The ''Oxford Book of Modern Verse 1892–1935'' is a

poetry anthology In book publishing, an anthology is a collection of literary works chosen by the compiler; it may be a collection of plays, poems, short stories, songs, or related fiction/non-fiction excerpts by different authors. There are also thematic and ge ...

edited and introduced by

W. B. Yeats William Butler Yeats (, 13 June 186528 January 1939), popularly known as W. B. Yeats, was an Irish poet, dramatist, writer, and literary critic who was one of the foremost figures of 20th-century literature. He was a driving force behind the ...

and published in

1936 Events January–February * January 20 – The Prince of Wales succeeds to the throne of the United Kingdom as King Edward VIII, following the death of his father, George V, at Sandringham House. * January 28 – Death and state funer ...

Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the publishing house of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world. Its first book was printed in Oxford in 1478, with the Press officially granted the legal right to print books ...

Yeats begins his long introduction by saying that he has tried to include "all good poets who have lived or died from three years before the death of

Tennyson Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson (; 6 August 1809 – 6 October 1892) was an English poet. He was the Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom, Poet Laureate during much of Queen Victoria's reign. In 1829, Tennyson was awarded the Chancellor's ...

to the present moment". Implicitly the field is English-language poetry of Great Britain (which Yeats refers to throughout as "England") and Ireland, though notably a few Indian poets are included. Other than

T.S. Eliot Thomas Stearns Eliot (26 September 18884 January 1965) was a poet, essayist and playwright.Bush, Ronald. "T. S. Eliot's Life and Career", in John A Garraty and Mark C. Carnes (eds), ''American National Biography''. New York: Oxford University ...

and

Ezra Pound Ezra Weston Loomis Pound (30 October 1885 – 1 November 1972) was an List of poets from the United States, American poet and critic, a major figure in the early modernist poetry movement, and a Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Ita ...

, American poets are specifically excluded. In fact, many found the selection of poets to be idiosyncratic. Late Victorians are strongly represented and Georgian poetry is covered quite thoroughly. The

modernist Modernism was an early 20th-century movement in literature, visual arts, and music that emphasized experimentation, abstraction, and Subjectivity and objectivity (philosophy), subjective experience. Philosophy, politics, architecture, and soc ...

tendency does not predominate, though it is not ignored. Yeats excludes most war poetry of the First World War, explaining his distaste by quoting

Matthew Arnold Matthew Arnold (24 December 1822 – 15 April 1888) was an English poet and cultural critic. He was the son of Thomas Arnold, the headmaster of Rugby School, and brother to both Tom Arnold (academic), Tom Arnold, literary professor, and Willi ...

: "passive suffering is not a theme for poetry". Yeats represented his own friends generously, including Oliver St. John Gogarty and Shri Purohit Swami, as well as Margot Ruddock, with whom he was having a relationship. Gogarty is represented by seventeen poems, more than anybody else and three more than Yeats himself. He is also given a prominent position in the centre of the volume and praised in the introduction as "one of the great lyric poets of our age". In all, the volume includes 97 writers and 379 poems. Of these, sixteen are Irish. Ten are women, with strong representation of those of the 1920s and 1930s, such as

Frances Cornford Frances Crofts Cornford (née Darwin; 30 March 1886 – 19 August 1960) was an English poet. Biography She was the daughter of the botanist Francis Darwin and Newnham College, Cambridge, Newnham College fellow Ellen Wordsworth Darwin, Ellen ...

, Vita Sackville-West, Edith Sitwell, Sylvia Townsend Warner, and Dorothy Wellesley. Wellesley and Sitwell receive extensive praise in Yeats's introduction. Wellesley's poetry is given sixteen pages, more than

Thomas Hardy Thomas Hardy (2 June 1840 – 11 January 1928) was an English novelist and poet. A Literary realism, Victorian realist in the tradition of George Eliot, he was influenced both in his novels and in his poetry by Romanticism, including the poetry ...

(four) or W.H. Auden (five). Yeats notes in his introduction that he was refused permission to include

Robert Graves Captain Robert von Ranke Graves (24 July 1895 – 7 December 1985) was an English poet, soldier, historical novelist and critic. His father was Alfred Perceval Graves, a celebrated Irish poet and figure in the Gaelic revival; they were b ...

, Laura Riding, John Gray, and Sir William Watson, and that

Rudyard Kipling Joseph Rudyard Kipling ( ; 30 December 1865 – 18 January 1936)''The Times'', (London) 18 January 1936, p. 12. was an English journalist, novelist, poet, and short-story writer. He was born in British Raj, British India, which inspired much ...

and

were under-represented because of expense. He did not say which of their poems he would have included. Yeats makes significant edits to some of his selections. He includes a piece of prose by

Walter Pater Walter Horatio Pater (4 August 1839 – 30 July 1894) was an English essayist, Art critic, art and literary critic, and fiction writer, regarded as one of the great stylists. His first and most often reprinted book, ''Studies in the History of t ...

, laying it out with line breaks in order to present it as a poem. He writes that "Only by printing it in ''

vers libre Free verse is an open form of poetry which does not use a prescribed or regular meter or rhyme and tends to follow the rhythm of natural or irregular speech. Free verse encompasses a large range of poetic form, and the distinction between free v ...

'' can one show its revolutionary importance". He includes a severely edited version of The Ballad of Reading Gaol, asserting that having plucked "its foreign feathers it shows a stark realism akin to that of Thomas Hardy, the contrary to all its author deliberately sought. I plucked out even famous lines because, effective in themselves, put into the Ballad they become artificial, trivial, arbitrary".

Reception

Critics noted many idiosyncracies in Yeats's editorial choices, such as the exclusion of

Wilfred Owen Wilfred Edward Salter Owen Military Cross, MC (18 March 1893 – 4 November 1918) was an English poet and soldier. He was one of the leading poets of the First World War. His war poetry on the horrors of Trench warfare, trenches and Chemi ...

, the editing of The Ballad of Reading Gaol, the over-representation of Gogarty, and the exclusion of " The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" and "

The Waste Land ''The Waste Land'' is a poem by T. S. Eliot, widely regarded as one of the most important English-language poems of the 20th century and a central work of modernist poetry. Published in 1922, the 434-line poem first appeared in the United ...

". W.H. Auden called the anthology "the most deplorable volume ever issued" under the imprint of the Clarendon Press.

The Spectator ''The Spectator'' is a weekly British political and cultural news magazine. It was first published in July 1828, making it the oldest surviving magazine in the world. ''The Spectator'' is politically conservative, and its principal subject a ...

wrote that it was neither authoritative not definitive and should have been called "Mr Yeats's Book of Modern Verse". In a largely critical review of the anthology,

Robert Hillyer Robert Silliman Hillyer (June 3, 1895 – December 24, 1961) was an American poet and professor of English literature. He won a Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1934. Early life Hillyer was born in East Orange, New Jersey ...

in ''

The Atlantic ''The Atlantic'' is an American magazine and multi-platform publisher based in Washington, D.C. It features articles on politics, foreign affairs, business and the economy, culture and the arts, technology, and science. It was founded in 185 ...

'' suggested that "The selections and omissions are as capricious as the Introduction". Hillyer wrote that Yeats had over-represented "the school of Eliot, the school of Edith Sitwell, and the school of Pound" because, while he did not like them, he was afraid of them. Hillyer also suggested that Yeats's own poetic convictions were absent: "Forty-five pages of introduction and over four hundred pages of text fail to record the taste or convictions of one of the best of our modern poets, the man who was awarded the Nobel Prize while Thomas Hardy was still living." The

Times Literary Supplement ''The Times Literary Supplement'' (''TLS'') is a weekly literary review published in London by News UK, a subsidiary of News Corp. History The ''TLS'' first appeared in 1902 as a supplement to ''The Times'' but became a separate publication ...

, on the other hand, reviewed it favourably, while in Ireland, in reviews for two journals, J.J. Hogan commended Yeats's negative attitude towards modernism. The anthology became an instant bestseller, selling 15,000 copies in three months, and was reprinted many times. More recently the anthology has been seen as giving "a sense of what poetry was actually like in the 1920s and 1930s, when modernism was still just one of a number of poetic possibilities". It has been argued that it offers "the same essentially neo-Romantic critique of modernity that can be found in Yeats's own poems" and responds to the modernist poets inspired by Eliot and Pound "with a more idiosyncratic version of what it meant to be modern". It has been compared, both favourably and unfavourably, with the Faber Book of Modern Verse, published the same year.

Poets in the ''Oxford Book of Modern Verse 1892–1935''

* Lascelles Abercrombie * W. H. Auden * George Barker * Julian Bell *

Hilaire Belloc Joseph Hilaire Pierre René Belloc ( ; ; 27 July 187016 July 1953) was a French-English writer, politician, and historian. Belloc was also an orator, poet, sailor, satirist, writer of letters, soldier, and political activist. His Catholic fait ...

Laurence Binyon Robert Laurence Binyon, Member of the Order of the Companions of Honour, CH (10 August 1869 – 10 March 1943) was an English poet, dramatist and art scholar. Born in Lancaster, Lancashire, Lancaster, England, his parents were Frederick Binyon, ...

Edmund Blunden Edmund Charles Blunden (1 November 1896 – 20 January 1974) was an English poet, author, and critic. Like his friend Siegfried Sassoon, he wrote of his experiences in World War I in both verse and prose. For most of his career, Blunden was als ...

* Wilfrid Scawen Blunt * Gordon Bottomley * Thomas Boyd *

Robert Bridges Robert Seymour Bridges (23 October 1844 – 21 April 1930) was a British poet who was Poet Laureate from 1913 to 1930. A doctor by training, he achieved literary fame only late in life. His poems reflect a deep Christian faith, and he is ...

* Rupert Brooke * Joseph Campbell * Roy Campbell * G. K. Chesterton * Richard Church * Mary Elizabeth Coleridge *

Padraic Colum Padraic Colum (8 December 1881 – 11 January 1972) was an Irish poet, novelist, dramatist, biographer, playwright, children's author and collector of folklore. He was one of the leading figures of the Irish Literary Revival. Early life Co ...

* Alfred Edgar Coppard *

* William Henry Davies * Edward Davison *

Walter de la Mare Walter John de la Mare (; 25 April 1873 – 22 June 1956) was an English poet, short story writer and novelist. He is probably best remembered for his works for children, for his poem "The Listeners", and for his psychological horror short fi ...

Ernest Dowson Ernest Christopher Dowson (2 August 186723 February 1900) was an English poet, novelist, and short-story writer who is often associated with the Decadent movement. Biography Ernest Dowson was born in Lee, London, Lee, then in Kent, in 1867. His ...

* John Drinkwater * T. S. Eliot * Edwin John Ellis * William Empson * Michael Field * James Elroy Flecker * John Freeman * Manmohan Ghose * Wilfrid Gibson * Oliver St. John Gogarty *

Augusta, Lady Gregory Isabella Augusta, Lady Gregory (; 15 March 1852 – 22 May 1932) was an Anglo-Irish people, Anglo-Irish dramatist, Folklore, folklorist and theatre manager. With William Butler Yeats and Edward Martyn, she co-founded the Irish Literary Theatre a ...

* Julian Grenfell *

* William Ernest Henley * Frederick Robert Higgins * Ralph Hodgson *

Gerard Manley Hopkins Gerard Manley Hopkins (28 July 1844 – 8 June 1889) was an English poet and Society of Jesus, Jesuit priest, whose posthumous fame places him among the leading English poets. His Prosody (linguistics), prosody – notably his concept of sprung ...

A. E. Housman Alfred Edward Housman (; 26 March 1859 – 30 April 1936) was an English classics, classical scholar and poet. He showed early promise as a student at the University of Oxford, but he failed his final examination in ''literae humaniores'' and t ...

* Richard Hughes * Lionel Johnson *

James Joyce James Augustine Aloysius Joyce (born James Augusta Joyce; 2 February 1882 – 13 January 1941) was an Irish novelist, poet, and literary critic. He contributed to the modernist avant-garde movement and is regarded as one of the most influentia ...

* D. H. Lawrence *

Cecil Day-Lewis Cecil Day-Lewis (or Day Lewis; 27 April 1904 – 22 May 1972), often written as C. Day-Lewis, was an Anglo-Irish poet and Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom from 1968 until his death in 1972. He also wrote mystery stories under the pseudony ...

* Hugh M'Diarmid * Thomas MacGreevy * Louis MacNeice * Charles Madge *

John Masefield John Edward Masefield (; 1 June 1878 – 12 May 1967) was an English poet and writer. He was Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom, Poet Laureate from 1930 until his death in 1967, during which time he lived at Burcot, Oxfordshire, near Abingdon ...

* Edward Powys Mathers * Alice Meynell * Harold Monro *

Thomas Sturge Moore Thomas Sturge Moore (4 March 1870 – 18 July 1944) was a British poet, author and artist. Biography Sturge Moore was born at 3 Wellington Square, Hastings, East Sussex, on 4 March 1870 and educated at Dulwich College, the Croydon School ...

Henry Newbolt Sir Henry John Newbolt, Order of the Companions of Honour, CH (6 June 1862 – 19 April 1938) was an English poet, novelist and historian. He also had a role as a government adviser with regard to the study of English in England. He is perhaps ...

* Robert Nichols *

Frank O'Connor Frank O'Connor (born Michael Francis O'Donovan; 17 September 1903 – 10 March 1966) was an Irish author and translator. He wrote poetry (original and translations from Irish), dramatic works, memoirs, journalistic columns and features on as ...

* Vivian de Sola Pinto * William Plomer *

* Frederick York Powell *

Herbert Read Sir Herbert Edward Read, (; 4 December 1893 – 12 June 1968) was an English art historian, poet, literary critic and philosopher, best known for numerous books on art, which included influential volumes on the role of art in education. Read wa ...

* Ernest Rhys * Michael Roberts * Thomas William Hazen Rolleston * Margot Ruddock * George William Russell * Victoria Sackville-West *

Siegfried Sassoon Siegfried Loraine Sassoon (8 September 1886 – 1 September 1967) was an English war poet, writer, and soldier. Decorated for bravery on the Western Front (World War I), Western Front, he became one of the leading poets of the First World ...

* Geoffrey Scott * Edward Shanks * Edith Sitwell * Sacheverell Sitwell *

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 U.S. Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry ...

* J. C. Squire * William Force Stead * James Stephens * Leonard Strong * Frank Pearce Sturm * Shri Purohit Swami * Arthur Symons *

John Millington Synge Edmund John Millington Synge (; 16 April 1871 – 24 March 1909), popularly known as J. M. Synge, was an Irish playwright, poet, writer, essayist, and collector of folklores. As an important driving force behind the Irish Literary Revival, Ir ...

Rabindranath Tagore Rabindranath Thakur (; anglicised as Rabindranath Tagore ; 7 May 1861 – 7 August 1941) was a Bengalis, Bengali polymath who worked as a poet, writer, playwright, composer, philosopher, social reformer, and painter of the Bengal Renai ...

* Edward Thomas * Francis Thompson * Herbert Trench * Walter James Turner *

Arthur Waley Arthur David Waley (born Arthur David Schloss, 19 August 188927 June 1966) was an English orientalist and sinologist who achieved both popular and scholarly acclaim for his translations of Chinese and Japanese poetry. Among his honours were ...

* Sylvia Townsend Warner * Dorothy Wellesley *

Oscar Wilde Oscar Fingal O'Fflahertie Wills Wilde (16 October 185430 November 1900) was an Irish author, poet, and playwright. After writing in different literary styles throughout the 1880s, he became one of the most popular and influential playwright ...

References

External sources

''Oxford Book of Modern Verse 1892-1935'' at the Internet Archive https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.459263 {{DEFAULTSORT:Oxford Book Of Modern Verse 1892-1935 1936 poetry books British poetry anthologies Modern Verse 1892-1935, Oxford Book of W. B. Yeats

Contents

Reception

Poets in the ''Oxford Book of Modern Verse 1892–1935''

References

External sources