Three Dimensional

Several of my recent posts have mentioned Lawrance Thompson, Robert Frost’s biographer. I didn’t know much about him, so I explored his past a bit. Today I thought I’d share three peculiar things I learned.
 
First, in preparing this post, I had a difficult time locating a photograph of Mr. Thompson.  The only one I found was part of his New York Times’ obituary from 1973. 

However, in attempting to find a likeness of the writer, I realized that I’d been misspelling his name.  He’s not  "LawrEnce Thompson.”  He’s “LawrAnce Thompson.”  Alas, even when I ran searches for pics of “Lawrance Thompson,” nothing popped up (aside from the obit). 
 
Now, I suspect I’m not the only person who ever mistyped Thompson’s moniker, and it made me think of other notables and nabobs who have names which are often miswritten.
 
Who was the playwright and composer who brought us “The Music Man”?  It wasn’t Meredith Wilson.  Nope – it was Meredith Willson (with two Ls).
 
Who painted desert-inspired landscapes and provocative close-ups of flowers?  It wasn’t Georgia O’Keefe.  Nope – it was Georgia O’Keeffe (with two Fs).
 
Who sang “The Way We Were”?  Yes – Barbra Streisand – and not Barbara!  LOL. 

Are there other public figures you know of whose names -- first or last -- are always botched?

Second, Thompson began three‐volume biography of Frost, the second volume of which, “Robert Frost: The Years of Triumph, 1915–1938,” won the 1971 Pulitzer Prize in biography. The origin of the project dated back to 1939 when Thompson became the poet's “confidant, traveling companion and interpreter,” with the understanding that the biography he was gathering material for would not be published during Frost's lifetime. However, Thompson died in 1973 while writing the final installment, Robert Frost: The Later Years, 1938-1963, and that volume was posthumously completed by Thompson's assistant R.H. Winnick in 1976.

[Can I pause here for a moment and ask, did any of you wince a bit -- like I did -- with that description of Thompsons as Frost's "confidant, traveling companion and interpreter"?]

Take a gander at this statement (also found in the obituary) from a Times’ review of the second volume of the trilogy by Thomas Lask:
 
“It may be an exaggeration to say that a reading of this second volume of Robert Frost's biography will permanently chill your enthusiasm for the poet's work, but it is not that much of an exaggeration. The mind and character of the poet revealed here are so unattractive, nay repellent, that long before the end the reader will wonder whether Mr. Thompson realizes what he is doing.”

I then found this in a Wikipedia article about the scholar:
 
“Allegedly, Thompson grew to dislike Frost so much that he had difficulty completing the biography.”
 
Hmm.  I know some of Frost’s poetry, but little about his life – and temperament.  Looks like I have some sleuthing to do!  Sounds like -- as Sheriff Buford T. Justice might say -- Frost was a sumbitch.  LOL. 

Third, I came across this info at the start of the Wikipedia article: 

“Lawrance Roger Thompson (3 April 1906 — 15 April 1973) was an American academic at Princeton University from the 1930s to 1970s. Apart from World War II, Thompson primarily taught English from 1939 to 1968 before teaching Belles-lettres from 1968 until his 1973 retirement.”
 
Belles-lettres?  I’m familiar with the “bel canto” style of opera, but what the halibut is “belles-lettres”? 
 
I ran a search, and this popped up:  “Les « belles-lettres » désignent des œuvres littéraires appréciées pour leurs qualités esthétiques et artistiques plutôt que pour leur utilité pratique ou leur contenu informatif. Historiquement, ce terme englobe la poésie, le théâtre et les essais, et est parfois associé aux humanités, mettant l'accent sur le style, le raffinement et la forme.”
 
Oops!  No parley the vous of Fran-say – so that wasn’t helpful at all!
 
​Back to  Wikipedia:  “It is a label for literary works that do not fall into the major categories such as fiction, poetry, or drama.”  Ooookay. 

In the very next paragraph there’s this: “Literally, belles-lettres is a French phrase meaning 'beautiful' or 'fine' writing. In this sense, therefore, it includes all literary works—especially fiction, poetry, drama, or essays—valued for their aesthetic qualities and originality of style and tone.”   Ooookay.

There's also this:   “The phrase is sometimes used pejoratively for writing that focuses on the aesthetic qualities of language rather than its practical application.”  Ooookay. 
 
I ran a search on examples of belles-lettres to see if that might help, and this popped up:

Hmm…that name toward the bottom, “Andrew Lang.”  Why does that name sound so familiar?
 
Ohhh…yes!  He reviewed Dickinson’s early works in the late 1890s and called her “a minstrel who subdues grammar to rhyme, and puts even grammar before sense.”  Among other insults, he said her poems “are conspicuously in the worst possible words, and the thought, as far as any thought can be detected, is usually either commonplace or absurd.”
 
All of my past posts which discuss Lang are HERE (with the most recent at the top). 

By the way, a single volume set of Thompson's books on Frost are available at Archive-dot-org.  You have to register, but I believe it's free, and then you can "borrow" the book.