Growing up as an
athlete in high school and on into college,
it was generally assumed that sports and
academics didn't mix. Athletes were brain
dead jocks who did nothing but beat up geeks
and date rape cheerleaders. Athletes weren't
thought of as creative, articulate,
thoughtful, literate and above all
intelligent.
It has also been my experience that most
members of academia, especially literature
instructors, don't even consider sports
worthy of discussion. In this column I hope
to show how sports have always been a part of
our literary landscape (unfortunately for
many of my international readers, I haven't
been able to find enough material on
literature in other parts of the world, so
this will focus on English literature).
First of all, we have evidence of sports
being used to, say, settle an argument or win
a prize (most commonly a princess in
marriage): The legend of Robin Hood's victory
in that fabled archery contest, or the myths
of King Arthur's jousts, are just two
examples. But even games that seem modern to
us have had a place in writing and literature
for almost 500 years.
In the book Sports and Pastimes in
English Literature edited by L.S. Wood
and H.L. Burrows, the editors give us a piece
by Phillip Stubbes on the
"gentlemanly" game of football, or
soccer as it is known in America. Stubbes
writes in Anatomie of Abuses, "As
concerning football playing I protest unto
you that it may rather be called a friendlie
kind of fyghte than a play or
recreation."
Now, although Stubbes doesn't portray
football as very gentleman-like at all, the
editors point out that Stubbes once wrote
that he "had played and enjoyed many a
game of football himself." In addition,
the editors suggest that Stubbes has
"too intimate a [knowledge] with the
tricks and devices for one not to feel sure
that he had once practiced them."
Most of the sports described in English
literature are not team sports, but rather of
the "man against nature" type;
hunting and fishing in particular. English
poet John Taylor wrote about his deer-hunting
expeditions early in the 1600's, and even
William Shakespeare wrote about equestrian
events. Here is a sample from a poem by
Shakespeare called "The Perfect
Steed:"
"High crest, short ears, straight
legs, and passing strong
Thin mane, thick tail, broad buttock, tender
hide:
Look, what a horse should have he did not
lack,
Save a proud rider upon his back"
(9-12).
The English also wrote about man-vs.-man
sports. For example, English writer and poet
Thomas Lodge wrote about wrestling in his
novel Rosalynde: Euphues' Golden Legacy
in the late 1500's. William Cobbett wrote his
"In Defence of Boxing" in 1805.
Even one of the most famous Romantic poets,
George Gordon, Lord Byron, left his mark on
athletics with "A Swimmers Stroke:"
. . .with a swimmer's stroke
Flinging the billows back from my drench'd
hair
And laughing from my lip the audacious brine
Which kiss'd it like a wine-cup...(4-6).
In American literature, our most famous
sportsman has to be Ernest Hemingway.
Hemingway wrote mainly about sports involving
man against beast , chiefly, hunting and
bullfighting. His description of a young
bullfighter in his novel The Sun Also
Rises borders on the poetic, a rarity for
the no-nonsense prose of the former
journalist. Also, in "The Green Hills of
Africa", we see Hemingway at possibly
his most competetive, clearly jealous of a
less experienced hunter's luck on a hunting
trip in Africa. The same scenario would be
fictionalized in his story "The Short
Happy Life of Francis Macomber."
Next article > Sports In Literature
(Part 2 of 2)
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