Schmitt, Gladys

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SCHMITT, Gladys

Born 31 May 1909, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; died 3 October 1972, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Daughter of Henry H. and Leonore Schmitt; married Simon Goldfield, 1937

Gladys Schmitt graduated from the University of Pittsburgh in 1932 and in 1933 became an editor at Scholastic magazines. In 1942 Schmitt left Scholastic to teach English at Carnegie Institute of Technology, a job she held until her death. Schmitt was married to a musician who gave up his career and devoted his talents to editing Schmitt's writing and taking care of her.

The Gates of Aulis (1942) is an autobiographical novel about a young woman who needs to define herself by being loved. The failure to gain love through sacrificing herself to another person leads to despair and a suicide attempt before she gains more balanced and therefore redemptive insights. The theme is the need to choose and be committed to a societal myth such as religion.

In David the King (1946), Schmitt combines introspective detail and a concern over moral issues with material that could sustain serious philosophic themes. Structural and thematic unity exist in David's struggles to reconcile his ambition for power with his commitments to God and his people, and to choose an action when faced with moral ambiguity. David, who can achieve self-fulfillment because everybody loves him, grows in stature as he becomes capable of self-sacrifice and understands the ways of a God who offers no clear moral guidance.

Rembrandt (1961) examines the relationship between the artist, art, and family obligations. Rembrandt's torments arise from conflicts between commitment to art and shame over disloyalty to people he loves, from conflicts between the need to please those who commission his paintings and the need to paint according to his vision and from bitterness over inadequate recognition. Brief popular success ruins Rembrandt; his love of splendor leads to bankruptcy and superficiality.

In The Godforgotten (1972), a formerly monastic, medieval community has lapsed into despair, believing that it has been forgotten by God. The church sends a disaffected priest to restore the people to the fold. He succeeds, but by setting inflexible standards disrupts their family relationships and destroys their faith in simple human values.

Sonnets for An Analyst (1973) records the process of Schmitt's recovery after an emotional breakdown. The sonnets give expression to Schmitt's memories and dreams; her emotions; her identi-fications, loyalties, and insecurities; her need for love. The progression of Schmitt's feelings for the analyst, from anger to love to acknowledgment of his role, parallels the movement of her psyche toward acceptance of her losses—above all, the loss of her commitment to religion—and of herself. Schmitt controls her chaotic emotions through language, wit, and irony, and the structure of the sonnet form.

Schmitt's central concerns are with human relationships and especially the need for compassion in a world where the sustaining myth, and therefore the moral bases, are obscured, decayed, or dead. Her fiction is based in characterization; complexity and irony arise from the technique of multiple point of view—the shifting of points of view between chapters or sections to provide different personal and moral perspectives.

Schmitt is known as a writer of historical fiction, but this categorization does not do her full justice. Schmitt's writing is sometimes too philosophically weighty and too artful, but at its best it contains controlled craftsmanship, past worlds richly recreated on the basis of scanty evidence, and searching psychological and moral depth.

Other Works:

Alexandra (1947). Confessors of the Name (1952). The Persistent Image (1955). A Small Fire (1957). The Heroic Deeds of Beowulf (1962). Electra (1965). Boris, the Lopsided Bear (1966).