Collected Poems

by Edwin Muir

Libro usado en buenas condiciones, por su antiguedad podria contener señales normales de uso

Genres: Poetry, Scotland

314 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1953

About the author

Edwin Muir, Orcadian poet, novelist and translator noted, together with his wife Willa Anderson, for making Franz Kafka available in English.

Between 1921 and 1923, Muir lived in Prague, Dresden, Italy, Salzburg and Vienna; he returned to the UK in 1924. Between 1925 and 1956, Muir published seven volumes of poetry which were collected after his death and published in 1991 as The Complete Poems of Edwin Muir. From 1927 to 1932 he published three novels, and in 1935 he came to St Andrews, where he produced his controversial Scott and Scotland (1936).

Reviews

[Harrison Glaze · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wise, passionate, generous poems of an easy formal elegance, rich in their searching metaphysical reflections, in their sense of place and history, and in their palpable verbal delight in the ordinary beauty of the world. You could call Muir the Orcadian Richard Wilbur, though that’d be eliding some of his great idiosyncrasies: the musicality and orality of his rhythms (Muir is a modern master of the ballad; there are something like ten poems here simply titled “Song”); the enduring fascinations with heraldry, horses, classical myth, and the Fall; the unique, sometimes cranky commentaries on modernity, Scottish history and literary politics, and the nuclear era. And the man just gets better (and both more Christian and less homiletical) with age.

“I’ve been in love for long
With what I cannot tell
And will contrive a song
For the intangible….”
-“In Love for Long”

[Rhys · Rating 2 out of 5]

There are many excellent poems in this book but for some reason I found my mind wandering when I was reading them. I had to make an effort to focus on their meaning. I was aware of the wonderful lyricism in the verses, yet I couldn't concentrate on anything other than the rhythms. There are so many poems in this collection (and they are all so similar) that choosing a favourite seems a little pointless but I want to mention 'The Grove' as one that worked especially well for me. There are perhaps too many religious poems, many in a sort of 'Pilgrim's Progress' allegorical mode, but much of Muir's poetry could conceivably also be appreciated by non-religious readers who like weird fantasy. I thought I detected the occasional echo of Poe but maybe I am mistaken.

[Ryan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Inferior to his protege George Mackay Brown in almost every way.

[Sushil Kumar]

Re ad

[māris šteinbergs · Rating 2 out of 5]

could not even relate to any poems in this one

[Patricia N. McLaughlin · Rating 4 out of 5]

In the spring of 1938, Muir wrote in his diary: “I have often had a vague fancy or intuition of a certain stare of human existence, which satisfies me more completely than any other human image. It is a state in which the earth, the human buildings on the earth, and the earthly life of everyone will in some way be in harmony with the sky which overarches them. In childhood I had that feeling of harmony, and I can still remember it (the sky fitted the earth then) but since that time I have been troubled by a sense of dislocation between the earth and the sky: an actual physical, or visual, feeling of something wrong.” This collection spans the gamut of Muir’s fancies and misgivings, offering hope for the reconstitution of the human and natural world after the destruction wrought by mechanized, inhuman, and bellicose “civilization.” Muir’s philosophical ruminations in THE LABYRINTH are particularly illuminating.

Favorite Poems:
FIRST POEMS (1925)
“Horses”

VARIATIONS ON A TIME THEME (1934)

JOURNEYS AND PLACES (1937)
“Mary Stuart”
“The Sufficient Place”

THE NARROW PLACE (1943)
“To J. F. H. (1897-1934)”
“The River”

THE VOYAGE (1946)
“The Three Mirrors”

THE LABYRINTH (1949)
“The Labyrinth”
“The Return”
“The Journey Back”
“The Good Town”
“The Usurpers”
“The Absent”

ONE FOOT IN EDEN (1956)
“One Foot in Eden”
“The Other Story”
“The Horses”
“Into Thirty Centuries Born”
“If I Could Know”
“Song”

POEMS NOT PREVIOUSLY COLLECTED (1965)
“Three Tales”
“The Desolations”
“Dialogue”
“Impersonal Calamity”
“The Last War”

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was initially drawn to Muir's poetry for its interest in theological questions, as well as due to the high praise from T.S. Eliot. In reading this collection of Muir's poetry from throughout his career, I found a special affinity for Muir's careful attention to history and the passage of time. I found a tension in the poetry, one that seemed to honor the place of history and historical figures, even as Muir recognized the limitations of the people of history. Muir appreciates the vital role that history plays in our lives,but in a way that is, well, aware. I leave off with a few lines on history I especially liked:

"I take my journey back to seek my kindred,
Old founts dried up whose rivers run far on
Through you and me."
--The Journey Back

"It was not hard to still the ancestral voices:
A careless thought, less than a thought could do it.
And the old garrulous ghosts died easily,
The friendly and unfriendly, and are not missed
That once were such proud masters. In this air
Our thoughts are deeds; we dare do all we think,
Since there’s no one to check us, here or elsewhere.
All round us stretches nothing; we move through nothing,
Nothing but nothing world without end. We are
Self-guided, self-impelled, and self-sustained,
Archer and bow and burning arrow sped
On its wild flight through nothing to tumble down
At last on nothing, our home and cure for all."
--The Usurpers

"Past odds and ends sustain us. We can suck
Courage from buried bravery’s dear downfall,
Learn from forgotten fools to chance our luck
And cut our losses, piously recall
Those who believed and did not understand,
And built in faith and folly in this ancient land."
--Sonnet

[Jono McDermott · Rating 4 out of 5]

To my mind, Muir's poetry, with its unique style and vividness, is among the most important in world literature. Every poem forces the audience to take a step back from the world we are used to seeing and challenges the reality. His topics range from the divine to the mundane, exploring Eden, Prague and Troy with equal fervour.

Muir's view on life is that we each live the same fable. Through reading his Collected Poems, we are clearly shown what that fable is, and where it stands in the Universe.

[Florence Dacey · Rating 3 out of 5]

A few of the poems are marvelous but I ended up skipping over many...

[Barbara · Rating 4 out of 5]

Edwin Muir wrote one of the most beautiful poems I have ever read.

It starts - Yes, yours, my love is the right human face.... Do read it, I think it sums up most relationships.

[Bill Bangham · Rating 5 out of 5]

A poet who should be better known than he is. The simplicity of words belie the depth of content.