Incorrigibly Plural

Louis MacNeice and His Legacy

Fran Brearton, Michael Longley, Fran Brearton, Michael Longley

• Publisher: Lives and Letters
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN: 9781847771131
• eBook ISBN: 9781847775948
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literary Biographies
• Index: Literature

Incorrigibly Plural celebrates the diversity and vitality of Louis MacNeice's writing. Poets and critics illuminate the work of a writer whose achievement and influence is increasingly recognised as central to modern poetry in English. Contributions include responses to MacNeice by poets such as Paul Farley, Leontia Flynn, Nick Laird, Derek Mahon, Glyn Maxwell and Paul Muldoon; discussions by critics such as Neil Corcoran, Valentine Cunningham, Hugh Haughton, Peter McDonald and Clair Wills; and more biographical accounts, including a memoir by MacNeice's son, the late Dan MacNeice. For each of them, MacNeice remains a continuing presence for his insight into the mechanisms of the modern world, his complex political awareness, his ability to bring the historical moment alive. Above all, what emerges is pleasure in MacNeice's plurality of language and forms. More than a retrospective work of criticism, Incorrigibly Plural belongs to live debates about contemporary poetry.

INDEX

1. Adlington, William, 1
2. Aeschylus, 1
3. Aldington, Richard, 1, 2
4. Allen, Walter, 1
5. Alvarez, Al, 1
6. Andersen, Hans Christian, 1, 2
7. Apuleius, 1, 2
8. Aristotle, 1, 2
9. Auden, W.H., 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20;
   1. Letter to Lord Byron, 1, 2;
   2. ‘Lullaby’, 1;
   3. ‘Night Mail’, 1;
   4. ‘Song of the Beggars’, 1;
   5. ‘The Fall of Rome’, 1

1. Dallas, Alexander, 1
2. Dante, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
3. Day Lewis, Cecil, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10
4. De Wint, Peter, 1
5. Dickens, Charles, 1
6. Dobrée, Bonamy, 1
7. Dodds, E.R., 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9
8. Donaghy, Michael, 1
9. Dunbar, William, 1
10. Dylan, Bob, 1

1. Ei...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• CONTENTS
• ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
• ABBREVIATIONS
• PREFACE
• THE PITY OF IT ALL
• MEMOIRS
• PURE FORM, IMPURE POETRY, AND LOUIS MACNEICE’S LETTERS
• ‘I WILL ACQUIRE AN ATTITUDE NOT YOURS’: WAS FREDERICK MACNEICE A HOME RULER, AND WHY DOES THIS MATTER?
• ON MACNEICE ON TRAINS
• ‘WHAT AM I DOING HERE?’ TRAVEL AND MACNEICE
• MACNEICE AND THIRTIES (CLASSICAL) PASTORALISM
• ECLOGUES BETWEEN THE TRUCULENT
• MACNEICE’S VEHICLES
• ‘WHO WOULD BE LOVED BY A GODDESS?’ MACNEICE, GRAVES, AND THE LYRIC OF CLASSICAL MYTH
• THE PERNING BIRCH: YEATS, FROST, MACNEICE
• ‘THE LADIES WOULD SAY THAT HE LOOKED LIKE A POET’: TOM AND THE SELLING OF LOUIS
• THE LIVES WE LIVE
• TURN AND TURN AGAINST: THE CASE OF AUTUMN JOURNAL
• ‘THE PARROT’S LIE’: AUTUMN SEQUEL AND THE BBC
• ‘BULBOUS TALIESIN’: MACNEICE AND DYLAN THOMAS
• WHEN I THINK OF MACNEICE
• ‘HIS INTURNED EYES’: MACNEICE IN THE WOODS
• ‘COMING UP ENGLAND BY A DIFFERENT LINE’: LOUIS MACNEICE AND PHILIP LARKIN
• THE SAME AGAIN? MACNEICE’S REPETITIONS
• THE SEAL AND THE CAT
• NOTES
• GUIDE TO FURTHER READING
• NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS
• INDEX
• About the Author
• A selection of Irish writing from Carcanet Press
• Copyright