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JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY , THE POET AS FLYING ISLANDS OF THE NIGHT HOME

JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY
THE POET AS FLYING ISLANDS OF THE NIGHT
by Thomas Earl Quitman Williams with primary illustrations by Katherine Kuonen and the great assistance of Robert Tinsley with Riley artifacts, Copyright, 1997, Thomas Earl Williams

Part 1

JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY:

THE POET AS
"THE FLYING ISLANDS OF THE NIGHT"

An artist's 1913 conception of "Flying Islands of the Night" based upon the James Whitcomb Riley poem/play, "The Flying Islands of the Night"  in which Riley gave the world his life story cryptically and fantastically. It is perhaps the strangest and yet most compelling poetic autobiography in the history of literature.Drawing by Franklin Booth (American, New York, 1874-1948)..

Riley at 28 conceived of himself as islands of estrangement-each a personality and fragmented "self' playing a role in the despair of his "night" - as if in a theater of the mind -.and poetically set these "selves" loose to fly on the stage of his soul in a mock play to seek a strategy for the remainder of his lonely life. Never in literature has such a unique and perhaps odd autobiography been written and the poem forms the basis of the biography of this poetic genius. Even more strangely, what came of his strategy was a poetry bearing the heart and themes of humility and sympathy for others with Riley as the principal poet of America following the volatile period after the American Civil War.

2 • THE POET AS FLYING ISLANDS OF THE NIGHT

JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY:
THE POET AS FLYING ISLANDS OF THE NIGHT

A WAYWARD SONG

     Before delving further into the life of James Whitcomb Riley, let us look briefly at the America of the west following the American Civil War. We will discover a land being tamed from wilderness by peoples from many cultures and native lands. Lives are hard and comforts are scarce.
     The glue that holds the west together is the hope of a better future. From whence does this hope come?  How strange! How very, very strange that the message derives from a song of the very earliest Christians. The song we speak of is often called "The Christ Hymn."¹ It was a song of a very early Christian folk huddled together in persecution because they worshipped a crucified God and found courage living humbly. They sang the "Christ Hymn" to keep up their courage. Paul recorded a version of the song in his Letter to the Philippians. "Let this mind be in you,.."'
     It was left to a Hoosier poet, James Whitcomb Riley, to express the themes of this hope most fully in America. His voice sang the message in poems about Nineteenth Century American farm families, Hoosier cricks and corn shocks...and children.
How strange that such poetry could emerge as an answer to despair in the life of an estranged young man on what was then the American frontier.

The song that this new poet began singing was actually from an imported theology into America following the American Civil War. The renewed message of the hope from the "Christ Hymn" began being heard again as a "rallying cry" from an obscure German creed called Incarnation Theology² in Germany that spread into America's heartland.' It was a new response of the Nineteenth Century to meet the challenge of life in its time. Its point was that God appeared as a humble person to live on earth and experienced that lot and thus we could expect God to fully appreciate our lives and redeem them as well. Soon its humble message spilled over the Atlantic and into the American heartland where it was popularized in the tuneless songs of a kenotic³ frontier American poet born in a log cabin in Greenfield, Indiana.

I introduce the singer of western hope, James Whitcomb Riley.

This view of Riley is only one of many.

Many people connect James Whitcomb Riley only with the lighthearted and happy poetry of the later years of his life. James Whitcomb Riley really was a much beloved person and his poetry was heartening. He came to be known as the "Children's Poet." His humanism, caring and depiction of children captured the Nineteenth Century America with such poems as "Little Orphant Annie."

Riley around age 20.

Footnotes:

I. The whole "Christ Hymn" is as follows:

"Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and give him a name which is above every name: That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow...-

2.The first Incarnation theologians of the Nineteenth Century were the Germans: Thomasius, its founder, Neander, Dorner, Van Oosterzee, Pressense, Schneckenburger, Liddon, Uhihorn, Edersheim, soon joined by such as J.P. Lange, and C.A. Ross. A primary text of the German inception is found in the Nineteenth Century lectures of Alexander Bruce, D.D, in THE HUMILIATION OF CHRIST and R.J. Cooke's THE INCARNATION AND RECENT CRITICISM. A more recent work (1965) is Claude Welch. GOD AND INCARNATION IN MID-NINETEENTH CENTURY GERMAN THOUGHT. An easy-to-read introduction to the subject is found in the OXFORD DICTIONARY OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH, ed. by F.L. Cross under "Kenotic theories." Interesting variations of Incarnation Theology appeared concurrently in Germany such as Hegel's conception that the Incarnation was man­ifest in the human race in general and not in individuals. Even at the theological level. Incarnation Theology engaged the age's social Darwinism. SEE: Herbert Spencer's SYN­THETIC PHILOSOPHY, "First Principles," part 1, in which God is seen as an unknown and unknowable substratum of all phenomena rather than one known through human appearance. These should get started someone interested in Nineteenth Century theology such as became expressed popularly by James Whitcomb Riley's poetry. None of course explains the phe­nomenon of the Incarnation because, as theologian Edward Towne says, "What is a mystery if it can be dissolved away in an explanation?"
3.  Riley is known tosome academics studying Nineteenth Century American literature as the chief kenotic American. .poet" Kenoticism" is a more technical name for Incarnation Theology of the Nineteenth Century. It is an idea of "emptying out oneself" and in literature describes poetry of humble theme and dialecti The genre derives from the Greek adjective "kenos" - the adjective used in the Philippian's "Christ Hymn" to describe Jesus's act of casting off pride, advantage and power to find satisfaction as well as redemption in a humble life style.

THE FLYING ISLANDS OF THE NIGHT • 3

LITTLE ORPHANT ANNIE (1885)

Little Orphant Annie's come to our house to stay,

An' wash the cups an' saucers up, an' brush the crumbs away, An' shoo the chickens off the porch, an' dust the hearth, an' sweep,

An' make the fire, an' bake the bread, an' earn her board-an­keep;

An' all us other childern, when the supper-things is done, We set around the kitchen fire an' has the mostest

A-listenin' to the witch-tales 'at Annie tells about,

An' the Gobble-uns 'at gits you

Little Orphant Annie from a sketch by Will Vawter. Riley's favorite illustrator. Little Orphant Annie became an American national figure whose name was known by virtually every American schoolchild.

Ef you

Don't

Watch

Out!...

There is no error to think of James Whitcomb Riley this way. He was America's poet for the children of his time as his friend Rudyard Kipling was the poet for the children of the British Empire.

But Riley was so much more complicated than that. He was an enigmatic creative genius. It is almost impossible to learn about him or explain his life because he so completely related to his age that he can hardly be separated from it. We do know that Riley's life was not all joyous. He also felt deeply wrenching despair.

Nevertheless, as he suffered from personal devils, he also released poetry that created a new American mythology of goblins, wunks and pixies and American character types such as the "Hired Man" and the "Orphan girl"  with children's poetry such as "Little Orphant Annie."

     The poetry has resulted in an enduring legacy. As the Twentieth Century progressed. "Little Orphant Annie" re-appeared as a Harold Gray comic strip character which evolved into a popular Broadway play whose as shown and in many other reincarnations to include the recent motion picture from a popular Broadway show entitled   MIKE NICHOLS

A New Broadway Musical

4 • THE POET AS FLYING ISLANDS OF THE NIGHT

   The Riley heritage is particularly notable since it was the work of a homeless young man in his twenties.

Riley did not arise to his most popular acclaim until after his depression was brought under control-although never fully conquered. Around Riley's thirtieth birthday, he started building on the faith that helped him survive. He began singing American versions of the "Christ Hymn" in poetry. These were songs of hope and courage for living humbly.

The great poetry of James Whitcomb Riley, and those poems, particularly his early "Benjamin Johnson of Boone" poems, which made Riley the most famous poet of his time, are now considered American masterpieces.

Much of Riley's early poetry was written under the pseudonym "Benjamin Johnson of Boone^- This character was visualized by artist Will Vawter in 1905. Vawter became one of the most noted of many illustrators of Riley poetry. Although Vawter was born in Virginia on April 13. 1871. Vawter moved to Greenfield. Indiana, Riley's hometown, with his parents around 1880. Vawter grew up in a "permissive" home and was encouraged to paint. As a child he was known to wipe his brushes on window curtains and paint over the home's wallpaper whenever he wanted.

TO MY OLD FRIEND,WILLIAM  LEACHMAN (1882)

Fer_. forty year and better you have been a friend to me,
Through days of sore afflictions and dire adversity,
You allus had a kind word of counsul to impart,
Which was like a healin"intment to the sorrow of my hart.

When I buried my first womern, William Leachman, it was you
Had the only consolation that I could listen to
- Fer I knowed you had gone through it and had rallied from the blow

And when you said I'd do the same, I knowed you'd or! to know.

But that time I'll long remember; how I wundered here and thare­
Through the settin'-room and kitchen, and out in the open air-
And the snowflakes whirlin', whirlin', and the fields a frozen glare,
And the neghbors' sleds and wagons congergatin ev'rywhare.

THE FLYING ISLANDS OF THE NIGHT • 5

I turned my eyes to'rds heaven, but the sun was hid away;

I turned my eyes to'rds earth again, but all was cold and gray;
And the clock, like ice a-crackin', clikt the icy hours in two
 -And my eyes'd never thawed out

of it hadn't been fer you!

We set thare by the smoke-house -me and you out thare alone‑

Me a-thinkin' - you a-talkin' in a soothin' undertone ‑

You a-talkin' - me a-thinkin' of the summers long ago,

And a-writin' "Marthy - Marthy" with my finger in the snow!

William Leachman, I can see you
jest as plane as I could then; And

your hand is on my shoulder, and

­you rouse me up again; And I see

the tears a-drippin' from your

own eyes, as you say:

"Be rickonciled and bear it - we but linger_.fer a day!"

At the last Old Settlers' Meetin' we went j'intly, you and me -

Your bosses and my wagon, as you wanted it to be;

And sence I can remember, from the time we've neghbored here,
In all sich friendly actions you have double-done your sheer.

It was better than the meetin', too, that nine-mile talk we had
Of the times when we first settled here and travel was so bad;

When we had to go on hoss-back, and sometimes on "Shank's mare,"
And "blaze" a road fer them behind that had to travel thare.

And now we was a-trottin"long a level gravel pike

In a big two-hoss road-wagon, jest as easy as you like
 -Two of us on the front seat, and our wimmern-folks behind,

A log home in Hancock County, Indiana similar in construc‑

tion to the Riley birth-home in Greenfield, Indiana standing at
the end of the Nineteenth Century. John A. Howland photographer

6 • THE POET AS FLYING ISLANDS OF THE NIGHT

A-settin' in theyr Winsor-cheers in perfect peace of mind!

And we pinted out old landmarks, nearly faded out of sight: ‑

Thare they ust to rob the stage-coach;
thare Gash Morgan had the fight
With the old stag-deer that pronged him - how he battled _,fer his life,
And lived to prove the story by the handle of his knife.

Thare the first griss-mill was put up in the Settlement, and we

Had tuck our grindin' to it in the Fall of Forty-three ‑

When we tuck our rifles with us, techin' elbows all the way,

And a-stickin' right together ev'ry minute, night and day.

Thare ust to stand the tavern that they called the "Travelers' Rest,"
And thare, beyent the covered bridge, "The Counterfitters' Nest" -

Whare they claimed the house was ha'nted - that a man was murdered thare,
And burried underneath the floor, er 'round the place somewhare.

And the old Plank-road they laid along in Fifty-one er two ‑

You know we talked about the times when the old road was new:
How "Uncle Sam" put down that road and never taxed the State
Was a problem, don't you rickollect, we couldn't dimonstrate?

Ways was devius, William Leachman, that me and you has past;

But as '_,found you true at _,first, I _,find you true at last;

And, now the time's a-comin' mighty nigh our jurney's end,

I want to throw wide open all my soul to you, my friend.

With the stren'th of all my bein', and the heat of hart and brane,

And ev'ry livin' drop of blood in artery and vane,

I love you and respect you, and I vener­ate your name,

Fer the name of William Leachman and True Manhood's jest the same!

The statue of James Whitcomb Riley in front of the Hancock County Courthouse. Greenfield, Indiana paid for by contributions of pennies from America's school children. The bronze life-size statue sculpted by Myra Richards was unveiled Nov. 26. 1918. Unfortunately for the sculptress, Riley died before the statue was completed. She solved the problem by hiring the actor John Drew to pose as Riley. Technically, the statue is Riley from waist up and John Drew from the waist down. (From the Barton Rees Pogue glass positive collection.)

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