A History of England in 25 Poems

by Catherine Clarke

A delightful, thoughtful and original new way to understand England's history


This is the history of England told in a new glimpsed through twenty-five remarkable poems written down between the eighth century and today, which connect us directly with the nation’s past, and the experiences, emotions and imaginations of those who lived it.

These poems open windows onto wildly different worlds – from the public to the intimate, from the witty to the savage, from the playful to the wistful. They take us onto battlefields, inside royal courts, down coal mines and below stairs in great houses. Their creators, witnesses to events from the Great Fire of London to the Miners’ Strike, range from the famous to the forgotten, yet each invites us into an immersive encounter with their own time.

A History of England in 25 Poems is a portal to the past; a constant companion, filled with vivid voices and surprising stories alongside familiar landmarks, and language that speaks in new ways on each reading. Catherine Clarke’s knowledge and passion take us inside the words and the moments they capture, with thoughtful insights, humour and new perspectives on how the nation has dreamed itself into existence – and who gets to tell England’s story.

Genres: Poetry, History, Nonfiction

Hardcover

Reviews

[Roman Clodia · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love the concept of this book (truly, I'm jealous I didn't think of it myself!): using poetry as 'a time machine' to tell a story of England at various points in our history. But, while this is a readable history of moments from the 8th century to our present, the poetry feels like it's not actually treated as literature, let alone poetry, and just as another textual historical source which acts as a jumping off point for Clarke's historical essays.

For example, much of the poetry that is used here is not, strictly speaking, a poem, meaning a complete text, but a short extract from a much longer work: so we have snippets from Chaucer's 'The Wife of Bath's Tale', extracts from Saxon and Viking chronicles, from long medieval poems like 'Pearl', individual speeches from Shakespeare's plays, stanzas from Tennyson's 'In Memoriam' and so on. Important texts like 'September Song' are used to kickstart an exploration of what English people knew about the Holocaust just after the war and while it's fascinating to hear about Richard Dimbleby's documentary about Belsen and Alan Garner as a child sneaking in to his local cinema to watch the film that was rated for adults only, all of this would have been the same whether or not it had been ushered in by 'September Song'.

Clarke explains the set-up of this book nicely via an interdisciplinary framework of how literature and history might overlap but while literary scholars usually historicise the poetry (or literary texts more broadly) that they're working/writing on, historians too often read poetry 'straight' as if it's documentary evidence rather than full of literary devices there to create mood and meaning. Clarke occasionally draws attention to how a line might be interpreted but there's little here of reading poetry as poetry written in metre, and using assonance, rhythm, rhyme, voice, mood, allegory etc. for literary affect.

I'm probably being professionally picky here and if this book opens up both poetry and English history to a broader audience then I'll be cheering it on!

Many thanks to Penguin for an ARC via NetGalley

[Helen · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you had to choose a selection of poems to represent your country’s past, which ones would you pick? What can poetry teach us about a nation’s history, culture and identity? These are some of the questions Catherine Clarke sets out to answer in this wonderful new book which tells the story of England through twenty-five famous and not-so-famous poems.

Beginning with the 8th century poem Cædmon’s Hymn, written in Old English, the book then moves chronologically through time, ending with Zaffar Kunial’s The Groundsman from 2022. Familiar names including Geoffrey Chaucer, Shakespeare, Tennyson and Lewis Carroll are all represented, but so are some lesser known poets from more diverse backgrounds such as Phillis Wheatley, the first African-American woman to have her poems published, and Grace Nichols, an immigrant to Britain from Guyana. The poems have all been selected for what they can tell us about specific moments in English history: Viking raids, the Battle of Agincourt, the plague, the miners’ strikes, the Great Storm of 1987 and many more.

Before picking up this book, it’s important to know that it shouldn’t really be approached as simply a poetry anthology. Not all of the poems appear in full – many are just extracts – and they haven’t necessarily been chosen for the beauty of the language. The literary merit of each poem is discussed only briefly or not at all, as Clarke is more interested in the life of the writer, why they chose to write that particular poem at that particular time and how the poem fits into the wider context of what was happening in England during that period. Each poem is given its own chapter and with twenty-five of them to get through, the chapters are relatively short, although still long enough to say everything that needs to be said.

I enjoyed every chapter – although I was already familiar with most of the historical figures and topics discussed in the book, it was interesting to see them from different, unusual perspectives and to discover some new poems I’d never read before. Some of my favourites were Mary Leapor’s Crumble Hall, written through the eyes of a servant in an 18th century country house; Adlestrop by Edward Thomas, describing a train briefly stopping at a station in 1914; and Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s The Cry of the Children, a protest against child labour during the Industrial Revolution.

I can highly recommend this book to anyone with an interest in English history. If you also like poetry it would be helpful, but not essential! I thought it was a fascinating approach and it would be good to read about another country’s history seen through the lens of its poetry like this.

[Mel Aras · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book a lot. It was a bit different from what I expected, but I liked it nonetheless.

Some of the poems in this book are extracts. I did not have an issue with this as an English Literature graduate; I am used to reading and analysing extracts. I think the poems chosen had a good variety too, from race, gender, and more, including child labour. I enjoyed seeing some of my favorites that are a must-read, such as “The Wife of Bath’s Tale” from the sixth section. 

I cannot speak for the time frame before and after my area of research as a historian, but I did not see any historical mistakes in the sections 9th-14th, or they weren't big enough for me to notice.

In the explanations, the author gives quite a lot of information, depending on the poem, that ranges from the background of the period, contemporaries such as other countries, and even from the future, which includes other media like movies. I think this helps the reader to research further on the poems that they could be interested in. Obviously, the author cannot fit all of history in this book, but I believe the explanations provide good information that the reader can follow up on.

The free pages for the poems chosen by the readers at the end were a sweet idea. I hope people who buy this book will see it and fill it with their own choices, as I definitely would.

My main problem with the book was its layout. I have tried to read it on my Kindle, but the formatting was not good for it, so I downloaded the PDF version. It was better for the prose, but when it comes to poetry, I am not so sure. I like that the author added the original versions and the modernized versions of certain poems. However, the two columns are very close to each other and a bit hard to follow. I like to see the sentences in the same layout as the way they are written originally, so the way the sentences are cut sometimes bothered me. I was also unsure about the introduction first, then the poem, then the explanation. While I like introductions for preparations, the poems do not feel highlighted because of it. I think seeing the poems first would create more emphasis on the poems, but that would also break the book. As I have stated, I do not think this choice is bad, just maybe would be better to highlight the poems themselves.

The book has so much chance for a general audience with fewer explanations, but with full-page illustrations, and seeing the poems first would be more appealing. However, I think the general audience can still enjoy it, especially if they are casual enjoyers of history or poetry or both.

Nevertheless, I like the idea of this book and enjoyed the poems selected for this book. I think there can even be a second addition to it if the author wishes to do so. 

Thanks to Netgalley UK, Penguin Press UK/Allen Lane and Catherine Clarke for this advanced reader copy.

[Grace -thewritebooks]

Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Press for an eARC in exchange for an honest review

What an ode to literature and the power it has to tell stories. I have never studied much poetry outside of my GCSE anthology, but greatly enjoyed doing that at the time. I was so pleased that my rudimentary history knowledge supplemented my reading of this book: I know a little about the Venerable Bede, and the Great Fire of London, WWII and other bits and pieces that smoothed over any of the dense descriptions of what was happening around the time of each poem's creation and why that was relevant. Definitely a big book of serious topics so my method was to take only one or two chapters per day which worked quite well.
To be honest, it was so useful in understanding the timeline of England's history that I would quite like another version for artworks or music or something similar.

[Janette · Rating 4 out of 5]

Catherine Clarke chooses 25 poems that she feels represent a part of the history of England from the 8th century and moving through the centuries to the present day. Each of the poems is fitted into the context of the period that it was written so we get details about the author as well as background information about what was happening in England at the time and how the poem fits into those events.
Several of the poems especially the early ones, are only represented by extracts as they come from much longer works for example we only get an extract from The Wife of Bath’s Tale by Chaucer rather than the whole tale but the extracts chosen always illuminate something that was relevant to the time.
If the poems have a unifying theme, it’s probably what it has meant to be English over the years. The first poems were written when England wasn’t really a country at all and show how the idea of ‘England’s green and pleasant land’ was around long before William Blake wrote his famous lines in Jerusalem.
I loved the selection of poems, many of which were new to me as well as the variety of poets. There are famous names such as Tennyson and Lewis Carroll but there are also a wide range of lesser known poets. The context given for each of the poems was always interesting and every chapter had something in that I hadn’t known before. I especially loved the chapter on the 17th century poem complaining about the Rump Parliament where I learned about the origin of our term ‘bumf’ for junk mail or other worthless papers which made me laugh.
Other favourite chapters were the ones on Elizabeth Barret Browning’s poem written to illuminate the plight of children forced to work in mines and mills and the one about ‘ Adlestrop’ which was a poem that I knew but hadn’t known about the link between the author Edward Thomas and another of my favourite poems ‘The Road not Taken’ by Robert Frost. I love connections like this. I also loved this chapter as it’s one where the author really looks at how the poem was constructed and how Edward Thomas chose each word carefully over several different drafts. Some of the other chapters were almost completely focused on the historical aspect and the poetry sometimes felt a bit lost.
One of my favourite poems was Eighteen Hundred and Eleven by Anna Laetitia Barbould. It’s a very dystopian view of England and felt as though it could have been written a lot more recently in its bleak outlook. I hadn’t really thought that dystopian ideas existed so early although of course, there’s no reason why they wouldn’t.
This was a great book to dip in and out of and definitely gave me a different insight into some of our historical events and how they were seen at the time. I definitely recommend it for anyone interested in the small details that make up the historical picture.

[Fiona · Rating 5 out of 5]

An absorbing, fascinating journey through the last 1300 years of England’s history. Looking at specific eras through the eyes of poets offers us an insight into the perspectives of those who experienced these times. Ordered chronologically, starting with Bede’s tale about Caedmon’s Hymn (circa 730) and ending with The Groundsman by Zaffar Kunial in 2022, we are taken on an extraordinary journey through the creation of an image of England, a myth really, that has gathered momentum over the centuries.

In that first poem, written in 730, before there was an England as such, we see the first seeds of the still persistent, confusing, merging of England and Britain into one, wherein England is referred to as an island. A later example is Shakespeare’s reference to it in Richard II as this sceptred isle…..this fortress built by Nature for herself…..this precious stone set in a silver sea. Here England has expanded to occupy the entire island, displacing Scotland and Wales, a deliberately provocative political statement which no doubt won Brownie points for Shakespeare at the time. As the author writes:- That persistent rhetoric entanglement of England the nation and the entire island is more than just poetics - it becomes an authorising image for internal colonialism, the fantasy of a single national identity created and endorsed by the island’s bounds. The emblem of the island nation all too treacherously and aggressively erases other identities and polities…. She argues that this speech of John of Gaunt’s also promotes the idea of English exceptionalism that again would persist over the following centuries.

In these 25 chapters, all of which can stand alone as analyses of a particular poem, its author, and its inspiration, not only are there well known poets but there are many lesser known poets, many of them women, that I am delighted to have discovered through this book. I learned a great deal about the development of poetry and gained insight into how poetry has been used to rebel, to protest, and to manipulate. I���ve thoroughly enjoyed time well spent in reading this. It’s definitely a highlight of my reading year. Highly recommended.

With thanks to NetGalley and Penguin Press UK for a review copy.

[Jennifer Young · Rating 4 out of 5]

The concept of Catherine Clark’s history-poetry book is an interesting one: “…the history of England told in a new way: glimpsed through twenty-five remarkable poems written down between the eighth century and today, which connect us directly with the nation’s past, and the experiences, emotions and imaginations of those who lived it.”
And it’s fine. It really is fine.
The trouble is that it felt like it had missed a few tricks. Yes, I liked (most of) the poems but the selection was a bit odd, ranging from some of the absolute best (Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales) through the historical oddities like The Agincourt Carol, to those which seemed a little strange (such as Crumble Hall).
There is a paradox here. The better poems from any era have survived and are well-known and the less good have fallen by the wayside for a reason, so that if you go out of your way to include lesser-known poems they are unlikely to be the best. And while I very much liked the fact that Clarke chose lesser-heard voices (women, PoC) she was necessarily picking from a much narrower library, especially historically and some of the poems, for me, lacked literary merit.
I also felt the definition of English history was a bit stretched: Clarke includes Geoffrey Hill’s Poetry After Auschwitz and though she acknowledges the difficulties (not just the fact that Auschwitz is by no definition an English event) I nevertheless thought it a bit of a stretch to say that Hill (who was a child during the war “is nevertheless implicated, like everyone, in the violence and brutality of the Holocaust.”
On the whole I think Clarke’s choices were insightful, especially given that it was inevitable some significant events had to be left out, but I did feel that my enjoyment of the poetry was poorer for some of them. I largely enjoyed the commentary, too, though the same limitations apply: so much had to be left unsaid.
As a result the book was somehow less than the sum of its parts, which is a pity — but I nevertheless enjoyed it for its quirkiness and I definitely learned from it.

[A.J. Sefton · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very appealing concept to express the history of England via poetry, especially considering that there is a wealth of both in this country, so I was excited to read this book. It is a challenge to select only twenty-five poems therefore I was keen to see the choices made.

The first poem I was delighted to see is Caedmon's Hymn, written by an eighth century saint who was quite the celebrity in his day, representing the Anglo-Saxon society in the Early Medieval period. The last poem is from 2022 by Zaffar Kunial, which is set on a cricket pitch called The Groundman, as the future of who owns England's green and pleasant land is discussed. Other poems are extracts from famed writers such as Geoffrey Chaucer, William Shakespeare and Henry of Huntingdon, Elizabeth Barrett Browning plus the periodical newspaper of the times, the Peterborough Chronicle.

The poems form part of themed chapters where there is a detailed analysis of the history and the chosen poems. Battles, invasions, storms, illness, immigration, servitude, child labour, political unrest and protest are some of the subjects represented. Crumble-Hall by Mary Leapor is about staff working in a stately home in the middle 1700s and is probably my favourite piece from the book. The poems are very diverse and often have unexpected perspectives. A fascinating read.

This is primarily a history book and the poems serve to support the theme rather than any creative merit - although there is a lot of that of course. I have to admit that I am a little disappointed that this isn't the book of poetry I anticipated and that there are many extracts instead of the full poems, which I would prefer. Still, this is an excellent book that takes an unusual approach to a fast journey through England's history.

3.5 stars rounded up

[Charlotte reads history · Rating 5 out of 5]

Catherine Clarke’s A History of England in 25 Poems is a sweeping view of England in our imaginations through time, as intricate, conflicting and complicated as the history itself.

Starting around 730 and ending in 2022, Clarke curates a series of poems that speak to the English national story, deftly weaving the personal and the political together.

Each extract is placed within its context, and as someone who often focuses on standard historical texts, it struck me while reading that I’ve often overlooked poetry and prose as a way to find and examine the voices, thoughts and feelings of people through time.

You’d think with the subject matter that an anthology could suffer from sentimentality or a jingoistic sense of what it means to be English, but Clarke’s selections are thoughtful and diverse, examining how colonisation, immigration, war and politics have shaped thoughts of England for centuries and continue to do so.

Birdsong and the natural world are threads that run throughout the poems that have helped shape the identity of Englishness, but Clarke warns the very ideas we cling to are under threat - the cuckoo from the medieval song ‘Sumer Is Icumen In’ is on the red list for potential extinction and our climate is rapidly changing our “green and pleasant land”.

Clarke’s anthology has reignited my interest in the study of literature - reminding me how much we can gain from the analysis of the thoughtful choices brilliant writers have made. It can bring so much more to our understanding of meaning and intention, creating connections and links that on the surface may have been looked over.

Thank you to @allenlanepr & @penguinbooksuk and the author @cathamclarke for an advanced copy - A History of England in 25 Poems is out now!

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

Marvellous idea - to work through English poetry from its very earliest days (Caedmon's Hymn) right to the present, with the emphasis on how we've portrayed and thought about England. The imaginary one is always better than the reality; the past one always better than the present. The beginnings of English exceptionalism - that we're somehow blessed, better than other nations - are visible, and it's a thread that can be traced through the 1300 hundred years covered by the text.

But it's not the whole picture. There are poems by those whose voices were less often heard, drowned out: women - one burned as a heretic - servant girls, women of colour, working class men. So alongside well-known plums (well-known, at least, to an Eng Lit graduate: Auden's Funeral Blues, Edward Thomas' Adlestrop, Sumer is i-cumen in, The Wife of Bath's Tale) there was material new to me by poets I'd not encountered before.

There were chapters where I didn't agree with Professor Clarke, ones where she presents a subtle reading of a piece that seemed to me simple and not actually very good, for instance. But she knows a lot more than I do, and my university days are knocking-on half a century behind me. Altogether, though, a fairly demanding but hugely enlightening and enjoyable read.

[Charliecat · Rating 4 out of 5]

I do like books like this which take a 'what-if' and then write about it. 25 poems? Why 25? And it's surely personal to everyone.

Clarke knows her poetry and knows her history, and the 25 here are not all ones you will be that familiar with. Auden's 'Funeral Blues' is there, but in a guise and given an analysis you would never expect. Did you know the original version was a satire on mourning national 'heroes'. Me neither. The more obvious suspects include Chaucer, Dryden, Shakespeare, Tennyson; but again, not necessarily the poems you would suspect.

Each poem is respectfully dissected and shown how it reflects the times in which it was written and what it meant to be English - and what it meant to even say 'England'.

If you're interested in poetry, history and how the notion of England was 'dreamed into existence', as she says about Bede, then this is a treat.

[Rachel N · Rating 4 out of 5]

A History of England in 25 Poems takes a look at what we can learn about the country’s past from the poems that were written at the time. It’s an interesting premise and a nice selection of poems with good background alongside them, but this was not quite what I was expecting. Some of the poems are not published in their entirety, just fragments taken to make the points required because such a lot of history is being covered and the focus was a little more on that than the poems themselves as I had expected. It is, though, an interesting read and a lovely introduction to the subject. 3.5 stars, rounded up to 4.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an advance copy in return for an honest review.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

I heard of this book through BBC Radio 4, and immediately placed a pre order. I was surprised to find how little poetry it contained. Other reviews refer to the inclusion of the author’s essays which are very academic, l learnt a great deal from these. I had hoped that there might be a section that covered the 1960’s and 70’s which saw significant changes that would affect life in the UK so greatly. This could have relied upon lyrics rather than poetry, an example would be “Iron Hand” (Dire Straits) with its clear reference to the sad period of the miners strike, perhaps the closest the country has come to civil war in recent years.
In summary I found the book to be well written, informative, very academic, incomplete and ultimately disappointing.

[Richard Howard · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a wonderfully realised idea! I particularly enjoyed the author choosing poems which, for me at least, were mostly unknown. (Apart from the earlier Anglo-Saxon & medieval poems.) I chose to buy the Audiobook which, for some reason, Goodreads doesn't acknowledge, because I wanted to hear the poems in another voice: I'm glad I made that choice. I loved hearing again those poems in Anglo-Saxon & Middle-English.
The author follows the thread of the idea of England through a thousand years of poetry and I found enlightening how similar that idea manifests itself throughout that history: the moderate, verdant, island nation.

[Jane Fudger · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is both a history and poetry book. A telling of history of England through 25 poems written between the eighth century and the current day
Filled with witty and wistful stories from royal courts, major events and the forgotten people as well as the well known. All stories/poems are described with vivid and knowledgable insights into how a nation dreamed itselfinto existance.
A well researched abd captivating book - a book you would always want to return to.

[Juliet · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book! What an unusual way to present history, intertwined with the poetry created during it. This was a creative way of giving us the voices of the people and their experiences. Catherine Clarke us a wide selection of writing and even when some expected writers were chosen, managed to avoid using the obvious choice of poem. Most of the poems chosen were new to me and some were profoundly moving

[Joanna · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a must-read for all history and/or poetry lovers. It provides insights into each featured historical periods and poem. I was only expecting an anthology of poems when I requested this and it proved to be an extremely pleasant surprise. Am definitely getting this one when it is published.

[Tony S · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an interesting concept exploring English history through poems. If you are expecting a poetry book you will be disappointed as this really is a way of looking at certain periods of time but using a poem from that time as the reference point.
I found it a fascinating read and a good way of exploring history it is certainly a new twist on a history book exploring England through the ages.

[tash · Rating 4 out of 5]

thank you to netgalley and penguin for providing me with this arc of catherine clarke’s a history of england in 25 poems

i really enjoyed this! although i didn’t get to finish it, i felt i learnt a lot about the country’s history through a unique lens of poetry instead of generic facts

[Theo Abbott · Rating 4 out of 5]

Would recommend reading back to front, as Clarke suggests you can in the introduction.

[Donna Holland · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderful way of looking at England’s history.Starts at the eighth century and finishes today,poems which connect experiences,emotions and imaginations.

[Chris Wilson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good stuff, I expected it to be shorter and be more poetic than historical, it was much longer and covered a lot more history than I expected.
I enjoyed it, poetry was a good lens to look at the history through.

[JCS · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderfully engaging way to talk about history, making it more relatable. A good variety of poetry makes it all the more interesting. Thank you to NetGalley, the publisher and the author for an arc in exchange for an honest review.