An Homage to Jaime de Angulo: A North American Ovid (original) (raw)

Purpose of the Study: Linguist, story-teller, poet, novelist, illustrator, scholar, homesteader, vaquero, wild-man, sorcerer's apprentice, Jaime de Angulo was a legendary figure in his own time. The scholars and artists he associated with and influenced, such as Carl Jung, Franz Boas, Carl Sauer, Bronislaw Malinowski, Robinson Jeffers and Ezra Pound, make up a veritable "Who's Who" of the first half of this century. But, because of his fame as a linguist rather than an author and poet, his eccentricities, and a self-imposed public silence between 1936 and 1949, his literary achievements remain relatively unknown. The purpose of this study is to collate the various and disparate biographical material written about de Angulo, separating fact from legend where it's possible, presenting the reader with an accurate chronology, and to present the first major book-length critical examination of de Angulo's literary wriiting. Procedure: To present a biography of Jaime de Angulo, as well as a serious critical examination of his literary work, all available biographical material concerning de Angulo, along with pertinent anthropological, historical and critical materials relevant to the many contexts from which de Angulo's work derived, was researched. Findings: Jaime de Angulo was one of a kind. He was a brilliant scholar and extraordinary writer who lived the most colorful of lives. His work, study and life with American Indian societies, especially those of northern California. led to a unique contribution to North American letters. His novel. The Lariat. has been compared with The Scarlet Letter. and justly so. And the quality of his entire oeuvre is comparable with the most notable writings from the twentieth century Big Sur-Carmel milieu, literature of the North American West. and the internationalist Modernist movement of his era. Conclusions: A close examination of de Angulo's life and literary work leaves an even stronger impression of extraordinary quality than a first glance, even at the remarkable cast of characters, European, European-American, an American Indian, associated with him. His virtuosity and passion as a writer simply cannot be overemphasized.