Louis MacNeice (1907–1963)
Author of Letters from Iceland
About the Author
Born in Belfast and raised in Carrickfergus, MacNeice was the son of an Anglican clergyman who became a bishop. His education in English schools and Oxford University made him ill at ease with his Puritan upbringing, but it never caused him to lose his sense of northern Irish roots. At Oxford, show more MacNeice became friends with Stephen Spender and later, W. H. Auden, with whom he collaborated on "Letters from Iceland" (1937). After graduating with a double first, MacNeice accepted a lectureship in the classics at Birmingham University and, after the traumatic elopement of his first wife, at Bedford College of the University of London. He joined the BBC as scriptwriter and producer in 1941 and remained with it for the remainder of his career. He also did an admired translation of Aeschylus's "Agamemnon" and the well-known book "The Poetry of W. B. Yeats" (1941). MacNeice defended his own poetry and that of Auden, Spender, and C. Day Lewis in his book "Modern Poetry" (1938). There he called for an "impure poetry" that would react against the giants of the previous generation by embracing the partisanship that he missed in W. B. Yeats and involvement with life that he found lacking in T. S. Eliot, both of whom had otherwise influenced him. While engaged with personal and political issues of the 1930's, MacNeice maintained a more skeptical stance than many of his contemporaries. His best verse---such as "Valediction" or "Bagpipe Music"---brings wit and strong rhythms to bear on contemporary life and often harks back to scenes of his youth. After joining the BBC, he also wrote more than 150 scripts, of which a dozen radio dramas have been published. An autobiography, "The Strings Are False," was published posthumously in 1966. During his lifetime, MacNeice was overshadowed by Auden, but in recent years, reevaluation of his work has regarded him as a major literary figure. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Works by Louis MacNeice
Poems, 1925-1940 8 copies
Eighty-five poems 2 copies
Sunday Morning 1 copy
Oxford poetry, 1929 1 copy
“Bagpipe Music” 1 copy
THE POETRY OF W. B. YEATS 1 copy
ルイ・マクニース詩集 1 copy
秋の日記 1 copy
Associated Works
The Making of a Poem: A Norton Anthology of Poetic Forms (2000) — Contributor — 1,462 copies, 9 reviews
World Poetry: An Anthology of Verse from Antiquity to Our Time (1998) — Contributor — 496 copies, 2 reviews
Against Forgetting: Twentieth-Century Poetry of Witness (1993) — Contributor — 375 copies, 2 reviews
Choice Cuts: A Savory Selection of Food Writing from Around the World and Throughout History (2002) — Contributor — 367 copies, 2 reviews
The Norton Anthology of English Literature, 4th Edition, Volume 2 (1979) — Contributor — 269 copies, 1 review
Goethe's Faust, Parts I & II: An Abridged Version (1961) — Translator, some editions — 170 copies, 2 reviews
Poetry Speaks Expanded: Hear Poets Read Their Own Work from Tennyson to Plath (2007) — Contributor — 157 copies, 2 reviews
Answering Back: Living Poets Reply to the Poetry of the Past (2007) — Contributor — 118 copies, 1 review
Leading from Within: Poetry That Sustains the Courage to Lead (2007) — Contributor — 115 copies, 3 reviews
Great Irish Writing: The Best from The Bell (Classic Irish Fiction) (1978) — Contributor — 23 copies
Edexcel Poetry Anthology for Advanced subsidiary and advanced GCE examinations in English Literature (2000) — Contributor, some editions — 6 copies
Die englische Literatur 09 in Text und Darstellung. 20. Jahrhundert. (2001) — Contributor — 3 copies
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Canonical name
- MacNeice, Louis
- Legal name
- MacNeice, Frederick Louis
- Birthdate
- 1907-09-12
- Date of death
- 1963-09-03
- Gender
- male
- Education
- Sherborne School, Dorset, England, UK
Marlborough College, Wiltshire, England, UK
University of Oxford (Merton College) - Occupations
- poet
playwright - Nationality
- Ireland (birth)
- Birthplace
- Belfast, Northern Ireland, UK
- Places of residence
- Carrickfergus, County Antrim, Northern Ireland, UK
Birmingham, Warwickshire, England, UK
London, England, UK - Place of death
- London, England, UK
- Burial location
- Carrowdore's Church of Ireland, Ards, Ireland
- Associated Place (for map)
- UK
Members
Reviews
Some pretty amusing pastiche, but the Icelanders don't come off terribly well in the account of Auden and MacNeice's trip!
What a strange and weird travel book about Auden and MacNeice’s three month’s of travel around Iceland, mainly by bus and pony, in 1936; part letters home, part poetry, a little fact and quotes from earlier writers about Iceland, and a diary section written by a cod spinster.
As Auden says in his first “Letter to Lord Byron”:
Every exciting letter has enclosures,
And so shall this - a bunch of photographs,
Some out of focus, some with wrong exposures,
Press cuttings, gossip, maps, show more statistics, graphs;
I don’t intend to do the thing by halves,
I’m going to be very up to date indeed.
It is a collage that you’re going to read.
It might have been considered a bit of a rum do in its time, it now reads as humorously eccentric. It is fascinating too for its view of a historic Iceland that has disappeared in the 80 odd years since it was written (although Auden bemoans the move to towns from the countryside), for mentions of German tourists in search of the Aryan homeland and fleeting references to the Spanish Civil War, which started whilst Auden and MacNeice were in Iceland. The book ends with a humorous versified joint Last Will & Testament, which surprised me with its name dropping - John Betjeman may be expected, but Anthony Blunt and Guy Burgess (both later revealed as Russian spies) were a surprise.
Overall, an enjoyable but not special book, with MacNeice’s letters from Hetty to Nancy are the most interesting reads, and Auden’s Letters to Lord Byron also working well. show less
As Auden says in his first “Letter to Lord Byron”:
Every exciting letter has enclosures,
And so shall this - a bunch of photographs,
Some out of focus, some with wrong exposures,
Press cuttings, gossip, maps, show more statistics, graphs;
I don’t intend to do the thing by halves,
I’m going to be very up to date indeed.
It is a collage that you’re going to read.
It might have been considered a bit of a rum do in its time, it now reads as humorously eccentric. It is fascinating too for its view of a historic Iceland that has disappeared in the 80 odd years since it was written (although Auden bemoans the move to towns from the countryside), for mentions of German tourists in search of the Aryan homeland and fleeting references to the Spanish Civil War, which started whilst Auden and MacNeice were in Iceland. The book ends with a humorous versified joint Last Will & Testament, which surprised me with its name dropping - John Betjeman may be expected, but Anthony Blunt and Guy Burgess (both later revealed as Russian spies) were a surprise.
Overall, an enjoyable but not special book, with MacNeice’s letters from Hetty to Nancy are the most interesting reads, and Auden’s Letters to Lord Byron also working well. show less
Re-reading him after some years. I do love Louis Macneice, great poet of the everyday and the bittersweet. He sets out to make you feel quite pessimistic and grim, yet you end up laughing for joy. Favourites: “Snow”; “Prayer before Birth” that wonderful incantation; “Apple Blossom” and “The Truisms”.
So immediate, so that it almost reads as stream of consciousness poetry:
Close and slow, summer is ending in Hampshire,
Ebbing away down ramps of shaven lawn where close-clipped yew
Insulates the lives of retired generals and admirals
And the spyglasses hung in the hall and the prayer-books ready in the pew
And August going out to the tin trumpets of nasturtiums
And the sunflowers’ Salvation Army blare of brass And the spinster sitting in a deck-chair picking up stitches
Not raising her show more eyes to the noise of the ’planes that pass
By turns, autobiographical and personal.
But for all that, so of the historical moment, as he went into 1939. show less
Close and slow, summer is ending in Hampshire,
Ebbing away down ramps of shaven lawn where close-clipped yew
Insulates the lives of retired generals and admirals
And the spyglasses hung in the hall and the prayer-books ready in the pew
And August going out to the tin trumpets of nasturtiums
And the sunflowers’ Salvation Army blare of brass And the spinster sitting in a deck-chair picking up stitches
Not raising her show more eyes to the noise of the ’planes that pass
By turns, autobiographical and personal.
But for all that, so of the historical moment, as he went into 1939. show less
Lists
Awards
You May Also Like
Associated Authors
Statistics
- Works
- 53
- Also by
- 40
- Members
- 1,407
- Popularity
- #18,263
- Rating
- 3.9
- Reviews
- 16
- ISBNs
- 71
- Languages
- 4
- Favorited
- 8