Abstract
The Georgian poets, a sadly pedestrian rabble, flocked along the roads their fathers had built, pointing out to each other beauty spots and ostentatiously drinking small-beer in a desperate attempt toprove their virility. The winds blew, thefloods came: fora moment afew of them showed on the crest of the seventh great wave; then they were rolled under and nothing marks their graue.1
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Notes
C. Day Lewis, A Hope for Poetry (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1934) p. 2.
John Press, A Map of Modern English Verse (London: Oxford University Press, 1969) p. 105.
Edith C. Batho and Bonamy Dobree, The Victorians and After (London: Cresset Press, 1950) p. 72.
John H. Johnston, English Poetry of the First World War (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1964) p. 28.
John Middleton Murry, ‘The Condition of English Poetry’, The Athenaeum, 5 December 1919, pp. 1238–5; reprinted in Georgian Poetry 1912–1922: The Critical Heritage, ed. by Timothy Rogers (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1977) pp. 231–7 (p. 232).
John Middleton Murry, ‘The Condition of English Poetry’, The Athenaeum, 5 December 1919, pp. 1238–5; reprinted in Georgian Poetry 1912–1922: The Critical Heritage, ed. by Timothy Rogers (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1977) pp. 231–7 (p. 232).
F. R. Leavis, New Bearings in English Poetry (London: Chatto & Windus, 1932) p. 66.
The clearest indication of this marginalisation is the current unavailability of anthologies of Georgian poetry. Two previous collections — Georgian Poets, ed. by Alan Pryce-Jones (London: Edward Hulton, 1959) and Georgian Poetry, ed. by James Reeves (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1962) — are now both out of print.
The clearest indication of this marginalisation is the current unavailability of anthologies of Georgian poetry. Two previous collections — Georgian Poets, ed. by Alan Pryce-Jones (London: Edward Hulton, 1959) and Georgian Poetry, ed. by James Reeves (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1962) — are now both out of print.
Robert H. Ross, The Georgian Revolt: Rise and Fall of a Poetic Ideal (London: Faber and Faber, 1965) p. 15.
Myron Simon, The Georgian Poetic (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1975) p. 1.
C. K. Stead, The New Poetic: Yeats to Eliot (London: Hutchinson, 1964) p. 81.
The most detailed account of the history of the Georgian Poetry series can be found in Ross, op. cit. For an account of Edward Marsh’s life and times, see Christopher Hassall, Edward Marsh: Patron of the Arts (London: Longmans, 1959).
See his letter of 8 January 1918 to Leslie Gunston: ‘We Georgians are all so old.’, in Wilfred Owen: Collected Letters, ed. by Harold Owen and John Bell (London: Oxford University Press, 1967) p. 526. Also of interest is his letter of 31 December 1917 to his mother: ‘I am held peer by the Georgians; I am a poet’s poet’ (p. 521).
Arthur Waugh, ‘The New Poetry’, Quarterly Review, October 1916, pp. 365–86; reprinted in Rogers, op. cit., pp. 139–59 (p. 143).
T. S. Eliot, ‘Verse Pleasant and Unpleasant’, The Egoist, March 1918, pp. 43–4; summarised in detail, because of copyright complications, in Rogers, op. cit., pp. 213–15 (p. 215).
Harold Monro, Some Contemporary Poets (London: Leonard Parsons, 1920) p. 150.
D. H. Lawrence, ‘The Georgian Renaissance’, Rhythm, March 1913, pp. xvii-xx; reprinted in Rogers, op. cit., pp. 102–5 (p. 102).
Henry Newbolt, ‘The Vigil’, Poems: New and Old, 2nd edn (London: John Murray, 1919) pp. 97–8 (p. 97).
Robert Graves, The Common Asphodel: Collected Essays on Poetry 1922–1949 (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1949) pp. 112–13. 32. The term is borrowed from the title of Ross’s book.
William Wordsworth, Preface, Wordsworth and Coleridge: Lyrical Ballads, ed. by R. L. Brett and A. R. Jones, 2nd edn (London: Routledge, 1991) p. 241. 34. Ibid., p. 249.
William York Tyndall, Forces in Modern British Literature (New York: Vintage, 1947) pp. 372–3.
Alfred Austin, ‘Why England is Conservative’, Lyrical Poems, 2nd edn (London: Macmillan, 1896) pp. 116–17 (p. 116).
Anon., ‘Georgian Poetry’, Times Literary Supplement, 27 February 1913, pp. 81–2; reprinted in Rogers, op. cit., pp. 77–84 (p. 81).
Edmund Gosse, ‘Knocking at the Door’, Morning Post, 27 January 1913, p. 3; reprinted in Rogers, op. cit., pp. 73–7 (p. 75).
Rupert Brooke, letter to Edward Marsh, 22 December 1911; in The Letters of Rupert Brooke, ed. by Geoffrey Keynes (London: Faber and Faber, 1968) p. 328.
Gary Day, ‘The Poets: Georgians, Imagists and Others’, Literature and Culture in Modern Britain, ed. by C. Bloom (London and New York: Longman, 1993) pp. 30–54, see esp. p. 34.
Wilfred Owen, ‘Exposure’, The Poems of Wilfred Owen, ed. by Jon Stallworthy (London: Hogarth Press, 1985) p. 162.
The most detailed account of Squire and his literary activities is Patrick Howarth, Squire : ‘Most Generous of Men’ (London: Hutchinson, 1963).
J. C. Squire, Prefatory Note, Selections from Modern Poets, ed. by J. C. Squire (London: Martin Secker, 1921) pp. v–vii. The other two anthologies were Second Selections from Modern Poets, ed. by J. C. Squire (London: Martin Secker, 1924) and Younger Poets of To-Day, ed. by J. C. Squire (London: Martin Secker, 1932).
J. C. Squire, Prefatory Note, Selections from Modern Poets, ed. by J. C. Squire (London: Martin Secker, 1921) pp. v–vii. The other two anthologies were Second Selections from Modern Poets, ed. by J. C. Squire (London: Martin Secker, 1924) and Younger Poets of To-Day, ed. by J. C. Squire (London: Martin Secker, 1932).
J. C. Squire, Prefatory Note, Selections from Modern Poets, ed. by J. C. Squire (London: Martin Secker, 1921) pp. v–vii. The other two anthologies were Second Selections from Modern Poets, ed. by J. C. Squire (London: Martin Secker, 1924) and Younger Poets of To-Day, ed. by J. C. Squire (London: Martin Secker, 1932).
Ivor Gurney, ‘To His Love’, War’s Embers (London: Sidgwick & Jackson, 1919) p. 45; reprinted in Severn & Somme and War’s Embers, ed. by R. K. R. Thornton (Ashington and Manchester: Mid Northumberland Arts Group and Carcanet, 1987) p. 76.
Ivor Gurney, ‘To His Love’, War’s Embers (London: Sidgwick & Jackson, 1919) p. 45; reprinted in Severn & Somme and War’s Embers, ed. by R. K. R. Thornton (Ashington and Manchester: Mid Northumberland Arts Group and Carcanet, 1987) p. 76.
Ivor Gurney, ‘Smudgy Dawn’, Second Selections from Modern Poets, op. cit., p. 221; reprinted in Collected Poems of Ivor Gurney, ed. by P. J. Kavanagh (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982) p. 143.
Ivor Gurney, ‘Smudgy Dawn’, Second Selections from Modern Poets, op. cit., p. 221; reprinted in Collected Poems of Ivor Gurney, ed. by P. J. Kavanagh (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982) p. 143.
For details of Gurney’s life and work, see Michael Hurd, The Ordeal of Ivor Gurney (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978).
Squire continued to print his poems in the London Mercury, but to little avail. Similarly, two posthumous collections of his verse — Poems by Ivor Gurney, ed. by Edmund Blunden (London: Hutchinson, 1954) and Poems of Ivor Gurney 1890–1937, ed. by Leonard Clark (London: Chatto & Windus, 1973) — were largely ignored upon their appearance. It is only since the publication of Hurd’s biography and Kavanagh’s edition of his poems that Gurney’s unique qualities have been recognised.
Squire continued to print his poems in the London Mercury, but to little avail. Similarly, two posthumous collections of his verse — Poems by Ivor Gurney, ed. by Edmund Blunden (London: Hutchinson, 1954) and Poems of Ivor Gurney 1890–1937, ed. by Leonard Clark (London: Chatto & Windus, 1973) — were largely ignored upon their appearance. It is only since the publication of Hurd’s biography and Kavanagh’s edition of his poems that Gurney’s unique qualities have been recognised.
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Walter, G. (1995). Loose Women and Lonely Lambs: The Rise and Fall of Georgian Poetry. In: Day, G., Docherty, B. (eds) British Poetry, 1900–50. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-24000-5_2
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