Background:
Boston's Back Bay. In 1898. A large Georgian house at the corner of Arlington. A world remote from my own. Yet such a world provided a dramatic entry point for this somewhat eccentric rhetor: Harry Crosby. Born under the influence of Gemini, Castor and Pollux, known to the Egyptians as a pair of goats, known to the Arabs as peacocks.
His destiny was held hostage by the ambitions and judgments of his parents. They were unwilling to parole him from his genetic prison. When he broke out the carnage was awesome.

The overwhelming fact is the influence of the First World War on Harry's imagination: mutilation, vermin, cowardice, relentlessness, insanity, hysteria and cruelty played in the theatre of his imagination from the time of Verdun till the end of his life, and all of it prompted by the war. Of Verdun: "Death's hand is written over it all." (Wolff, page 59) Harry was learning to cherish the extreme situation. So ought we all.

Resolution:
The art of rhetoric is often thought to be one of verbal expression. Doing things with words. In Crosby's case, rhetoric moved into the realm of action and events. His suicide was less a suicide than a theatrical performance informed by all the canons of rhetoric: it was inventive, it made a place for itself in the memory of our nation, it delivered for the nation. "Poet found dead in apartment with Boston girl!" The word had become flesh.

The Performance:

Artists regard themselves, especially in this era, as exiles. Subversion and rebellion are the first principles of invention. Invention seeks to replace what has been given with another something apprehended as ideal by its inventor, and very often only by its inventor. Generally artists happily accept their alien status. [There is no better formulation of the Romanitc myth than that expression.] Harry resolved to make of his life, and its high style, an ornate decoration. [Even those who are completely ignorant of rhetoric are found by it.] What is useful here--and only for us, obviously not for 'artists' generally is the possibility of rescuing invention from the Romantic myth. Invention is stronger than any historical movement.

Comments:
Crosby had a deep appreciation of art that came a little late. It was his ambition to translate his life as predestined to be a Boston banker into an artistic genius. Crosby is himself the laboratory of ambition. In his heart he lived a dangerous metaphor: Art as Magic. The magician is a god. Gods are not limited as we humans are.
Death was his master because it shows the way 'out' of the human condition. Only those who avoid death can live a human life; for what that might or might not be worth. Harry loved death. He was death's rhetor: Death's Rhetor. High marks for attention to detail and organization. High marks for his concern for style and presentation. High marks for carrying the Romantic fever pitch to an unbearable intensity. Lower marks, yet still high, for carrying out program that transcended expression to reach the level of action. Low marks for psychological instability caused by a barbaric world war. Lower marks for failing to shed the Romantic skin.
Overall grade: B+

Conclusion: Harry was a man forced by circumstances to adapt, to wear a mask/s. He needed to wear many masks in his lifetime. But--rejecting the Romantic cult of authenticity--we can say that the masks are more interesting, the enactments more affirming, than any account of the real person. Life's a show. Please take your front row seats. The performance has already begun. Please be quiet so we can absorb it all.

MGGreer