ABSTRACT
Chapter 6 presents the entire text of Miller’s obituary as published in the Bulletin of the Hegel Society of Great Britain in 1991. The obituary was written by his daughter Mary Lettington and exhibits the narrative feature of genericness. The text re-narrates with intimacy and respect the trauma of Miller’s experiences as a prisoner of war, ad-hoc interpreter and operating-theatre orderly in WWI; his contact with social and political activists in Vienna, London and Whiteway Colony; his friendship with Shaw and Sedlák; marriage, adult baptism and confirmation in the Church of England; and his growing preoccupation with the translation of Hegel. Without intrusive analysis or comment, the obituary is supplemented based on archival research and direct communication with Lettington.
The fusion of Miller’s personal narrative and Hegel’s account of the “ages of man” from the Philosophy of Mind is then investigated based on quotations from Miller’s translation of an excerpt from this Hegelian text relating to childhood, schooling and the transition from youth to manhood. The analysis reveals a significant narrative of breach associated with this transition and a suggestion of gender bias in the translation which intersect with narratives from Miller’s life.
