Lewis, Janet

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LEWIS, Janet

Born 17 August 1899, Chicago, Illinois; died 1 December 1998

Daughter of Edwin H. and Elizabeth Taylor Lewis; married Yvor Winters, 1926 (died)

Lewis received a Bachelor of Philosophy degree from the University of Chicago. She then worked for a time at the American Consulate in Paris, in Chicago as a proofreader for Redbook and as a teacher. She married the poet and critic Yvor Winters and they settled in Los Altos, California, and had two children. Winters died in 1968. Lewis taught at Stanford and at other universities and received several awards.

Lewis' first novel, The Invasion (1932), established her talent for historical fiction. It is an account of the Johnston family, whose American ancestry began shortly after the Revolution, when John Johnston, an Irishman, settled with an Ojibway wife in northern Michigan. The effects of the gradual invasion by white settlers of Native American lands are background to the family history.

Two subsequent novels take their sources from historical accounts of trials Lewis first encountered in the 19th century Famous Cases of Circumstantial Evidence. In The Trial of Sören Qvist (1947), set in 17th-century Denmark, Qvist is framed for murder, convicted, and executed. In The Wife of Martin Guerre (1941, 1985), the setting is 16th-century France. This is a classic novella telling the story of Bertrande de Rols, the child bride of Martin Guerre. When Bertrande's husband presumably returns from war after long absence, her growing conviction the returning soldier is an impostor leads to a climactic trial that became a famous case in French jurisprudence. By focusing upon Bertrande, a devout young woman tormented by her love for two men, Lewis transforms a legal record into a moving domestic tragedy. In 1958, Lewis wrote a libretto based on her novel.

In her most ambitious novel, The Ghost of Monsieur Scarron (1959, 1981), Lewis again deals with French history, during the reign of Louis XIV. Here two plots and two worlds interweave: the first plot concerns the discovery at the Court of Versailles of a libelous pamphlet against the King and the effort of the King's authorities to find the man responsible; the second plot deals with the life of a devout and simple Parisian bookbinder, Jean Larcher. When Larcher is convicted upon circumstantial evidence of the crime against the King, the two plots merge, and the story becomes one of a wife's infidelity and an ensuing tragedy of betrayal and revenge.

The mark of Lewis' fiction is craftsmanship, evident in the precision of her style, her command of historical detail, and her rigorous control of her narratives. Her approach to history is essentially dramatic; history provides her with the plots and settings of tragedy. Her interest is not in great historical personages, but in forgotten everyday lives where as with high tragedy, evil motives and passions may also elude human justice and destroy the innocent as well as the guilty.

Lewis' poetry is composed of short lyrics, usually in traditional forms, meticulously executed. In contrast to the darker themes of her fiction, her poetry is strongly affirmative. Her subjects—unfashionable in contemporary poetry—center in the contentments of domestic life. Although limited in range, these are not poems of complacency. Many are shaded by the one inevitable grief, the death of loved ones. A more inclusive theme is the spiritual discipline necessary to "combine despair and joy/ Into a stable whole," as she writes in "Morning Devotion." For Lewis this means a moral commitment to constancy, an adherence to rationally chosen, enduring values. The failure of such commitment, and its consequences, is the subject of one of her most moving poems, "Helen Grown Old," in which Helen of Troy epitomizes a life "ruled by passion," the threat of which, in assessing her own experience, Lewis is aware. In "The Candle Flame," she acknowledges in her nature the variability that might turn loyalty into "a flickering vagrancy" leaving "nothing certain." One of her finest love poems, "Old Love, " is a tribute to an enduring marriage in which love eventually becomes "Love that is rooted deep,/ Quiet as friendship seeming,/ Secure as quiet sleep." The ultimate wisdom, Lewis implies in "White Oak," is to achieve a stability subject only to death. The human analogy for the metaphoric white oak, "Forever stirring in the air yet not/ Forsaking this one spot," is that of living experience rooted in permanent values.

Although Lewis has an excellent reputation among a select audience—mainly writers and poets themselves—she has not had the critical recognition merited by the quality of her work. Perhaps this is because she has never been a follower of fashion, and, in poetry, her production has been relatively small.

Other Works:

Indians in the Woods (1922). The Friendly Adventures of Ollie Ostrich (1923). The Wheel in Midsummer (1927). Against a Darkening Sky (1943, 1985). Goodbye Son, and Other Stories (1946, 1986). The Earth-Bound (1946). Poems, 1924-1944 (1950). Keiko's Bubble (1961). The Last of the Mohicans (libretto by Lewis, 1977). The Birthday of the Infanta (libretto by Lewis, 1977). Poems, Old and New: 1918-1978 (1981, 1982). The Swans (libretto by Lewis, 1986). The Legend (libretto by Lewis, 1987). Late Offerings (libretto by Lewis, 1988). Early Morning (1990). The Dear Past and Other Poems (1994). Janet and DeLoss: Poems and Pictures (1995). Morning Devotion: A Poem (1995). Garden Note: Los Altos, November (1997). The Invention of the Flute (1998). A Cautionary Note (1998).

Bibliography:

Akard, J., Seen and Unseen: For Janet Lewis at 90 (1989). Carnochan, B. H., The Strength of Art: Poets and Poetry in the Lives of Yvor Winters and Janet Lewis (1984). Carnochan, B. H., Landscape, Memory & the Poetry of Janet Lewis (1995). Pearlman, M., Inter/view: Talks with America's Writing Women (1990). Yalom, M. and Davis, M. B., eds.,Women Writers of the West Coast: Speaking of Their Lives and Careers (1983). Yvor Winters, Janet Lewis & Their Friends (1983).