Louis MacNeice: The Poet in his Contexts

by Peter McDonald

Overview

Since his death in 1963, Louis MacNeice's critical standing has risen steadily. This new study addresses the contexts of his writing that are of greatest relevance to his place in modern poetry: his problematic relation to Ireland and his place in the largely English "thirties generation" with which he is often identified. The influence of these aspects on MacNeice's poetic development is studied in detail, addressing his relation to Yeats and Modernism and his conception of parable as a key imaginative response to these influences. Included also is the first study of the poet's revealing and little-known early writings. Arguing that MacNeice is a central figure in modern Irish and British poetry, this work sheds new light on the poems.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780198117667
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	06/13/1991
Series:	Oxford English Monographs Series
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	252
Product dimensions:	5.75(w) x 8.81(h) x 0.81(d)

About the Author

Pembroke College, Cambridge

Table of Contents

	Author's Note	x
	Introduction: Canons and Contexts	1
1.	Poems (1935)	10
2.	Epitaphs for Louis: Early Writings	37
3.	The Falling Castle: 1936-1939	65
4.	The Desert's Purge: 1939-1944	95
5.	Experiment: 1945-1953	130
6.	Parable	154
7.	Nightmare and Cinders: The Late Poetry	177
8.	The 'Ould Antinomies': Ireland	203
	Bibliography	230
	Index	237

Editorial Reviews

"A well-written book that sticks to its subject...in a convincing historical way....Recommended for graduate students and upper-level undergraduates....A fine study."—Choice

From the Publisher