The Columbia History of British Poetry (168 page)

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Page 651
John Dryden (16311700)
Born in Northamptonshire and educated at Cambridge (16501654), Dryden wrote verse that reflects his shifts in politics and religion. He praised the Puritan Cromwell (
Heroic Stanzas
, 1658), but also celebrated the Stuart King Charles II (
Astraea Redux
, 1660). He defended Anglicanism (
Religio Laici
, 1683), and then Catholicism when he became Catholic (
The Hind and the Panther
, 1687). He wrote comedies (
Marriage à la Mode
, 1672), satires (
Absalom and Achitophel
, 1681), tragedies (
All for Love
, 1677), and Pindaric odes such as
A Song for St. Cecilia's Day
(1687). In 1688 he lost both of his court offices and wrote for the theater.
Fables Ancient and Modern
(1700) includes his work as a critic and translator.
William Dunbar (1460?1513?)
A Franciscan novice and Scottish Chaucerian, Dunbar graduated from St. Andrews (M.A., 1479) before traveling abroad (14791500) and receiving a pension from James IV (1500). He assisted in negotiating James I's marriage to Queen Margaret Tudor (1503), and commemorated that event in "The Thrissill and the Rois." This was followed by "The Flyting of Dunbar and Kennedie," a work of poetic abuse, as well as satires such as "The Dance of the Sevin Deidly Synnes" (1509). He is believed to have died in the Battle of Flodden (1513).
T. S. Eliot (18881965)
Born in St. Louis, Missouri, Thomas Stearns Eliot was educated at Harvard, the Sorbonne, and Oxford. He emigrated to England in 1914 and taught at the Highgate School (1916); served as a bank clerk in Lloyd's Bank, London (1917); and as director of Faber & Faber (19251965). In 1927 Eliot became a British subject and a member of the Anglican Church.
Pruftock and Other Observations
(1917) was followed by
Poems
(1919),
The Waste Land
(1922), and
Four Quartets
(1943), for which he was awarded the Nobel prize (1948). Eliot wrote several plays, of which
The Cocktail Party
(1950) was perhaps the most successful. His numerous critical volumes include
The Sacred Wood
(1920); he founded and edited
The Criterion
(19221939).
James Fenton (1949)
Born in Lincoln, Fenton won the Newdigate prize at Oxford for
Our Western Furniture
(1968). After graduating from Oxford (1970), he worked as a journalist and wrote several collections of poems, including
A German Requiem
(1981). His experiences as a correspondent in Vietnam and Cambodia inspired
The Memory of War
(1982), which was followed by
Children in Exile: Poems 19681984
.
 
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Robert Fergusson (17501774)
Born in Edinburgh, Fergusson attended St. Andrews University and worked as a copier in the Commissary Clerk's office. He contributed poems to Ruddiman's
Weekly Magazine
(1771) but manic-depression, religious guilt, and a head injury incurred by a fall led to forced confinement (1773) and premature death. A leading reviver of Scottish vernacular writing, Fergusson wrote "Leith Races" and "The Farmer's Ingle," which influenced Burns, as well as "The Daft Days" and "Auld Reikie.''
Roy Fisher (1930)
Born in Birmingham, Fisher graduated from Birmingham University (M.A., 1970), and taught at Bordesley College of Education (19631971) and the University of Keele (19711982). He has worked as a free-lance writer and jazz musician since 1982. Fisher's first book,
City
(1961), was followed by
Collected Poems, 1968
(1969), and
Poems, 19551980
.
George Gascoigne (1534?1577)
Born at Cardington, Gascoigne attended Cambridge, studied law at Gray's Inn (15551565), and was an M.P. for Bedford (15571559). His marriage to Elizabeth Boyes led to legal disputes, which ended in his imprisonment for debt (1570). Gascoigne served with English troops in the Netherlands (15721574), and spent four months as a prisoner of the Spanish. His poetry includes
A Hundreth Sundrie Flowres
(1573) and an augmented edition entitled
The Posies of Georgie Gascoigne
(1575);
The Steel Glas: A Satyre
(1576), and
The Grief of Joy
. He wrote two plays:
Supposes
(1566), based on Ariosto, and
Jocasta
(1566), a Greek tragedy.
Oliver Goldsmith (1730?1774)
Born in Ireland and educated at Trinity College, Dublin (1749), Goldsmith was rejected for ordination and studied medicine in Edinburgh and Leyden. His first important poem was
The Traveller
(1764), followed by
The Deserted Village
(1770),
Retaliation
(1774), and
The Haunch of Venison
(1776), published posthumously. Author of
The Vicar of Wakefield
(1766), Goldsmith is also known for his collection of essays,
The Citizen of the World
(1762), and plays such as
She Stoops to Conquer
(1773).
John Gower (1330?1408)
A court official who was friendly with Richard II and Henry IV, Gower married Agnes Groundoff (1398), and went blind around 1400. He wrote poetry in French (
Mirour de l'omme
, 13761379), Latin (
Vox Clamantis
, 13791382), and English (
In Praise of Peace
); his best-known work is the
Confessio Amantis
(13861390), a collection of exemplary tales of love.
 
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Robert Graves (18951985)
Born in Wimbledon and educated at Charterhouse, Graves joined the army (1914) and was severely wounded (1916). His first poems reflect his wartime experiences and include
Fairies and Fusiliers
(1917). After a brief marriage to Nancy Nicholson, he read English at Oxford and met Laura Riding, an American poet who accompanied him to Egypt, Britanny, Majorca, and the United States (19291939). Graves spent World War II in England, returned to Majorca (1946), and married Beryl Hodge. He wrote verse influenced by nursery rhymes (
Poems, 191426
), love poetry (
Poems, 193845
), and theories of poetic inspiration (
Collected Poems
, 1975). His popular autobiography,
Goodbye to All That
(1929), was followed by several works of literary criticism, historical novels (
I, Claudius
, 1934), and numerous translations. Graves was elected Professor of Poetry at Oxford (19611966).
John Gray (18661934)
Born in Woolwich as a Nonconformist, Gray became a Roman Catholic (1901) and rector of St. Peter's Church in Edinburgh. Encouraged by Wilde, Gray published
Silverpoints
(1893), which included translations from Verlaine and Mallarmé. His best long poem, "The Flying Fish," appeared in
The Dial
(1896).
Thomas Gray (17161771)
Gray was born in London and educated at Cambridge. He toured the Continent with Horace Walpole (17391741), and wrote "Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College" (1742) and "Elegy wrote in a Country Church Yard" (1751) after returning to England. He became a resident at Peterhouse (17421756), and then at Pembroke, Cambridge. After composing his Pindaric odes (1754, 1757), Gray studied Old Norse and Welsh poetry; his imitations were included in
Poems
(1768). Later that year, he became Regius Professor of Modern History at Cambridge.
Thom Gunn (1929)
Thomson Gunn was born in Gravesend, attended Cambridge, and then Stanford University on a creative writing fellowship. He has published several volumes of poetry, including
Fighting Terms
(1954),
Moly
(1971), and
The Passage of Joy
(1982). Gunn has written studies of Fulke Greville (1968) and Ben Jonson (1974).
Thomas Hardy (18401928)
Born at Upper Bockhampton, Hardy was an apprentice to the architects John Hicks (18561861) and Sir Arthur Blomfield (18621867). In 1871 he published
Desperate Remedies
, the first of ten novels. The success of
Far from the Madding Crowd
(1874) enabled him to abandon architecture and marry Emma
 
Page 654
Gifford (1874). When
Tess of the D'Urbervilles
(1891) and
Jude the Obscure
(1895) were negatively reviewed, Hardy turned to poetry and published eight volumes, including
Wessex Poems
(1898) and
Poems of the Past and Present
(1902). Many of his most moving poems in
Satires of Circumstance
(1914) were inspired by the death of his wife (1912); in 1914 he married Florence Dugdale. He assembled the
Life
published posthumously as her work.
Seamus Heaney (1939)
Born in Northern Ireland, Heaney attended Queen's University, Belfast, worked as an English teacher in Belfast, a lecturer at Queen's University (19661972), a guest lecturer at the University of California, Berkeley (19701971), and later as a professor at Harvard.
Death of a Naturalist
(1966) was followed by
Field Work
(1979),
Selected Poems, 196575
(1980), and
Station Island
(1984).
Felicia Hemans (17931835)
Born in Liverpool and educated by her mother, Felicia Browne was the most popular woman poet of the nineteenth century. Her early verse includes
Poems
(1807) and
The Domestic Affections
(1812). An acknowledged beauty, she married Capt. Alfred Hemans (1812), who left for Rome (1818) and never returned. She then wrote two plays and twenty-four volumes of poetry to support her five sons, including
The Forest Sanctuary
(1825),
Records of Women
(1828), and
Songs of the Affections
(1830). She lived briefly in Liverpool (1828) and Dublin (1831), where she wrote
National Lyrics and Songs for Music
(1834) and
Scenes and Hymns of Life
(1834).
Robert Henryson (1430?1504?)
An original member of Glasgow University (1462), Henryson was probably a clerical schoolmaster at Dunfermline Abbey. Henryson wrote
The Testament of Cresseid
, which provides a tragic ending to Chaucer's
Troilus and Criseyde; The Morall Fabillis of Esope
, a version of thirteen fables based on John Lydgate and William Caxton;
Orpheus and Eurydice
, based on Boethius; and
Robene and Makyne
.
George Herbert (15931633)
Born in Montgomery to a prominent family, Herbert was educated at Cambridge, where he was a fellow and Public Orator (16191627). He served as M.P. for Montgomery (16241625), became a deacon (1626), and married Jane Danvers (1629). In 1630 Herbert worked as a rector of Bemerton and was subsequently ordained.
The Temple
(1634), a collection of his verse, appeared in thirteen editions;
A Priest to the Temple
(1652) offers advice to members of the clergy.
 
Page 655
Robert Herrick (15911674)
Apprenticed to his uncle, a goldsmith (1607), Herrick graduated from Cambridge (M.A., 1620) before being ordained (1623). He was friendly with Ben Jonson and court society and served as chaplain to the duke of Buckingham on a disastrous military expedition (1627). Presented (1629) and then deprived (1647) of the living of Dean Prior because of his royalist connections, he published
Hesperides
(1648), which includes a body of devotional verse entitled
Noble Numbers
.
Geoffrey Hill (1932)
Hill was born in Bromsgrove, attended Oxford, and has lectured at the University of Leeds and at Cambridge. His published verse includes
For the Unfallen
(1959),
Tenebrae
(1978), and
The Mystery of the Charity of Charles Peguy
(1983).
Thomas Hoccleve (1368?1437?)
Born in London, Hoccleve trained at the Inns of Court and became a clerk in the Office of the Privy Seal (13871388; 13991422). Hoccleve opposed the Lollards, a religious group that demanded a reduction in the power of the Church. After failing to become a priest, he married (14101411), suffered from mental illness (14161421), and was granted a minor benefice at Southwick priory (1424), where he remained until his death.
La Male Règle
(1406) describes a bachelor's evening, and
L'Epistre au Dieu D'amours
(1402) is an alternative ending to Chaucer's
Troilus and Criseyde
.
Gerard Manley Hopkins (18441889)
Born in Essex, Hopkins attended Oxford (1863), where he published "Winter with the Gulf Stream" and converted to Catholicism (1866). In 1868 he joined the Jesuits and burned his youthful verses; his subsequent poetry was not published until 1918. Hopkins studied theology at St. Bueno's College in North Wales (1874), learned Welsh, and composed "The Wreck of the
Deutschland
" (1875). At this time, Hopkins articulated his theories of instress, inscape, and sprung rhythm. Ordained to the priesthood (1877), Hopkins was appointed professor of Greek and Latin at University College, Dublin (1884), where he composed a series of sonnets, beginning with ''Carrion Comfort."
A. E. Housman (18591936)
Born near Bromsgrove, Alfred Edward Housman was educated at Oxford, worked as a clerk in the Patent Office in London, and became a Professor of Latin at London University (1892). A disappointed attachment to Moses Jackson inspired verse published in
Last Poems
(1922) and
Collected Poems
(1939). At London University he wrote
A Shropshire Lad
(1896), balladlike

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