Collected Poems Louis MacNeice

It is no longer necessary—and not before time—to “make a case” for MacNeice as a poet. He had a couple of decades of fame, and more of comparative neglect, but his contemporaries read him poorly on the whole, even when they were most appreciative: as a “30s poet” or “journalist,” as the author of a few near-perfect lyrics, and even as a “professional lachrymose Irishman.” Fortunately, errors of this order no longer need detailed correction. More to the point, it is the generations of poets,...