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Auden Group
The Auden Group or the Auden Generation is a group of British and Irish writers active in the 1930s that included W. H. Auden, Louis MacNeice, Cecil Day-Lewis, Stephen Spender, Christopher Isherwood, and sometimes Edward Upward and Rex Warner. They were sometimes called simply the Thirties poets (see "References"). Overview Although many newspaper articles and a few books appeared about the "Auden Group", the existence of the group was essentially a journalistic myth, a convenient label for poets and novelists who were approximately the same age, who had been educated at Oxford and Cambridge, who had known each other at different times, and had more or less left-wing views ranging from MacNeice's political scepticism to Upward's committed communism. The "group" was never together in the same room; the four poets, Auden, Day-Lewis, MacNeice and Spender, were in the same room only once in the 1930s, for a BBC broadcast in 1938 of modern poets (also including Dylan Thomas and othe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Louis MacNeice
Frederick Louis MacNeice (12 September 1907 – 3 September 1963) was an Irish poet and playwright, and a member of the Auden Group, which also included W. H. Auden, Stephen Spender and Cecil Day-Lewis. MacNeice's body of work was widely appreciated by the public during his lifetime, due in part to his relaxed but socially and emotionally aware style. Never as overtly or simplistically political as some of his contemporaries, he expressed a humane opposition to totalitarianism as well as an acute awareness of his roots. Life Ireland, 1907–1917 Louis MacNeice (known as Freddie until his teens, when he adopted his middle name) was born in Belfast, the youngest son of Rev. John Frederick and Elizabeth Margaret ("Lily") MacNeice.Poetry Foundation profile Both were originally from the West of Ireland. MacNeice's fa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cecil Day-Lewis
Cecil Day-Lewis (or Day Lewis; 27 April 1904 – 22 May 1972), often written as C. Day-Lewis, was an Irish-born British poet and Poet Laureate from 1968 until his death in 1972. He also wrote mystery stories under the pseudonym of Nicholas Blake. During World War II, Day-Lewis worked as a publications editor in the Ministry of Information for the U.K. government, and also served in the Musbury branch of the British Home Guard. He is the father of actor Sir Daniel Day-Lewis, and documentary filmmaker and television chef Tamasin Day-Lewis. Life and work Day-Lewis was born in 1904 in Ballintubbert, Athy/Stradbally border, Queen's County (now known as County Laois), Ireland. He was the son of Frank Day-Lewis, a Church of Ireland rector of that parish, and Kathleen Blake (née Squires; died 1906). Some of his family were from England (Hertfordshire and Canterbury). His father took the surname "Day-Lewis" as a combination of his own birth father's ("Day") and adoptive father's ("L ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stephen Spender
Sir Stephen Harold Spender (28 February 1909 – 16 July 1995) was an English poet, novelist and essayist whose work concentrated on themes of social injustice and the class struggle. He was appointed Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry by the United States Library of Congress in 1965. Early life Spender was born in Kensington, London, to journalist Harold Spender and Violet Hilda Schuster, a painter and poet, of German Jewish heritage. He went first to Hall School in Hampstead and then at 13 to Gresham's School, Holt and later Charlecote School in Worthing, but he was unhappy there. On the death of his mother, he was transferred to University College School (Hampstead), which he later described as "that gentlest of schools". Spender left for Nantes and Lausanne and then went up to University College, Oxford (much later, in 1973, he was made an honorary fellow). Spender said at various times throughout his life that he never passed any exam. Perhaps his closest friend and th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Christopher Isherwood
Christopher William Bradshaw Isherwood (26 August 1904 – 4 January 1986) was an Anglo-American novelist, playwright, screenwriter, autobiographer, and diarist. His best-known works include '' Goodbye to Berlin'' (1939), a semi-autobiographical novel which inspired the musical ''Cabaret''; ''A Single Man'' (1964), adapted as a film by Tom Ford in 2009; and '' Christopher and His Kind'' (1976), a memoir which "carried him into the heart of the Gay Liberation movement". Biography Early life and work Isherwood was born in 1904 on his family's estate in Cheshire near Stockport in the north-west of England. He was the elder son of Francis Edward Bradshaw Isherwood (1869–1915), known as Frank, a professional soldier in the York and Lancaster Regiment, and Kathleen Bradshaw Isherwood, nee Machell Smith (1868–1960), the only daughter of a successful wine merchant. He was the grandson of John Henry Isherwood, squire of Marple Hall and Wyberslegh Hall, Cheshire, and he included ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Edward Upward
Edward Falaise Upward, FRSL (9 September 1903 – 13 February 2009) was a British novelist and short story writer who, prior to his death, was believed to be the UK's oldest living author. Initially gaining recognition amongst the Auden Group as a highly imaginative surrealist writer, in the 1930s he joined the Communist Party of Great Britain, after which his writing shifted towards Marxist realism. His literary career spanned over eighty years. Early life and education Upward was born on 9 September 1903 in Romford, Essex, where his father had a doctor's surgery. His parents were Harold Arthur Upward (1874–1958), who came from a middle-class family on the Isle of Wight, and Louisa "Isa" Upward (''née'' Jones; 1869–1951), who had trained as a nurse and tried acting. His mother, who had grown up in Wanstead but was of Welsh descent, came from a lower-middle-class background but was very class conscious, a trait Upward strongly disliked. His siblings were John Mervyn Upward ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rex Warner
Rex Warner (9 March 1905 – 24 June 1986) was an English classicist, writer, and translator. He is now probably best remembered for ''The Aerodrome'' (1941).Chris Hopkins, ''English Fiction in the 1930s: Language, Genre, History'' Continuum International Publishing Group, 2007 (pp. 138–57). Warner was described by V. S. Pritchett as "the only outstanding novelist of ideas whom the decade of ideas produced"."Rex Warner, 81, Dies; Author and Translator". ''The New York Times'', 17 July 1986 Biographical sketch He was born Reginald Ernest Warner in Birmingham, England, and brought up mainly in Gloucestershire, where his father was a clergyman."Rex Warner(Obituary)". ''The Times''. 27 June 1986. He was educated at St. George's School in Harpenden, and at Wadham College, Oxford, where he associated with W. H. Auden, Cecil Day-Lewis, and Stephen Spender,Michael Moorcock, "Introduction" to ''The Aerodrome'', Vintage Classics, 2007. (p. ix–xx) and published in ''Oxford Poetry''. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oxbridge
Oxbridge is a portmanteau of Oxford and Cambridge, the two oldest, wealthiest, and most famous universities in the United Kingdom. The term is used to refer to them collectively, in contrast to other British universities, and more broadly to describe characteristics reminiscent of them, often with implications of superior social or intellectual status or elitism. Origins Although both universities were founded more than eight centuries ago, the term ''Oxbridge'' is relatively recent. In William Makepeace Thackeray's novel ''Pendennis'', published in 1850, the main character attends the fictional Boniface College, Oxbridge. According to the ''Oxford English Dictionary'', this is the first recorded instance of the word. Virginia Woolf used it, citing Thackeray, in her 1929 essay ''A Room of One's Own''. The term was used in the ''Times Educational Supplement'' in 1957, and the following year in ''Universities Quarterly''. When expanded, the universities are almost always referr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Poets
A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator (thought, thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral tradition, oral or literature, written), or they may also performance, perform their art to an audience. The work of a poet is essentially one of communication, expressing ideas either in a literal sense (such as communicating about a specific event or place) or metaphorically. Poets have existed since prehistory, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary greatly in different cultures and periods. Throughout each civilization and language, poets have used various styles that have changed over time, resulting in countless poets as diverse as the literature that (since the advent of writing systems) they have produced. History In Ancient Rome, professional poets were generally sponsored by patronage, patrons, wealthy sup ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dylan Thomas
Dylan Marlais Thomas (27 October 1914 – 9 November 1953) was a Welsh poet and writer whose works include the poems "Do not go gentle into that good night" and "And death shall have no dominion", as well as the "play for voices" ''Under Milk Wood''. He also wrote stories and radio broadcasts such as ''A Child's Christmas in Wales'' and ''Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog''. He became widely popular in his lifetime and remained so after his death at the age of 39 in New York City. By then, he had acquired a reputation, which he had encouraged, as a "roistering, drunken and doomed poet". Thomas was born in Swansea, Wales, in 1914. In 1931, when he was 16, Thomas, an undistinguished pupil, left school to become a reporter for the '' South Wales Daily Post''. Many of his works appeared in print while he was still a teenager. In 1934, the publication of "Light breaks where no sun shines" caught the attention of the literary world. While living in London, Thomas met Caitli ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Roy Campbell (poet)
Ignatius Royston Dunnachie Campbell, better known as Roy Campbell (2 October 1901 – 23 April 1957), was a South African poet, literary critic, literary translator, war poet, and satirist. Born into a White South African family of Scottish descent in Durban, Colony of Natal, Campbell was sent to England to attend Oxford University. Instead, Campbell drifted into London's literary bohemia. Following his marriage to bohemian Mary Garman, Campbell wrote the well-received poem ''The Flaming Terrapin'' which brought the Campbells into the highest circles of British literature. After supporting racial equality during a stay in South Africa as editor of the literary magazine ''Voorslag'', Campbell returned to England and became involved with the Bloomsbury Group. Campbell ultimately decided that the Bloomsbury Group was snobbish, promiscuous, nihilistic, and anti-Christian. Campbell lampooned them in a mock-epic poem called ''The Georgiad'', which damaged Campbell's reputation in l ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ronald Carter (linguist)
Ronald Allan Carter (4 May 1947 – 12 September 2018) was a British linguist. A native of Leeds, Carter studied English, Russian, and German, as well as comparative literature, at University of Birmingham. He began teaching at the University of Nottingham after completing a doctorate in 1979. Carter was a founding member of the Poetics and Linguistics Association The Poetics and Linguistics Association is an international academic association which exists to promote the research, teaching and learning in the study of linguistic style and the language of literature. The Poetics and Linguistics Association i ..., and later led the group as chairman. He was elected fellow of the Royal Society of Arts in 1995, and granted an equivalent honor by the Academy of Social Sciences in 2002. In 2009, Carter was named a Member of the Order of the British Empire. Carter died on 12 September 2018 at the age of 71. References {{DEFAULTSORT:Carter, Ronald 1947 births 2018 deaths 20th- ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jem Poster
Jem Poster (born 1949) is a British poet and novelist. His works include the collection of poetry ''Brought to Light'' (2001) and the novels ''Courting Shadows'' (2003) and ''Rifling Paradise'' (2006). Early life Poster was born in Cambridge, England. Writing Poster first attracted notice as a poet, and his debut collection, ''Brought to Light'', was published in 2001. A year later his first novel appeared: ''Courting Shadows'' is a historical novel with dark gothic undertones, a first-person account of a young architect's visit to a remote rural village, and of the damage he inflicts both on the community and on the fabric of its church. The book was widely and positively reviewed, with Julie Myerson, describing it in ''The Guardian'' as "highly, bewitchingly readable … a fantastically tightly written, read-every-word novel", and Jane Jakeman, writing in ''The Independent'', noted that it was "beautifully written, full of precision and intensity." Poster's second novel, ''Rif ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
