Georgian Poetry

by James Reeves (Editor), A.E. Housman, W.H. Davies

Genres: Poetry

172 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1962

About the author

John Morris Reeves, later known as James Reeves, was an English writer principally known for his poetry, plays and contributions to children's literature and the literature of collected traditional songs. His published books include poetry, stories and anthologies for both adults and children. He was also well known as a literary critic and broadcaster.

He was born in Harrow, and educated at Stowe School and at Jesus College, Cambridge, where he read English and co-founded with Jacob Bronowski the literary magazine Experiment. He began his writing career as a poet in 1936, and in 1945 turned his attention to writing for young readers. His first book of poems for children, The Wandering Moon, appeared in 1950, illustrated by Edward Ardizzone, with whom Reeves sustained a lifelong friendship and collaboration. Reeves worked as a teacher until 1952, when his failing eyesight forced him to retire and he became a full-time writer and editor.

He succeeded Bronowski as editor of Epilogue: a critical summary (Riding, Graves). He was also an editor of some of the works of Robert Graves. His prose work for children commenced in 1956 and included short stories. "His real achievement, however, lies in his poetry, which is generally regarded as the best British 'serious' children's verse since Walter de la Mare - though the poems are usually far from serious in subject-matter."(Carpenter, Prichard)

- from Wikipedia

Reviews

[Robin Helweg-Larsen · Rating 5 out of 5]

'Georgian' poetry has two meanings: poetry of Britain and Ireland written in the period 1910-1929; and poetry of a movement free of anxiety, self-doubt, self-hate, a movement that values "natural simplicity, emotional warmth, and moral innocence" as the introduction by James Reeves phrases it, and is set more in the countryside than in cities. So although Eliot, Pound and so on were increasingly influential in this period, they are not Georgian poets.

'Georgian' includes the period and the poetry of the First World War. The twenty poets included in this volume were born between 1859 (A.E. Housman) and 1896 (Edmund Blunden); five of them (Edward Thomas, James Elroy Flecker, Rupert Brooke, Wilfred Owen and Charles Sorley) died between 1915 and 1918; the others lived on for decades afterwards, some having survived the war, some having been too old for it. Their poetry continued to evolve for the most part, but their later work is not included in this book.

So the wide range of tone and theme includes all these:

Housman's 'Her strong enchantments failing':
The Queen of air and darkness
Begins to shrill and cry,
'O young man, O my slayer,
Tomorrow you will die.'

Davies 'The Inquest':
For as I looked at that one eye,
It seemed to laugh, and say with glee:
'What caused my death you'll never know -
Perhaps my mother murdered me.'

Stephens' 'A Glass of Beer':
May she marry a ghost and bear him a kitten, and may
The High King of Glory permit her to get the mange.

Sassoon's 'Prelude: The Troops':
Dim, gradual thinning of the shapeless gloom
Shudders to drizzling daybreak that reveals
Disconsolate men who stamp their sodden boots
And turn dulled, sunken faces to the sky
Haggard and hopeless.

Owen's 'Anthem for Doomed Youth':
What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?
Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orizons.

and Graves' 'Outlaws':
Owls - they whinny down the night;
Bats go zigzag by.
Ambushed in shadow beyond sight
The outlaws lie.

Pastoral in peace or war, calm or charm or outrage, the Georgian movement was dismissed as outdated and second-rate throughout most of the rest of the century as poetry turned to formless introspection - turned away, in my mind, from the word-for-word memorableness that is a requirement of poetry.

The Georgians, as represented in this book, are highly memorable and excellent poets.

[Haythem Bastawy · Rating 2 out of 5]

I am very disappointe with the book. If this is the best of Georgian poetry as James Reeves claims in his introduction then I'm afraid Georgian poetry is nothing but a mere lame imitation of victorian poetry. I could only find very little gems in mountains of soil, and it wasn't worth it.

[Camila · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm surprised at how much I liked this. Although not all poems are that great, and most are fairly simple, there are so many that I identified with and/or loved. I also discovered a lot of great new poets, and learned about their backgrounds and the legacy of Georgian poetry. Some personal favourites of mine were "The Hospital Waiting Room" and "Love Lights his Fire" by Davies, "The Dove" by De La Mare, and "Arms and the Boy" by Wilfred Owen. Since poetry is so subjective, I don't think this appeals to a wide audience. I would say read this if you like: wartime stories, dark and dreary poetry, or the language of early 20th century literature. It has introspection, historical relevance, descriptions of nature, depictions of war (from nationalistic to anti-war perspectives), and even a bit of humour.

[Ellie Kidger · Rating 3 out of 5]

An important note that this collection regards the period when George V reigned (1910-1936), not the 18th century Georgian period.

Otherwise, this was a nice selection of wartime and modernist poetry, though I wish more women poets were included, given how this was the period of the Suffragette movement and the roaring 20s.

[Lucy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an attempt in the 1960's to look back 50 years or so to extract the best from the Georgian period. Read now, 50 years on from then, it doesn't look like a good choice - I have many contemporary anthologies which are full of much better verse from the period. But Reeves does include some Housman, some Edward Thomas, and plenty of Andrew Young, so all is not lost.

[Steve · Rating 3 out of 5]

A real mixture.