The Movement was a term coined in 1954 by J. D. Scott,

literary editor A literary editor is an editor in a newspaper, magazine or similar publication who deals with aspects concerning literature and books, especially reviews.

The Spectator ''The Spectator'' is a weekly British magazine on politics, culture, and current affairs. It was first published in July 1828, making it the oldest surviving weekly magazine in the world. It is owned by Frederick Barclay, who also owns ''The ...

'', to describe a group of writers including

Philip Larkin Philip Arthur Larkin (9 August 1922 – 2 December 1985) was an English poet, novelist, and librarian. His first book of poetry, '' The North Ship'', was published in 1945, followed by two novels, '' Jill'' (1946) and '' A Girl in Winter'' (1 ...

Kingsley Amis Sir Kingsley William Amis (16 April 1922 – 22 October 1995) was an English novelist, poet, critic, and teacher. He wrote more than 20 novels, six volumes of poetry, a memoir, short stories, radio and television scripts, and works of social an ...

Donald Davie Donald Alfred Davie, FBA (17 July 1922 – 18 September 1995) was an English Movement poet, and literary critic. His poems in general are philosophical and abstract, but often evoke various landscapes. Biography Davie was born in Barnsley, ...

, D. J. Enright,

John Wain John Barrington Wain CBE (14 March 1925 – 24 May 1994) was an English poet, novelist, and critic, associated with the literary group known as " The Movement". He worked for most of his life as a freelance journalist and author, writing and re ...

, Elizabeth Jennings,

Thom Gunn Thomson William "Thom" Gunn (29 August 1929 – 25 April 2004) was an English poet who was praised for his early verses in England, where he was associated with The Movement, and his later poetry in America, even after moving towards a looser, ...

and

Robert Conquest George Robert Acworth Conquest (15 July 1917 – 3 August 2015) was a British historian and poet. A long-time research fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution, Conquest was most notable for his work on the Soviet Union. His books ...

. The Movement was essentially English in character; poets from other parts of the United Kingdom were not involved.

Description

Although considered a literary group, members of the Movement saw themselves more as an actual

literary movement Literary movements are a way to divide literature into categories of similar philosophical, topical, or aesthetic features, as opposed to divisions by genre or period. Like other categorizations, literary movements provide language for comparing ...

, with each writer sharing a common purpose. To these poets, good poetry meant simple, sensuous content and traditional, conventional and dignified form. The Movement's importance includes its worldview, which took into account the collapse of the

British Empire The British Empire was composed of the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates, and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom and its predecessor states. It began with the overseas possessions and trading posts esta ...

and the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...

's drastically reduced power and influence over world geo-politics. The group's objective was to prove the importance of traditional

English poetry This article focuses on poetry from the United Kingdom written in the English language. The article does not cover poetry from other countries where the English language is spoken, including Republican Ireland after December 1922. The earliest ...

, over the American-led innovations of

modernist poetry Modernist poetry refers to poetry written between 1890 and 1950 in the tradition of modernist literature, but the dates of the term depend upon a number of factors, including the nation of origin, the particular school in question, and the biases ...

. The members of the Movement were not anti-modernity but they were opposed to

modernist literature Literary modernism, or modernist literature, originated in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and is characterized by a self-conscious break with traditional ways of writing, in both poetry and prose fiction writing. Modernism experimented ...

, which was reflected in the Englishness of their poetry. The Movement sparked the divisions among different types of British poetry. Their poems were nostalgic for an older England and filled with rural images of the decaying way of life in the villages as the

English people The English people are an ethnic group and nation native to England, who speak the English language in England, English language, a West Germanic languages, West Germanic language, and share a common history and culture. The English identi ...

moved away from the countryside and into urban ghettoization.

Representative collections

The Movement produced two anthologies, ''Poets of the 1950s'' (edited by D. J. Enright, published in Japan, 1955) and ''New Lines'' (edited by

, 1956). Conquest, who edited the ''New Lines'' anthology, described the connection between the poets as "little more than a negative determination to avoid bad principles". These 'bad principles' are usually described as "excess", both in terms of theme and stylistic devices. Poets in ''New Lines'' included Enright, Conquest,

, John Holloway, Elizabeth Jennings,

and

. The polemical introduction to ''New Lines'' particularly targeted the 1940s poets and especially denounced the literary legacy of

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 ...

, whom the Movement poets believed embodied, "everything they detested: verbal obscurity, metaphysical pretentiousness, and romantic rhapsodizing." In 1963, a sequel to the original ''New Lines'' anthology, titled ''New Lines 2'', was published. It included many of the authors from the original anthology, as well as younger English poets like

Thomas Blackburn Thomas, Tom or Tommy Blackburn may refer to: *Anthony Blackburn (born 1945), British vice-admiral and Equerry to the Royal Household, commonly known as Tom Blackburn *Thomas Blackburn (entomologist) (1844–1912), Australian entomologist *Thomas Bl ...

Edwin Brock Edwin Brock (19 October 1927 – 7 September 1997) was a British poet. Brock published ten volumes of poetry from 1959 through his death in 1997. Two of Brock's poems In particular -- ''Five Ways to Kill a Man'' (1972) and ''Song of th ...

Hilary Corke Hilary Topham Corke (12 July 1921 – 3 September 2001) was an English writer, composer and mineralogist. Corke was born in Malvern, Worcestershire. He served in the Royal Artillery during World War II. His poems appeared in ''Poetry Now'' (1 ...

, John Fuller,

Ted Hughes Edward James "Ted" Hughes (17 August 1930 – 28 October 1998) was an English poet, translator, and children's writer. Critics frequently rank him as one of the best poets of his generation and one of the twentieth century's greatest wri ...

Edward Lucie-Smith John Edward McKenzie Lucie-Smith (born 27 February 1933), known as Edward Lucie-Smith, is a Jamaican-born English writer, poet, art critic, curator and broadcaster. He has been highly prolific in these fields, writing or editing over a hundred ...

Anthony Thwaite Anthony Simon Thwaite (23 June 1930 – 22 April 2021) was an English poet and critic, widely known as the editor of his friend Philip Larkin's collected poems and letters. Early years and education Born in Chester, England, to Yorkshire par ...

and

Hugo Williams Hugo Williams (born Hugh Anthony Mordaunt Vyner Williams) is an English poet, journalist and travel writer. He received the T. S. Eliot Prize in 1999 and Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry in 2004. Family and early life Williams was born in 1942 in ...

Decline

The "

Angry Young Men The "angry young men" were a group of mostly working- and middle-class British playwrights and novelists who became prominent in the 1950s. The group's leading figures included John Osborne and Kingsley Amis; other popular figures included John ...

" movement occurred in 1956 during the turning point of the Movement.Angry Young Men
/ref> David Lodge attributed the Movement's decline to the publication of the ''New Lines'' anthology. After these events, the Movement became less exclusive. Members were no longer required to fight and defend one another's work, for they had become accepted members of the literary world. The Movement was succeeded in the 1960s by “

The Group The Group may refer to: Film and television * ''The Group'' (Australian TV series), 1971 situation comedy produced by Cash Harmon Television for ATN7 * ''The Group'' (Canadian TV series), 1968–70 music variety on CBC Television * ''The Group ...

”, whose members included

Philip Hobsbaum Philip Dennis Hobsbaum (29 June 1932 – 28 June 2005) was a British teacher, poet and critic. Life Hobsbaum was born into a Polish Jewish family in London, and brought up in Bradford, Yorkshire, where he attended Belle Vue Boys' Grammar Sc ...

Alan Brownjohn Alan Charles Brownjohn (born 28 July 1931) is an English poet and novelist. He has also worked as a teacher, lecturer, critic and broadcaster. Life and work Alan Brownjohn was born in London and educated at Merton College, Oxford. He taught in ...

Adrian Mitchell Adrian Mitchell FRSL (24 October 1932 – 20 December 2008) was an English poet, novelist and playwright. A former journalist, he became a noted figure on the British Left. For almost half a century he was the foremost poet of the country's Cam ...

, Peter Porter, Edward Lucie-Smith,

George MacBeth George Mann MacBeth (19 January 1932 – 16 February 1992) was a Scottish poet and novelist. Biography George MacBeth was born in Shotts, Lanarkshire, Scotland. When he was three, his family moved to Sheffield in England. He was educated in Sh ...

, Ian Hamilton's Review school and

Michael Horovitz Michael Yechiel Ha-Levi Horovitz (4 April 1935 – 7 July 2021) was a German-born British poet, editor, visual artist and translator who was a leading part of the Beat Poetry scene in the UK. In 1959, while still a student, he founded the "t ...

's "Children of Albion". The Group was similar to the Movement; they shared similar ideas about the form and seriousness of modernist poetry.

References

Bibliography

* Enright, D. J. (editor), ''Poets of the 1950s: An Anthology of New English Verse'', Tokyo, Kenkyusha, 1955 * Morrison, Blake, ''The Movement'',

Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print books ...

, 1980 {{DEFAULTSORT:Movement, The English literary movements 20th-century British literature 1950s neologisms