Thus was one man's description of what would be created by allowing a woman to receive an actual degree from Oxford! Dorothy Sayers was among the first of these monsters created by higher education.
Because I have neglected her novels in favor of her essays and plays, I imagined Miss Sayers as a spinster and rather serious intellectual powerhouse. The biography I just completed, Dorothy Sayers: Her Life and Soul, reveals that her serious-minded intellect was accompanied, and perhaps even dominated by, a lively, energetic, flirtatious, and comical personality.
Here was a woman who loved to adorn herself in fine and fashionable clothes, largely with a view to attracting male attention.
When her father takes a candidate for ordination as a pupil, she longs to come home and meet him, but not in her school hat, that will never do: "I'm dying to break his celibate heart with a hopeless passion. How lucky I wasn't born beautiful - I should have been an awful flirt."
But obviously, she wasn't all fashion and flirtation! Dorothy's propensity for writing manifested itself early in her life. Even her letters to friends are raucous, thoughtful, intelligent and present fascinating accounts of her inner life. Early studies in Latin contributed to her skillful use of words, while a doting father and the hearty literary education he provided promoted her lively and creative outlook on life.
Even something as minor as magazine commentary about her most famous character, Lord Peter Wimsey, is a delight to read!
Lord Peter's income (the source of which, by the way, I have never investigated)...I deliberately gave him...Afterall, it cost me nothing and at the time it gave me pleasure to spend his fortune for him. When I was dissatisfied with my single unfurnished room, I took a luxurious flat for him in Picadilly. When my cheap rug got a hole in it, I ordered him an Aubusson carpet. When I had no money to pay my bus fare, I presented him with a Daimler double-six upholstered in a style of sober magnificence, and when I felt dull, I let him drive it. I can heartily recommend this inexpensive way of furnishing to all who are discontented with their income. It relieves the mind and does no harm to the body.
This echoes a more serious remark she made to one of her friends:
Writing keeps my mind thoroughly occupied and prevents me from wanting too badly the kind of life I do want and see no chance of getting.
One of the most surprising revelations for me, was that most of Miss Sayers' "Christian" writings came about unintentionally. That is, they were commissioned after her successful (and also commissioned) foray into dramatizing Biblical narrative.
I've got wound up accidentally into this theological business, and I feel more and more ridiculous as it goes rollicking along. I only started by writing a play and trying to make its theology coherent and orthodox, and look what's happened to me!
She recognized, in a way many surrounding her did not, the beauty, intensity, uniqueness and life-altering power of the Gospel. Her familiarity with doctrine, coupled with her lively intellect, and aided by her creative gifts, enabled her to bring Biblical truth alive for many for the first time.
So few parsons are really trained in the use of words...The result is that when the trained writer restates an old dogma in a new form of words, the reader mistakes it for a bright new idea of the writer's own.
It appears that Dorothy was largely uninvolved in The Church as a young adult and only re-established her connection when she began writing on behalf of the church. Although she wrote extensively on Christian dogma, the condition of her heart and faith are difficult to discern through statements that seem contradictory. Though she certainly had an intellectual grasp of Biblical truth, at one point late in her life she says:
I am quite without the thing known as "inner light"...I have never undergone conversion. And she states: Of all the presuppositions of Christianity, the only one I really have and can swear to from personal inward conviction is sin. About that I have no doubt whatever and never have had.
Yet elsewhere she declares: Christianity is as plain and common as bread. The simplest person or the youngest child can be a Christian, by faith and baptism. The faith is faith in a Person; the baptism is baptism into His Body.
Whether she actually assented to the teachings of the Christian faith, or simply admired them and enjoyed amplifying them as an intellectual exercise is not clear from this biography. It seems to leave the issue in question. From her own writings, I have always assumed her faith in Christ.
Miss Sayers was a prolific author who wrote on nearly every conceivable subject and in every conceivable context: marketing and ad campaigns, political satire and commentary (she loved Winston Churchill); treatises on the Christian theory of work and economics; translations of French literature; detective novels; poetry; plays; war propoganda; and her final, favorite, yet unfinished work was a highly-acclaimed translation of Dante.
This fascinating account illuminates the intriguing life of this Oxford-produced scholar, and is well worth reading. Thanks, C.M. for sharing it with me!
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