Sunday, August 8, 2010

"The Spirits of Sherlock Holmes"

Every three years the Sherlock Holmes Collections at the University of Minnesota Libraries and The Norwegian Explorers of Minneapolis/St. Paul sponsor a weekend conference at the University's Andersen Library, this year dubbed "The Spirits of Sherlock Holmes." As the last day dawns, the entire weekend has been a delight, with Friday afternoon an especially good day for BSI history. Ray Betzner ("The Agony Column," BSI) opened the weekend's program with "221B": A Study in Starrett, a superb examination of Vincent Starrett's famous sonnet of 1942 -- its origins, significance as a wartime expression of the abiding nature of Sherlock Holmes, and emergence as a lasting anthem for the Baker Street Irregulars. And Baker Street Journal editor Steven Rothman ("The Valley of Fear," BSI) presented a splendid illustrated account of the BSI's first journal of record in Stranded on the Shelves: A Leaf Through the Saturday Review. Yesterday the audience was subjected to a debate between me and Dr. Richard Sveum ("Dr. Hill Barton," BSI) of The Norwegian Explorers on the irrelevance of Ronald Knox and his "Studies in the Literature of Sherlock Holmes" paper of 1911 -- he defending the faith that Knox is the fountainhead of Holmesian scholarship and movement, I re-examining this dogma in terms of the curious incident of the dog in the night-time: the near complete absence of any attention given to Msgr. Knox and his paper in the early scholarship and stirrings of the men and women who suddenly plunged into Holmesian studies in the early 1930s and then founded both the BSI and England's first Sherlock Holmes Society in 1934. The final word on this subject has not been spoken yet!

8 comments:

  1. Although Mr Lellenberg was quite convincing, the debate came to a draw in most minds. Dr. Sevum is a stubborn man to sway. We all learned much about our Sherlockian forbearers. Thanks to both gentlemen who brought us this great historical debate!

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  2. How fascinating that two people can hear the same debate and come to different conclusions.
    I'd say JLL won that one. He's perfectly right; the Irregulars were not founding a sodality on the work of Knox. How many papers have you ever seen, btw, my dear Hawkins, that follow the style of Knox?

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  3. I regret that I was unable to be in Minneapolis and hear the learned disputation. However, I have always agreed with the Lellenberg hypothesis. Not only is SE Dahlinger correct that no other papers follow the style of Knox(thank goodness), but one even more important issue must be considered. I read the Knox paper years ago, as a young Sherlockian. I have had no need to reread it and I have never referred to it in any article I have written or paper delivered. I seldom see mention of any of Knox's conclusions in other articles. Smith, Morley, and Starrett are constantly quoted and influence us to this day. Knox is a novelty. I am sure the erudite Dr. Sveum put up a game fight, but the weight of history is with Mr. Lellenberg.

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  4. Is it a joke ? Just take a look at Knox in the Index of "Profile by Gaslight" edited by Edgar W. Smith - http://www.schoolandholmes.com/sherlockiana.html
    If there were no Knox's essay, there will be no Sir Roberts's Watsonischechronologie-problem, maybe not the same "Watson was a woman" or Antony Boucher piece about the no-return from Reichenbach. Even Christopher Morley when creating Jane Nightwork was on Knox's trails and his imaginary commentators of the Canon. Knoxius is surely not the founder of the BSI but he is still the founder of a certain type of discourse on Watson's Writings - erudite, systematic, humorous. Just playing The Game, having fun.

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  5. I think this would be a sign mainly of the Knox myth beginning to take hold, Anonymous. If there had been indices in the earlier milestones of Holmesian scholarship when it was gathering force, and leading to the founding of the Baker Street Irregulars and England's first Sherlock Holmes Society -- Blakeney, Bell, Starrett, Davis, and Morley's own writings at the time -- you would have found very few entries for Knox (and none of them saluting him as the founder of the scholarship). Robers did emphasize the importance of Watsonischechronologie-problem in his 1929 refutation of Knox's paper, after it had been included in Knox's book Essays in Satire the year before, but it was not Knox who first tackled it, in 1911, it was Frank Sidgwick in 1902 in The Cambridge Review when The Hound of the Baskervilles was appearing serially. Sidgwick undetook chronological analysis first, to date the events in HOUN and then on earlier stories in the Canon to show that Dr. Watson should have been home with his wife Mary at the time, not living in Baker Street with no sign of the former Miss Morstan. As you say, erudite, systematic, humorous; playing The Game, having fun, and nearly a decade before Knox. I presume young Ronald saw it: his brother Alfred Dilwyn was at Cambridge at the time, and a follower of The Cambridge Review, according to Penelope Fitzgerald, biographer of all four Holmes-devoted Knox brothers.

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  6. I enjoyed the good-natured debate very much. I also loved the closing comment made by the conference co-chair Gary Thaden. Quoting Hubert Humphrey, he stated "I have friends on this side, and friends on this side. I stand with my friends." My apologies to both Gary and the late Mr. Humphrey if I misquoted either.

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  8. Grant you I'm five years late to the party and you'll almost surely never see this, but, SED, I love you - sooo it'll be fun to some day dedicate to you a paper in the style of Knox, arguing that Holmes was an atheist. *Grin* (And to Steven Doyle, since the religious evangelism in his Dummies book instigated the idea originally). Then hopefully you'll hit the ball right back ;-) I'll argue in the spirit and approximate style of Knox (more like the basic approach than the style, because there's no need to pastiche) but while using the cutting edge critical methods of one of the world's leading New Testament scholars (and the only engaging one), Prof. Bart T. Ehrman, UNC Chapel Hill, who is himself an atheist. That paper's only a twinkle in my eye right now, but the research and outline have been mostly done for quite some time. It's just been lounging on my computer. I have a long list of projects to get back to, but if I were ever properly incentivized, I could probably reshuffle my priorities ;) Really, there are at least a few hardcore geeks out there, carrying the torch. Biblical criticism is fascinatingly intricate but still great fun once you've been introduced. Sidgewick's "chronological analysis" is piddling child's play in comparison.

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