Charles Montagu Doughty was an English poet, writer, explorer, adventurer and traveller.
Background
Charles Montagu Doughty was born on August 19, 1843 at Theberton, Suffolk, England, the son of the Reverend Charles Montagu Doughty and Frederica Doughty. Doughty grew up under the care of his uncle, F. G. Doughty, as both of his parents were deceased by the time he was six years old. Doughty's father, a minister, came from a clerical family, while Doughty's mother's kin had a history of distinguished service in the British Navy.
Education
Doughty aspired to a naval career at a young age, but failed the medical examination because of a slight speech impediment. With that door shut, Doughty refocused his energies on the study of geology. He began his investigations in his native Suffolk, and in 1862, presented his findings on flint tools in Hoxne to the British Association. Doughty went on to study natural sciences at Cambridge University. As part of his studies, he traveled to Norway to study glaciation, and the results of his research were published in 1866 as On the Jostedal-Brae Glaciers in Norway. While an avid student, Doughty was not enamored with university life. In 1863, he switched from Gonville and Caius College at Cambridge to Downing College, which had more relaxed requirements regarding chapel and lecture attendance.
Intensely patriotic, Doughty sought to glorify England's ancient history in his epic poem The Dawn in Britain, which appeared in 1906. In its manuscript form the poem was titled The Utmost Isle. Doughty described the six-volume series as a poem written in the tradition
of Homer. The poem was reviewed poorly, as were most of Doughty's later poems. However, Doughty's talents were recognized by such literary luminaries as the playwright George Bernard Shaw and the poets W. H. Auden, William Butler Yeats, Ezra Pound, Hugh MacDiarmid, and John Heath-Stubbs. Doughty's poem Adam Cast Forth was among his more successful works; based on the Arabic legend of the Mountain of Recognition, it tells the story of Adam and Eve's reunification after they are banished from Eden. In his own opinion, Doughty felt that his best work was Mansoul, a revision of which he was writing at the time of his death. The content as well as the use of language in The Oawn in Britain reflected Doughty's desire to champion a pure English language.
Doughty's intense and unwavering commitment to reforming the English language may have alienated some of his contemporaries and affected his ability to achieve broad popularity. Indeed, Doughty was reduced to poverty for most of his life despite the wealth into which he had been born. Sometime during the years 1865 to 1870, Doughty's family fortune depreciated significantly. During this period Doughty had dedicated himself to reading early English literature at Oxford's Bodleian Library and in London. During this period of intense private study, he grew accustomed to a solitary life, preparation that served him well when he set out on his solo travels. Doughty traversed Europe, visiting France, Italy, Sicily, Spain, and Greece; then he ventured into the biblical lands of Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, and Egypt.
While on a camelback journey through the Sinai Peninsula, Doughty visited Maan and Petra in present-day Jordan. There he grew interested in the monument inscriptions at Median Salih and Hejr and set about the task of investigating them. He received no support for this pursuit from the British government, however. Doughty also endeavored to study the lifestyle of the Bedouins, the nomadic people of North Africa, Arabia, and the Middle East. By studying the Bedouins, Doughty hoped to gain perspective on England's pre-Christian heritage. His plan to pose as a doctor among the Bedouins failed, however, and Doughty tried a different tack. He decided to join the Muslim pilgrims on the hajj, or journey to Mecca. Having just missed the yearly caravan, he spent the year before the next pilgrimage studying Arabic in Damascus.
When he joined the next year's caravan in 1877, Doughty posed as a Syrian, calling himself Khalil and dressing in traditional desert garb. He joined a caravan of Muslim pilgrims on their way to Mecca. While Doughty suffered poor health on the journey, had very little money, and put his safety in danger by refusing to follow Islamic practices, his geological, geographical, and anthropological findings were tremendous. He was the first European to travel so extensively in the Arab world.
In 1878, after almost two years of solitary travel during which he had been dependent on the generosity of local Arabs for his survival. Doughty went to India, where he spent a year before returning to England. There Doughty documented his experiences as Khalil in the book Travels in Arabia Deserta. The book also documents the threats and persecution Doughty endured as a result of his refusal to observe Islam. The critic Jonathan Bishop commented on the passive heroism of Khalil. Another goal Doughty pursued on his expedition was to trace the origins of language. He envisioned the Arab world as the birthplace of human speech, a grew enchanted with the Arabic language, which he found to contain an older and more pure form of expression.
Doughty's unique style, influenced by his penchant for Arabic and for early English, was not appreciated by the first publishers who considered Travels in Arabia. It took four years of revision for the book to receive reluctant acceptance from the University Press at Cambridge. The book's style failed to attract a wide readership, although it did receive some very positive reviews in publications such as the London Times and the Spectator. Doughty also enjoyed the admiration of his literarycontemporaries, such as Robert Bridges, and William Morris. Popular demand for Travels in Arabia skyrocketed after the 1908 publication of excerpts from the book. Sales were not sufficient to elevate Doughty's financial condition, however; he and his family continued to be plagued by poverty, relying on the assistance of friends. Doughty's friend Т. E. Lawrence convinced the Library of the British Museum to purchase the surviving manuscript of The Utmost Isle for the sum of 400 pounds, bolstering Doughty's income. In 1922, Lawrence also helped Doughty to receive a Civil List pension. An inheritance finally ensured Doughty's financial security in 1923.
He and his wife, Caroline, spent nine winters in Italy, traveled together to the Levant, and spent several summers in Switzerland. They settled in the English countryside until Doughty's death in 1926.