The Columbia History of British Poetry (166 page)

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Page 642
Johnston, Dillon.
Irish Poetry after Joyce
. Notre Dame, Ind.: Notre Dame University Press, 1985.
Longley, Edna.
Louis MacNeice: A Study
. London: Faber, 1988.
Longley, Edna.
Poetry in the Wars
. Newcastle-upon-Tyne: Bloodaxe; Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1991.
McDonald, Peter.
Louis MacNeice: The Poet in His Contexts
. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Quinn, Antoinette.
Patrick Kavanagh: Born-Again Romantic
. Dublin: Gill and Macmillan, 1991.
Robinson, Alan.
Instabilities in Contemporary British Poetry
. London: Macmillan, 1988.
 
Page 643
Brief Biographies of the Poets
Jonathan Gross
Mark Akenside (17211770)
Born at Newcastle, the son of a butcher, Akenside studied theology but abandoned it for medicine, practicing as a physician at Northampton and London. He contributed verses to
Gentleman's Magazine
, and wrote
Pleasures of Imagination
(1744, 1757),
Hymn to the Naiads
, and
An Epistle to Curio
.
Matthew Arnold (18221888)
Arnold was born in Middlesex and educated at Oxford. He served as secretary to Lord Lansdowne (1847) and inspector of schools (18511886). Arnold's first two volumes of poetry,
The Strayed Reveller
(1849) and
Empedocles on Etna
(1852), were followed by two volumes of
Poems
(1853, 1855) and by
Merope
(1858). Appointed Professor of Poetry at Oxford (18571867), he turned his attention to literary, theological, and educational criticism after 1861.
W. H. Auden (19071973)
Born in Yorkshire, Wystan Hugh Auden attended Oxford (19251928), served as schoolmaster in Scotland and England (19301935), and traveled to Spain to support the loyalists (1936). After marrying Erika Mann (1935) to provide her with a British passport, he emigrated to the United States (1939) and became an American citizen (1946). In England again, he was appointed Professor of Poetry, at Oxford (19561961). Auden's lifelong companion was Chester Kallman, with whom he collaborated on opera libretti.
Poems
(1930) and three further volumes established Auden's reputation. He wrote plays with Christopher Isherwood, including
The Dog Beneath the Skin
(1935). Five volumes written in the United States reflect his growing commitment to Anglicanism.
 
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Anna Letitia Barbauld (17431825)
Born in Kibworth-Harcourt, Barbauld wrote
Poems
(1773), and established a boy's school at Palgrave, Suffolk, which she closed (1785) due to her husband's mental decline; he died insane (1808). The couple adopted a nephew (1777), for whom she wrote
Hymns in Prose for Children
(1781). After traveling abroad (1785), Barbauld wrote an epistle to Wilberforce on the slave trade, and an apocalyptic poem, "Eighteen Hundred and Eleven." Her essays defending public worship (1792) and attacking war (1793) prefigure the novel of social reform. Barbauld's literary criticism appears in editions of poets (1794 and 1797), essayists (1804), Samuel Richardson's correspondence (6 vols., 1804), and a fifty-volume anthology,
The British Novelists
(1810).
John Barbour (1320?1395
Appointed archdeacon of Aberdeen (1357), Barbour studied at Oxford (1357) and helped ransom King David II, prisoner in England after his capture in the Battle of Nevelle's Cross (1346). Barbour probably studied in Paris, was appointed Clerk of Audit and Auditor of the Exchequer to Robert II (1372), and received a life pension (1388).
The Bruce
(1376), a Scottish national epic, charts the history of the Scottish struggle for independence.
Sir John Betjeman (19061984)
Born in Highgate and educated at Oxford, Betjemen worked as a schoolmaster, wrote for the
Architectural Review
(1931), and served as press attaché in Dublin during World War II.
Mount Zion
(1931) and
Continual Dew
(1937) were his first publications;
Collected Poems
(1958) has sold close to a million copies. Appointed poet laureate (1972), Betjeman wrote satires of middle-class life that exhibit his religious perspective.
Laurence Binyon (18691943)
Born at Lancaster and educated at Oxford, Binyon worked in the printed-books department of the British Museum (18931933), and was Norton Professor of Poetry at Harvard (19331934). He wrote dramas, such as
Arthur
(1923) with music by Elgar, and several volumes of verse, including
Collected Poems
(1931) and
The Burning of the Leaves
(1944).
William Blake (17571827)
Born in London, Blake was apprenticed to an engraver (1772) and entered the Royal Academy (1779). Married to Catherine Boucher (1782), who assisted him in his publications, Blake became friendly with the radical bookseller, Joseph Johnson. After his brother Robert's death (1787), he began engraving texts with illustrations and published most of his work, including
Songs of Innocence
(1789), in this way. In 1793 he moved to Lambeth, wrote the
 
Page 645
"Prophetic books," including
The Book of Urizen
(1794); designed engravings; and drafted an epic,
Vala
. While living with William Hayley at Sussex (18001803), Blake was briefly arrested on trumped-up charges of sedition, and his final epics,
Milton
(18041808) and
Jerusalem
(18041820), reflect this experience.
Edmund Blunden (18961974)
Born in London and educated at Oxford, Edmund Charles Blunden fought in the trenches during World War I and was the M. C. Professor of English Literature at Tokyo (19241927) and Hong Kong (1953). Blunden was a fellow of Merton College, Oxford (1931), joined
The Times Literary Supplement
(1943), and became Professor of Poetry at Oxford (1966). He wrote nature poetry, including
Pastorals
(1916), and a prose work,
Undertones of War
(1928). He edited John Clare, Shelley, and Collins; wrote a life of Leigh Hunt (1930) and a study of Hardy (1941).
Emily Brontë (18181848)
Born in Yorkshire, Emily Brontë attended Cowan Bridge with her sister, Charlotte (18241825), and was then largely self-educated. She attended Roe Head (1835), but suffered from homesickness. Far more than her other sisters, she was attached to the moorland scenery of Haworth, which
Wuthering Heights
(1847) evokes. Governess at Law Hill, near Halifax (1837), Emily went to Brussels with Charlotte to study languages, but returned on her aunt's death that same year. Emily's poems were "discovered" by Charlotte (1845) and their work was published together, along with Anne's, in
Poems, by Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell
(1846).
Elizabeth Barrett Browning (18061861)
Born in Herefordshire, Browning was largely self-educated and wrote
The Seraphim
(1838) and
Poems
(1844), which gained her critical and public attention. Forbidden to marry, she eloped secretly with Robert Browning (1846) to Florence, Italy, where she lived for the rest of her life. Her support for Italian unity found expression in such poems as
Casa Guidi Windows
(1851) and
Poems Before Congress
(1860). Her other volumes include
Sonnets from the Portuguese
(1850) and
Aurora Leigh
(1857).
Robert Browning (18121829)
Born in London, Browning attended London University, but was largely self-educated. After visiting Russia (1834), he wrote
Paracelsus
(1835); two further collections of poems,
Sordello
(1840) and
Bells and Pomegranates
(18411846), were less favorably received. After a second trip to Italy (1838, 1844), Browning married Elizabeth Barrett (1846) and settled in Florence, where they had

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