The

British Army The British Army is the principal Army, land warfare force of the United Kingdom. the British Army comprises 73,847 regular full-time personnel, 4,127 Brigade of Gurkhas, Gurkhas, 25,742 Army Reserve (United Kingdom), volunteer reserve perso ...

presence in

Egypt Egypt ( , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country spanning the Northeast Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to northe ...

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

had, as a side effect, the concentration of a group of Cairo poets. There had been a noticeable literary group in

Cairo Cairo ( ; , ) is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Egypt and the Cairo Governorate, being home to more than 10 million people. It is also part of the List of urban agglomerations in Africa, largest urban agglomeration in Africa, L ...

before the war in

North Africa North Africa (sometimes Northern Africa) is a region encompassing the northern portion of the African continent. There is no singularly accepted scope for the region. However, it is sometimes defined as stretching from the Atlantic shores of t ...

broke out, including university academics. Possibly as a reflection of that, there were two strands of literary activity and publication during the years 1942–1944. There was the ''Personal Landscape'' group centred on the publication of that name, founded by

Lawrence Durrell Lawrence George Durrell (; 27 February 1912 – 7 November 1990) was an expatriate British novelist, poet, dramatist, and travel writer. He was the eldest brother of naturalist and writer Gerald Durrell. Born in India to British colonial pa ...

, Robin Fedden and

Bernard Spencer Charles Bernard Spencer (1909 – 1963) was an English poet, translator, and editor. He was born in Madras, India and educated at Marlborough College and Corpus Christi College, Oxford. At Marlborough he knew John Betjeman and Louis MacNeice ...

. There was also the ''

Salamander Salamanders are a group of amphibians typically characterized by their lizard-like appearance, with slender bodies, blunt snouts, short limbs projecting at right angles to the body, and the presence of a tail in both larvae and adults. All t ...

'' group, which produced a magazine and the ''

Oasis In ecology, an oasis (; : oases ) is a fertile area of a desert or semi-desert environmentTerence Tiller and G. S. Fraser had a foot in both camps. Keith Douglas, the iconic

war poet War poetry is poetry on the topic of war. While the term is applied especially to works of the First World War, the term can be applied to poetry about any war, including Homer's ''Iliad'', from around the 8th century BC as well as poetry of th ...

, was associated with the ''Personal Landscape'' group. Alan Rook, John Gawsworth and John Waller published in ''Salamander''. Several of the Cairo poets appeared in the 'Poets in Uniform' issue of Tambimuttu's '' Poetry London'' early in 1941. An English literary presence persisted after the war, in the persons of P. H. Newby, Robert Liddell, Denys Johnson-Davies, Hilary Corke and

D. J. Enright Dennis Joseph Enright OBE FRSL (11 March 1920 – 31 December 2002) was a British academic, poet, novelist and critic. He authored ''Academic Year'' (1955), ''Memoirs of a Mendicant Professor'' (1969) and a wide range of essays, reviews, antho ...

Poets in ''Personal Landscape. An Anthology of Exile'' (1945)

Keith Douglas,

, Harold Edwards, Robin Fedden, G. S. Fraser, Diana Gould, Charles Johnston, Robert Liddell,

Olivia Manning Olivia Mary Manning (2 March 1908 – 23 July 1980) was a British novelist, poet, writer, and reviewer. Her fiction and non-fiction, frequently detailing journeys and personal odysseys, were principally set in the United Kingdom, Euro ...

, Elie Papadimitiou, Hugh Gordon Porteus, George Seferis, Ruth Speirs,

, Terence Tiller, David Gwyn Williams.

References

* *''Personal Landscapes: British Poets in Egypt during the Second World War'' by Jonathan Bolton *''From Oasis into Italy'' (1983), anthology from the continuing Salamander Oasis Trust *

External links

Salamander Oasis Trust
— including brief historical note {{Schools of poetry Poetry movements British literary movements 20th-century British literature