945 of a heart attack following an asthma attack, age 63. Matthiessen could not bear the loneliness after such intense love and companionship, and killed himself five years later, age 48. It is clear that Matthiessen had posterity in mind as he wrote and that he hoped these letters would become a testimony to gay love and an important resource for other gay couples to draw upon. They should have been published immediately after his death, but the exact nature of his suicidal depression was not made public knowledge and it was felt prudent to delay publication of the letters for almost thirty years."

About all this, my father would have said: "Das hat mit mir nichts zu tun." (That has nothing to do with me.) a statement of disapproval which I might also make, if it did not seem important to me to understand a lifestyle intellectually and spiritually so alien to me, a lifestyle which is nonetheless very prevalent, and the denial and persecution of which is so tragic a characteristic of our society.

Please ignore me if I've broached a topic objectionable, embarrassing or otherwise distasteful to you and accept my prepaid apologies.

Love, Jochen