English Poetry 1918-60

by Kenneth Allott

An anthology of 20th century poetry.

Genres: Poetry, Literature, Fiction

394 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1962

About the author

Kenneth Cyril Bruce Allott

Reviews

[anja ❀ · Rating 3 out of 5]

i am not normally a poetry consumer so i cannot give a "professional" critique however this was a refreshing detour from what i usually read. there were some beautiful and profound poems that will definitely stick with me for some time. Living by Harold Monro, especially.

[Lucy · Rating 2 out of 5]

It feels odd to give only 2 stars to any collection of poetry that includes Andrew Young, Ted Hughes, Henry Reed...but there is so much dross in this, especially in the later pieces, and the commentary is so laughably self-important, that it doesn't deserve more. Perhaps it should be labelled as Contemporary Literary Misreadings instead of poetry.

[dipandjelly · Rating 4 out of 5]

if only this were all that my syllabi entailedd.
hnnnngh, more poetry. need. more. poetry.

[Cole · Rating 3 out of 5]

Took me way too long to realize how to engage with this “book”. it’s not a book, in the sense that i would know one, but a collection of poems and short biographies of the poets. use it as a starting point or a reference material. nice selection and variety.

[Iona Stewart · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a “new revised edition” reprinted in 1963 so you can get an idea of how long I have had it.

I had never heard of most of these poets, but knew the famous ones, of course – W.B. Yeats, Walter de la Mare, James Joyce, D.H. Lawrence, Aldous Huxley, W.H. Auden, Dylan Thomas, Lawrence Durrell (whom I had not realized was a poet but knew from his Alexandria Quartet), Kingsley Amis of Lucky Jim fame, Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath.

Regarding T.S. Eliot, extracts from The Waste Land and Ash Wednesday are included:

From Ash Wednesday:

“ … In this brief transit where the dreams cross
The dreamcrossed twilight between birth and dying …
This is the time of tension between dying and birth
The place of solitude where three dreams cross
Between blue rocks
But when the voices shaken from the yew-tree drift away
Let the other yew be shaken and reply.”

(I can’t say I understand this.)

And from the chorus of The Family Reunion:

“In an old house there is always listening, and more is heard than is spoken.
And what is spoken remains in the room, waiting for the future to hear it.
And whatever happens began in the past, and presses hard on the future.
The agony in the curtained bedroom whether of birth or of dying,
Gathers in to itself all the voices of the past, and projects them into the future.
… There is nothing at all to be done about it,
There is nothing to do about anything,
And now it is nearly time for the news
We must listen to the weather report
And the international catastrophes.”

I looked in vain for the poems by Walter de la Mare I had learnt by heart at school. I think one of them was “The listeners”:
“’Is there anybody there?’ said the Traveller,
Knocking on the moonlit door.”
Also,
“Someone came knocking at my wee, small door”.

(He is interested by knocking at doors.)

I also looked to no avail for Sea Fever by John Masefield:

“I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by,
And the wheel’s kick and the wind’s song and a white sail’s shaking,
And a grey mist on the sea’s face and a grey dawn breaking.”

And Home-Thoughts, From Abroad by Robert Browning.
“Oh, to be in England.
Now that April’s there,
And whoever wakes in England
Sees, some morning, unaware,
That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf
Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf,
While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough
In England – now!”

My Dad, who was also my Headmaster and teacher, loved poetry and got us to learn all these poems and more by heart. But, sadly, none were to be found in this anthology.

To return to the present anthology, it contains two poems by Arthur Waley, whom I did not know. These are translations of Chinese poetry.

The chrysanthemums in the Eastern Garden (Po Chü-i A.D. 812)

“The days of my youth left me long ago<,
And now in their turn dwindle my years of prime.
With what thoughts of sadness and loneliness
I walk again in this cold, deserted place! …

I remember, when I was young,
How quickly my mood changed from sad to gay …
But now that age comes
A moment of joy is harder to get.
And always I fear that when I am quite old
The strongest liquor will leave me comfortless.”

A Mad Poem addressed to my Nephews and nieces (Po Chü-I A.D. 835.

The World cheats those who cannot read,
I, happily, have mastered script and pen,
The World cheats those who hold no office;
I am blessed with high official rank.
Often the old have much sickness and pain,
With me, luckily, there is not much wrong.
People when they are old are often burdened with ties;
But I have finished with marriage and giving in marriage.”

I like these poems and will see if I can find Waley’s “Chinese Poems”.

The present book has probably been revised again so it now includes other more recent poets.

[Liz · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was my mum's A-level textbook, and as I began exploring poetry with my own A-levels, it became a signpost to the poetry that was out there beyond the realms (Hardy and the Thirties Poets) of my studies. Twenty years later I found it in a box and decided to reread.

It's a fascinating document, because it's a picture of 20th Century Poetry as it was viewed in the early 1960s. Allott is fairly free with his assessments, and quite a few poets receive short shrift even if their verse is included. Many of the earlier poets (particularly those writing pre-1930) have fallen into obscurity. The poems I now associate with Auden, MacNiece and Spender aren't included at all. I loved the Dylan Thomas pieces, but sensed that Allott included them grudgingly, not convinced of the man's genius at that point (just around Thomas's death, I think?). Ted Hughes is praised with reservation, while Allott clearly rates Sylvia Plath's work more highly - he has to curb his desire to list all the poems he couldn't find room for but wanted to include anyway.

A highly enjoyable wander back through the poetry of 1900-1960.

[Philip Coulter · Rating 4 out of 5]

I particularly enjoyed Allott's introduction and assessment of each of the poets - for good or bad, the ones that were still re-hashing arguments from the 40's on neo-romanticism, the ones referring to now famous poems by Plath or Larkin that were not yet published and couldn't the included. They're definitely a window into the times. Some of these introductions take up more space than the poems for that writer - the discussion of whether Thom Gunn would live up to his potential sticks in my mind.
If I had to pick one anthology to cover this period, it certainly wouldn't be this. There are too many odd selections, poets begrudgingly included by an editor who didn't actually care for their work, or writers included to present a poem by someone better know for their novels. But I enjoyed it nonetheless.

[Pollymoore3 · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have a feeling my English teacher at A level gave me this, and also "The New Poetry", in 1970. Favourites included here are Harold Monro's "Living" (less well-known than his much-anthologised (but still a favourite) "Overheard on a Saltmarsh"), Robert Graves' "Warning to Children", and Sidney Keyes' "William Wordsworth".

[Michael Vawser]

Reprint 1966