Famous quotations by J Galswothy: There are amount of valuable quotas said by John Galsworthy which can be interesting for us to appreciate his literary weight. He touched upon different spheres of social life.For example:”One’s eyes are what one is; one’s mouth is what one becomes.”,”,Beginnings are always messy",”Headlines twice the size of the events",”If you do not think about your future ,you can not have one",”A man is the sum of his actions, of what he has done ,of what he can do,nothing else".These quotes are about the general social problems of the human being, which he experienced in his time.
Other quotes are about love,which is also one of the humans issues.Also the author himself suffered from love for a decade. We can count some of his valuable words about love:”Love has no age ,no limit;and no death “.”There is left in every man something of the primeval love of stalking",”Marvelous speeder-up of love is War.What might have taken six months was thus accomplished in three weeks “.”Love is no hot-house flower, but a wild plant,born of a weight night, born of an hour of sunshine sprung from wild seed,blown along the road by wild wind.A wild wind plant that,when it blooms by chance with the hedge of our gardens ,we call a flower ,and when it blooms outside we call a weed but,flower or weed whose scent and colour are always, wild".Love could never come to full fruition till it was destroyed. These quotes are given in different literary works of John Galsworthy. They reveal different sides of the society. They were important for his period, and are valuable nowadays.
Literary activity apart from “ The Forsyte Saga” The author began his career with a mood of self-criticism and even self-condemnation. His first four books were published at his own expense under the pseudonym of John Sinjohn . The first book to appear under his own name was “The Island of Pharisees” (1904). Central line of Galsworthy‟s literary activity is the theme of Forsytes‟ property. Galsworthy devoted all his creative life for the description of the Forsytes‟ world, disclosure of the psychology of the man- Forsyte- whose viewpoint is restricted by the framework of his (her) class, behaviours in their circle. His first appearance in literature was very modest, and showed his anxiety. In 1897, he published his first collection of short stories “From the Four Winds” under the pseudonym John Sinjohn. As he said, this collection brought disgrace on him, and even he asked the publisher to burn the copies left. Stories of this collection nearly were unreadable, even it was difficult to charge about the future of the author. Galsworthy himself mentioned that these stories were written under the influence of R.Kypling and Bret Hurt and those were related to the journeys taken by him several years before. The only story of the collection which lay on a real life was the last story of the collection “The Demigods”.
Before the publication of “From the Four Winds” Galsworthy was working on the novel “Jocelyn”, and in 1898, the novel was published. This novel considerably differed from the first book, and even some pages of it can be thought the best pages of the authors prose. In the whole, the book was hopeful and was read with great interest. It was also devoted to the desperate love between John and Ada, when the situation was still unbearable and painful. This book reminds a romantic direction. But nearby with autobiographical purposes, the novel has an artistic value being thankful to a character – Mrs. Travis, who is a prototype of Ada’s mother. Mrs. Travis – having been Jocelyn’s aunt and a companion in tours, was nearly the only comic character of J. Galsworthy. The sharpness and exactness of Galsworthy‟s observations, “worshiping for property”, which is continued in the Forsytes emerge first time in this novel. The desire of hiding his own name and using pseudonym John Sinjohn is explained with autobiographical background of the novel, because here the author gives the real description of his life with Ada. So, he could not directly show his name. Like Ada, Jocelyn hated monotonous grey sky over England. She had an enthusiasm to the Sun, to that shores, where eyes could admire bright colours, where life burns with all its power. Ada was the initiator of the travels made by J.Galsworthy. “Jocelyn” is interesting, because here we observe the troublesome of the author, but in the following books he transmits from objective troubles to subjective ones. Unlike “Jocelyn” “The Island of Pharisees” cannot express the author‟s own tortures; it only describes problems and troubles of others. After a short period, the author wrote two novels and also another book of short stories called “A Man of Devon”. In 1898, when his first novel - Jocelyn appeared, he left law in order to continue writing. “The Island of Pharisees” (1904), “The Man of Property” (1906), which became the first novel in “The Forsyte Saga”, extended his audience and increased his reputation. As his popularity grew, Galsworthy published other novels of the Forsyte. At first, “The Forsyte Saga” consisted of “The Man of Property” (1906), “In Chancery” (1920) and “To Let” (1921), and two interludes between novels – “Indian Summer of a Forsyte” (1918) and “Awakening” (1920). “The Country House” (1907), “Fraternity” (1909), “The Patrician” (1911) and “The Dark Flower” (1913) are not novels in the sequence, but they are related to it in time and place. After the World War I, the author created less successful group of novels about the Forsyte clan. “The White Monkey” (1924), “The Silver Spoon” (1926) and “Swan Song” (1928), which are published in 1929 under the title of “A Modern Comedy”, and two interludes included to this trilogy “A Silent Wooing” and “Passers By”. In 1931, Galsworthy was followed by the immense success of the Forsyte cycle with a further collection of stories, “On Forsyte Chance”. When we explore the literary activity of John Galsworthy, we can see a more vivid and important trace left in the field of the English novel. He tried to show the society wholly, and demonstrate problems generally and individually. 15 Even in the novels “The Island of Pharisees-1904, “The Country House”-1907, “The Fraternity”- 1909, “Patrician”-1911, “The Freelands”-1915 were put the problems like inequality and conflicts between classes.
Expression of “The Island of Pharisees” became denominative to define England, more exactly its ruling classes. Another novel - “The Dark Flower”-1913 is devoted to the analysis of the sudden and powerful feeling-love. Here, emerges a deep psychology of the writer, his mastership of disclosure of slender and difficult troubles of a person. So, the way to “The Forsyte Saga”- creation of a grandiose epopee was such. For two years, in 1931-33, Galsworthy wrote the third trilogy devoted to the Cheryl family, and here include “Maid in Waiting” (1931), “Flowering Wilderness” (1932), “One More River” 4 (1933). –This trilogy was called “End of the Chapter”, and was published posthumouslyAlthough the readers know him for his novels, he was also a skillful dramatist. His plays were also sharply social, but in a traditional realistic manner, without inclination to paradox and eccentricity. “The Silver Box” (1906), “Strife” (1909) and “Justice” (1911) are realistic plays. In the “Silver Box” there is a legal theme, and it tries to depict a bitter contrast of the law’s treatment of the rich and the poor. “Strife” is a study of industrial relations; Justice is a portrait of a prison life in realistic tones. The play was against of keeping prisons in solitary cells. Its impact was so much effective that, the minister of Internal Affairs Winston Churchill soon after began the reform of prisons. Galsworthy‟s short fiction had nearly the same influence similar to his novels, criticizing upper-middle class of the Victorian society. Though he also was born in a well to do family, the author displayed a liberal viewpoint, and opposed to the rigid doctrines of morality and religion. He has several short stories which are more remarkable and striking such as “A Man of Devon” and “The Apple Tree”; in both of which the events take place in the Devonshire countryside. They are dealt with a social justice, poverty and an old age, as well as love, beauty and nature. It is also interesting that, these stories are passionate tales of Romans. The author convinced himself that, justice was dependent to the individual and on faith in humanity. In “The Apple Tree”, the story which began in “A Man of Devon” was continued. This short story, “The Apple Tree”, was called “the most symbolic and poetic tale of J.Galsworthy” by Sanford Sternlicht.
_____________________
3 J.Galsworthy‟s first novels
4 Originally the English edition was called Over the River