Work Text:
Subject: Re: Attribution of "I Will Not Be Your Ganymede"
Date: Tue, 5 Jul 2005 08:26:15 -0400
From: "Juliet Moody"
Reply-To: CHAOS - Captain Hornblower and the Age of Sail
To: CHAOS@CMSA.BERKELEY.EDU
The Canadians were indeed in fine voice that evening, were they not? Although I'm afraid I will never understand the obsession they seem to have with that song.
While of course appreciative of Beddington's fine work in the groundbreaking _Seamen in Love_, I have long been dissatisfied with her original attribution of "Ganymede" and I am pleased to find that Beddington herself has finally admitted the impossibility of her initial attribution. However, I fear she has taken the wrong path in her search for a more feasible theory.
The tone of "Ganymede" is certainly different from other works, but there seems to me to be no real doubt that the style is that of Kennedy. In fact, a comparison of "Ganymede" to one of Kennedy's most notable works, "17", reveals a striking similarity both in style and and in subject matter. The more closely I compare "Ganymede" to Kennedy's work, the more I am convinced that he is indeed the author and Hornblower, once again, the subject.
Information on Kennedy's hidden life in the years immediately following the Kingston affair is, naturally, scarce, but what few references exist agree that contact between Kennedy and Hornblower during this time was difficult and increasingly rare. As Anthea Sharp reminds us, Hornblower handled this separation badly, even going so far as to contract a senseless and ill-fated marriage with his landlady's daughter. "Ganymede" is clearly the product of this difficult period in Hornblower and Kennedy's relationship, the work of a man disillusioned by the changes that have occurred in his 'angel', his 'god-bright soul', when they have been apart.
Is it Hornblower's infidelity that bothered Kennedy, or the cold manner in which he so abused his authority? After all, Kennedy was Hornblower's original 'bright-haired boy' and references in his surviving non-erotic writings suggest that he had reason to be sensitive to such abuses. The third and fourth stanzas seem to suggest that it is this fickleness and disregard for others that concerns Kennedy the most and leads him to ask the lover who once "bade [him] live" to instead rescind his immortality and let him "live --and fade, and die".
The estrangement between Hornblower and Kennedy was of course temporary, but it is nevertheless a significant period in their relationship and the particular focus of much of my own scholarship. Should "Ganymede" be attributed to this time period, it reveals a considerably greater estrangement between the two men then had been heretofore suspected and, when taken into account with the changes in Hornblower's leadership style in the latter years of his command -- which other researchers have linked to coincide with Kennedy's pardon and return to society -- emphasizes the sway Kennedy's opinion held over the great Admiral's actions. Kennedy may describe Hornblower as "my lord, my fickle king of storms", but -- despite claims made elsewhere -- his relationship with Hornblower was far from subservient.
Dr. J. Moody
Northwestern University