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The Neo-Apocalypse Poetry Lecture No: 25 1 Subject: ENGLISH Class: B.A. Part 1 English Hons., Paper-1, Group B Topic: The Neo-Apocalypse Poetry Lecture No: 25 By: Prof. Sunita Sinha Head, Department of English Women’s College Samastipur L.N.M.U., Darbhanga Email: [email protected] Website: www.sunitasinha.com Mob No: 9934917117 “THE NEO-APOCALYPSE POETS” INTRODUCTION • In mid-twentieth-century Britain, there was a whole literary movement devoted to the end of the world: The Apocalypse Poets were a group of British writers inspired by Surrealism, and their work is awash with nightmarish images of war and chaos. • Apocalypse poetry was a reaction to the poetic dominance of the Auden Generation during the 1930s. • Aesthetically, Apocalypticism dealt in nightmarish images, engaged with mythology, and meditated on war. 2 • Politically, it tended towards anarchism. • Poets Henry Treece (1912–1966) and J. F. Hendry (1912–1986) became acquainted with one another while contributing to the literary magazine Seven. • They developed an Apocalyptic manifesto in 1938 in collaboration with Dorian Cooke (1916–2005). • The following year, Treece and Hendry edited an anthology of poetry entitled The New Apocalypse (1939). They later anthologised two more collections of Apocalyptic poetry: The White Horseman (1941) and The Crown and the Sickle (1943). • By the time The Crown and the Sickle saw publication, the Apocalypse movement had lost much of its momentum and, along with another short-lived movement, Personalism, was subsumed under an emerging New Romanticism. • They described themselves as ‘anticerebral’, claimed a ‘large, accepting attitude to life’, invoked the name of D. H. Lawrence. IMPORTANT POETS Henry Treece (1911- 1966) • Henry Treece, English poet and historical novelist whose ability to bring the ancient world to life in fiction makes his work especially appealing to young readers. 3 • As a poet he—together with J.F. Hendry—was a founder of the New Apocalypse movement, a reaction against the politically oriented, machine-age literature and realist poetry of the 1930s. Treece was educated at Birmingham University. • He became a schoolteacher, and later he served as intelligence officer in the Bomber Command during World War II. After the war he resumed writing—verse, drama, short stories, British Broadcasting Corporation scripts, as well as poetry. • His most important collections of verse are The Black Seasons (1945) and The Exiles (1952). In fiction perhaps his finest achievement is The Bronze Sword (1965), a romantic “eyewitness” account of Celtic Britain’s history from the Bronze Age to the decline of the Cymry under the legendary King Arthur. • His historical novels include The Eagles Have Flown (1954), Red Queen, White Queen (1958), and his last novel, The Green Man (1966). He also wrote for children. James Findlay Hendry (1912-1986) • J. F. Hendry was a Scottish poet known also as an editor and writer. He was born in Glasgow, and read Modern Languages at the University of Glasgow. During World War II he served in the Royal Artillery and the Intelligence Corps. • After the war he worked as a translator for international organizations, including the UN and the ILO. He later took a chair at Laurentian University. He died in Toronto. 4 • He edited with HenryTreece the poetry anthology The New Apocalypse (1939) which gave its name to the New Apocalyptics poetic group. The long poem Marimarusa was published in 1978. Nicholas Moore (1918- 1986) • Nicholas Moore one of the “New Apocalypse” English poets of the 1940s who reacted against the preoccupation with social and political issues of the 1930s by turning toward romanticism. • He published an important literary review, Seven (1938–40), while a Cambridge undergraduate and was a conscientious objector during World War II. • Most of his verse was published in the war years: The Island and the Cattle and A Wish in Season (both 1941), The Cabaret, the Dancer, the Gentleman (1942), and The Glass Tower (1944). • After editing poetry magazines in London, he wrote little until Resolution and Identity appeared in a limited edition in 1970. Spleen (1973) presented 30 variations on a poem by Charles Baudelaire. Longings of the Acrobats (1990), a selection of his poetry, was published posthumously. George Barker (1913- 1991) • George Granville Barker was an English poet, identified with the New Apocalyptics movement, which reacted against 1930s realism with mythical and surrealistic themes. 5 • Early volumes of note by Barker include Thirty Preliminary Poems (1933), Poems (1935) and Calamiterror (1937), which was inspired by the Spanish Civil War and contains an attack on the Spanish Nationalists. Vernon Phillips Watkins (1906 –1967) • Vernon Phillips Watkins was a Welsh poet, translator and painter. He was a close friend of fellow poet Dylan Thomas, who described him as "the most profound and greatly accomplished Welshman writing poems in English". • During the war he was for a time associated with the New Apocalyptics group. His volumes of poetry include The Ballad of the Mari Lwyd (1941), The Lamp and the Veil (1945), The Lady with the Unicorn (1948), The Death Bell (1954), Cypress and Acacia (1959), Affinities (1962), and Fidelities (1968). CONCLUSION • Henry Treece, in his 1946 book, How I See Apocalypse, enumerated the qualities of Apocalyptic Movement writings: “In my definition, the writer who senses the chaos, the turbulence, the laughter and the tears, the order and the peace of the world in its entirety, is an Apocalyptic writer. His utterance will be prophetic, for he is observing things which less sensitive men may have not yet come to notice; and as his words are prophetic, they will tend to be incantatory, and so musical. At times, even, that music may take control, and lead the writer from recording his 6 vision almost to creating another voice. So, momentarily, he will kiss the edge of God's robe.” *** By: Prof. Sunita Sinha Head, Department of English Women’s College Samastipur L.N.M.U., Darbhanga Email: [email protected] Website: www.sunitasinha.com Mob No:9934917117 .
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