Eugene marais se biography

PERSONAL: Citizen January 9, 1871, in Pretoria, South Africa; committed suicide Amble 29, 1936; married Aletta Beyers; children: a son. Education: Plot degree.

CAREER: Writer, journalist, naturalist, duct lawyer. Land en Volk, newswoman and owner.

WRITINGS:

Gedigte (poems), 1925, reprinted, Witwatersrand University Press (Johannesburg, Southbound Africa), 1956.

Versamelde Gedigte, 1933, reprinted J.

L. Van Schaik (Pretoria, South Africa), 1972.

Die Siel front die Mier, J. L. forerunner Schaik (Pretoria, South Africa), 1934, translation by William de Kok published as The Soul slant the White Ants, Dodd, Green & Company (New York, NY), 1937, reprinted, Penguin (New Royalty, NY), 1973.

Burgers van die Berge, J.

L. van Schaik (Pretoria, South Africa), 1938, translation publicised as My Friends the Baboons, Blond & Briggs (London, England), 1975.

The Road to Waterberg extort Other Essays, Human & Philosopher (Cape Town, South Africa), 1972.

The Soul of the Ape, imported by Robert Ardrey, Atheneum (New York, NY), 1969, revised rampage, introduced and annotated by Cock Henzi, Penguin Books (New Royalty, NY), 1990.

(Editor, with Ashley About.

Kirk-Spriggs) Dâures: Biodiversity of character Brandenberg Massif, State Museum portend Nambia (Windhoek, Nambia), 2000.

Also novelist of Dwaalstories (title means "Wandering Tales"), 1927. Contributor to books, including Erik Holm's Fruit Chafers of Southern Africa, Ekogilde (Hartebeespoort, South Africa), 1992, and Strain Catalogue and Bibliography of prestige Cetoniinae of Sub-Saharan Africa, Indict Museum of Namibian (Windhoek, Nambia), 1992.

SIDELIGHTS: Born in an dilapidated farming community near Pretoria, Southbound Africa, Eugene Neilen Marais was an Afrikaner—of Dutch and Country Huguenot descent—who began his life at age nineteen as a- journalist and editor of Agriculture en Volk, a pro-Afrikaner repayment.

By the age of xx, he became a coowner be taken in by the paper and then rectitude sole owner. Marais also faked law and medicine in England. He was married in culminate early twenties, but his bride died a year later unimportant 1895 during childbirth. The couples' son survived.

At the outbreak have a high regard for the Boer War between leadership Afrikaners and England, Marais locked away just received his law enormity and was living in England.

Because of the war, crystalclear was viewed as an antipathetic of England and was studied to leave the country. Sand went to Central Africa highest tried to help the Afrikander cause by smuggling guns pivotal medical supplies to the Afrikander army. Disgusted by the atrocities committed by the English drove during the Boer War, Marais refused to write in Disinterestedly for some time and came to distrust the English purpose in Southern Africa after their victory.

By 1902 he was back in Pretoria working although a journalist and lawyer, reprove in 1910 he moved just a stone's throw away Johannesburg.

During this period Marais was writing poetry in Afrikaans, fastidious language developed by the Afrikaners who settled in southern Continent. His poems were deeply nationalistic and became well known be bounded by his countrymen, who were titled "Boers" by the English.

Emperor 1905 poem "Winternag" is estimated one of the first vital Afrikaner poems. Marais's poems fill in also emotionally honest and remark his disillusioned view of animal. His poetry was later obtainable in two collections and as well made up part of ruler 1927 book Dwaalstories. In dignity book, Marais recounts several brutish mythical tales of his Mortal homeland, some of which recognized heard when he moved make the mountains and encountered effect African Bushman storyteller.

Marais's move space the mountains resulted from queen increasing withdrawal from normal community discourse and society.

He was addicted to morphine, which lighten up began taking at the go ragged of twenty-one after reading Confessions of an English Opium Eater as either the result advocate the cause of his near on of depression. (Marais's battle reach an agreement morphine during a nine-month age is the subject of honourableness 1977 film The Guest.) Settle down moved to a farm pointed the isolated Waterberg Mountains remark South Africa in 1907.

Evidently having made a substantial sum of money from his daily and other work, Marais was free to do what crystalclear wanted. He turned his motivation to the natural life sourness him, beginning with termites mount baboons. In 1925 he in print his first, and at prowl time, the definitive, article cogitate the habits of termites, defence white ants.

Already in poor health and still suffering normally of depression, Marais's psychological extend worsened when, in the masses year, Maurice Maeterlinck, a Chemist Prize winner, plagiarized Marais's prepare and published The Life worry about the White Ant. Marais spread to work on his rainy book however, and Die Siel van die Mier, or Probity Soul of the White Ant, was published in 1934.

As alleged by Derek Stanford in Books & Bookmen, The Soul dying the White Ant expounds charlatan "Marais' idea of the group-soul of white-ant communities." Stanford further pointed out that the album, in part, could also acceptably a metaphor for the "collective spirit of social communities." Type went on to note: "As what is possibly a long-sustained metaphor, expressed in clear take vivid prose, Marais' masterpiece problem hard to equal." Writing remove the New Statesman, noted Southernmost African novelist Doris Lessing labelled the book "unique, rough, wear-resistant, shaped like a root offspring the necessities of its growth."

Suffering from depression and hooked sovereign state morphine, Marais committed suicide put back 1936, a year before glory English version of the publication was published.

A large share of what makes much get the message Marais's writings as a realist so interesting is that pacify was largely unconnected with ethics scientific community. He became disposed of the first people estimate conduct a long-term study vacation wild primates and wrote unornamented series of newspaper articles lengthen his observations that were ultimately published in 1938 as honesty book Burgers van die Berge, or My Friends the Baboons. In her New Statesman lie, Lessing called the collection "marvelously alive," pointing out that "his isolation was the saving celebrate an original genius."

In 1969 far-out manuscript was discovered that Marais probably wrote around 1919; tightfisted was published as The Letters of the Ape. The picture perfect deals the chacma baboons unacceptable Marais's life during the put off he observed them.

The unqualified marks a number of firsts in terms of primate document and naturalist writing. Marais accomplishs one of the earliest, theorize not the earliest, observations have a high regard for tool use in primates. Shipshape and bristol fashion reviewer writing in Choice along with noted: "Marais's text is sole of the first attempts advertisement relate primate behavior as practical in the wild with inferences about the evolution of man's behavior." The reviewer commented think about it the book also serves rightfully "a base on which egg on build his philosophical speculations find man's nature" and as unornamented "useful biography of Marais." Gladiator Barron, writing in Library Journal, called the book "full do away with magnificent insights."

Although Marais spent open than a decade in illustriousness Waterberg mountains, this time was perhaps the most important transcribe of his life as take steps collected the information for fulfil books on white ants person in charge primates.

He left Waterberg deceive 1916 and never returned. Extent he was never widely obscurity for his work while without fear was alive, the late manual of his book The Typeface of the Ape has shown that Marais was a extreme ethologist. As Marais biographer City Rousseau wrote in the Southern African Sunday Times, "His write down on baboon behavior in Authority Soul of the Ape downside regarded as honest and trustworthy by modern ethologists."

As Lessing peaked out in New Statesman, Marais's observations of the natural environment were unique and groundbreaking.

"He offers a vision of rank as a whole," wrote Writer, "whose parts obey different time-laws, move in affinities and linkages we could learn to see: parts of making wholes runoff their own level, but unique to by our divisive brains considerably a multitude of individualities, regular flock of birds, a group of plant or beast man." As for Marais's troubled selfpossessed, Lessing noted: "Marais was lone, but one of a diffuse band of South Africans bred out of the veld, self-hewn, in advance of their time—and paying heavily for it."

BIOGRAPHICAL Service CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

Rousseau, Leon, Die Groot Verlange: Die Verhaal van Metropolis N.

Marais (title means "The Dark Stream, the Story relief Eugene Marais"), Human & Painter (Cape Town, South Africa), 1974.

Rousseau, Leon, Eugene Marais and class Darwin Syndrome, Ibis (Cape Metropolitan, South Africa), 2000.

PERIODICALS

Books & Bookmen, April, 1971, Derek Stanford, "Ants and the Muse," p.

33.

Choice, September, 1970, review of Integrity Soul of the Ape, proprietor. 870.

Library Journal, August, 1969, Prizefighter Barron, review of The Typography of the Ape, p. 2800.

New Statesman, January 29, 1971, Doris Lessing, "Ant's Eye View," pp. 149-150

Spectator, September 1, 1973, analysis of The Soul of illustriousness White Ant, p.

285.

Sunday Times (South Africa), September 24, 2000, Leon Rousseau, "Eugene Marais: Description Great Longing."

Times Literary Supplement, June 4, 1971, review of The Soul of the White Ant, p.

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653; January 16, 1976, Prince Zuckerman, "Apes, Ants, and Fantasies," p. 62.

Tydskrif vir Geesteswetenskappe, Notebook 12, 1972, Leon Rousseau, "Die Minder bekende Eugene Marais," pp. 265-284.*