Michael Schmidt - Lives of the Poets: The History of Poets and Poetry

www.headofzeus.com

To Charles Schmidt,
Isabel Schmidt
and
Benedict Schmidt, with love

JOSEPH BRODSKY , DEREK WALCOTT , SEAMUS HEANEY , LES MURRAY

RICHARD ROLLE OF HAMPOLE , ROBERT MANNING OF BRUNNE , J OHN BARBOUR

RICHARD II AND JOHN WYCLIFFE

JOHN GOWER

JOHN GOWER , BOETHIUS , ROMANCEOF THE ROSE , GEOFFREY CHAUCER

WILLIAM LANGLAND

GEOFFREY CHAUCER

ANON .

CHARLES OF ORLEANS , THOMAS HOCCLEVE , JOHN LYDGATE , J ULIANA BERNERS

BALLADS : BISHOP PERCY , SIR WALTER SCOTT

ROBERT HENRYSON , WILLIAM DUNBAR , GAVIN DOUGLAS , STEPHEN HAWES

WILLIAM CAXTON

JOHN SKELTON

SIR THOMAS WYATT , HENRY HOWARD EARL OF SURREY

THOMAS LORD VAUX , THOMAS TUSSER , THOMAS SACKVILLE EARL OF DORSET , GEORGE GASCOIGNE , EDWARD DE VERE , ISABELLA WHITNEY

EDMUND SPENSER

SIR WALTER RALEGH , SIR PHILIP SIDNEY , M ARY SIDNEY COUNTESS OF PEMBROKE , QUEEN ELIZABETH I

GEORGE CHAPMAN , CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE , WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE , EMILIA LANYER

THOMAS CAMPION

BEN JONSON , LADY MARY WROTH

JOHN DONNE , SIR FRANCIS BACON

ROBERT HERRICK , GEORGE HERBERT , HENRY VAUGHAN

J OHN MILTON , ANNE BRADSTREET , MARGARET CAVENDISH

RICHARD LOVELACE , RICHARD CRASHAW , SIR JOHN SUCKLING , T HOMAS CAREW , ANDREW MARVELL , EDMUND WALLER , HENRY VAUGHAN

JOHN DRYDEN , JOHN WILMOT EARL OF ROCHESTER , KATHERINE PHILIPS , APHRA BEHN , ANNE FINCH COUNTESS OF WINCHILSEA , EDWARD TAYLOR

JONATHAN SWIFT , JOHN GAY , ALEXANDER POPE

THOMAS GRAY , CHRISTOPHER SMART , OLIVER GOLDSMITH

WILLIAM COWPER , CHARLOTTE SMITH

THOMAS CHATTERTON , PHILLIS WHEATLEY , GEORGE CRABBE

WILLIAM BLAKE

JAMES MACPHERSON , ROBERT BURNS

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH , DOROTHY WORDSWORTH , S AMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE

WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR , GEORGE GORDON LORD BYRON , FELICIA DOROTHEA HEMANS , PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY

JOHN CLARE , WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT , JOHN KEATS , THOMAS LOVELL BEDDOES

WILLIAM BARNES , ALFRED LORD TENNYSON , RALPH WALDO EMERSON

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW , EDGAR ALLAN POE , H ENRY DAVID THOREAU , HERMAN MELVILLE

ROBERT BROWNING , ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING , WALT WHITMAN

C HARLOTTE BRONT , EMILY BRONT , EMILY DICKINSON , C HRISTINA ROSETTI , DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI

MATTHEW ARNOLD , ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE , G ERARD MANLEY HOPKINS

THOMAS HARDY , CHARLOTTE MEW , EDWIN ARLINGTON ROBINSON , EDGAR LEE MASTERS , STEPHEN CRANE

A . E . HOUSMAN , RUDYARD KIPLING , ISAAC ROSENBERG , WILFRED OWEN , SIEGFRIED SASSOON , RUPERT BROOKE

W . B . YEATS , THE RHYMERS CLUB , EDWARD THOMAS , ROBERT FROST

T . E . HULME , D . H . LAWRENCE , T . S . ELIOT , E ZRA POUND , H . D . ( HILDA DOOLITTLE )

WALLACE STEVENS , MARIANNE MOORE , ELIZABETH BISHOP , JOHN ASHBERY , AMY CLAMPITT , SHARON OLDS , MARK DOTY

WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS , LOUIS ZUKOFSKY , BASIL BUNTING , C HARLES OLSON , ROBERT CREELEY , DENISE LEVERTOV , ROBERT DUNCAN , J . H . PRYNNE , JOHN RILEY , VERONICA FORREST - THOMSON , C HARLES TOMLINSON

HUGH MACDIARMID , AUSTIN CLARKE , PATRICK KAVANAGH , DAVID JONES , EDITH SITWELL , MINA LOY , ROBINSON JEFFERS , E . E . CUMMINGS , L ANGSTON HUGHES

ROBERT GRAVES , LAURA RIDING , JOHN CROWE RANSOM , ALLEN TATE , H ART CRANE

EDGELL RICKWORD , ROY CAMPBELL , WILLIAM EMPSON , W . H . AUDEN , JOHN BETJEMAN , LOUIS MACNEICE , THOMAS KINSELLA , JAMES FENTON

YVOR WINTERS , ELIZABETH DARYUSH , WENDY COPE , DONALD DAVIE , T HOM GUNN

DYLAN THOMAS , DAVID GASCOYNE , W . S . GRAHAM , BURNS SINGER , JOHN HEATH - STUBBS , GEORGE BARKER , C . H . SISSON , STEVIE SMITH , THEODORE ROETHKE , R . S . THOMAS

KEITH DOUGLAS , F . T . PRINCE , A . D . HOPE , RANDALL JARRELL , NORMAN MACCAIG , EDWIN MORGAN

ROBERT LOWELL , JOHN BERRYMAN , TED HUGHES , SYLVIA PLATH , ANNE SEXTON , PATRICIA BEER , ELIZABETH JENNINGS , PHILIP LARKIN

ALLEN GINSBERG , ADRIENNE RICH , EAVAN BOLAND , LOUISE GLCK , JORIE GRAHAM , JUDITH WRIGHT , GWEN HARWOOD , ALLEN CURNOW , JAMES K . BAXTER , W . S . MERWIN

GEOFFREY HILL , DEREK MAHON , CHARLES CAUSLEY , RICHARD WILBUR , BILL MANHIRE , CRAIG RAINE , CAROL ANN DUFFY , SIMON ARMITAGE

IAIN CRICHTON SMITH , GARY SNYDER , ELAINE FEINSTEIN , MIMI KHALVATI , SUJATA BHATT , GILLIAN CLARKE , ROBERT MINHINNICK , GWYNETH LEWIS , ANDREW MOTION , DAVID CONSTANTINE

FRANK O HARA , JOHN ASH , JAMES SCHUYLER , KENNETH KOCH , M ARK STRAND , CHRISTOPHER MIDDLETON , ROY FISHER , M ICHAEL HOFMANN , JEFFREY WAINWRIGHT

SEAMUS HEANEY , PAUL MULDOON , DEREK WALCOTT , LORNA GOODISON , EDWARD KAMAU BRATHWAITE , TONY HARRISON , JOSEPH BRODSKY , L ES MURRAY

M y main guides through the changing worlds of poetry in English are poets, particularly those who take an interest in their art and that of their fellow writers. Down the centuries poetry has been singularly blessed with articulate practitioners. They maintain a continuous conversation with one another, across languages and centuries. Poets live so long as their poems are heard, assimilated, handed on. The echo of Dante in Eliot or of Sappho in H. D. or Adrienne Rich is part of the larger continuity in which all of us who love the art have a right to participate as readers or writers. Among poet-critics of the twentieth century, Robert Graves, Randall Jarrell, C.H. Sisson, Donald Davie, Derek Walcott, Eavan Boland and John Ashbery were congenial companions, T.S. Eliot and Ezra Pound exigent (if not always agreeable) masters. Earlier companions and masters include Sidney, Dryden, Dr. Johnsonwho provided my titleColeridge, Shelley, Poe

Lives of the Poets traces the development of poetry in English from the fourteenth to the threshold of the twenty-first century, taking non-English poetry into account when its impact is registered. When the book was written it could not have gone any further in time without becoming prophetic, and prophesies are always erratic. It could have started earlier, however. Lives of the Poets was launched in Cambridge in 1999, where my elder son, reading Anglo Saxon at the time, asked me why I had omitted the Old English poets. Chastened, I later put together a series of critical anthologies entitled The Story of Poetry, rooted in this book, and added the Anglo Saxon poems into the first volume, with a substantial introduction. At the launch of that book my son, still at Cambridge, said, I think you were right in the first place to leave out the Anglo Saxons.

W ould it make sense to start this history of English poetry as far back as 657, with Cdmon? The scholar and critic A.R. Waller thought so. And from those days to our own, he wrote a century ago, in spite of periods of decadence, of apparent death, of great superficial change, the chief constituents of English literaturea reflective spirit, attachment to nature, a certain carelessness of art, love of home and country and an ever present consciousness that there are things worth more than deaththese have, in the main, continued unaltered. Changes may seem to us more than superficial, the thematic constants more complex than they appeared to Waller. Sixty years after him, his argument persisted. Microcosm and macrocosm, ubi sunt, consolation, Trinitarianismthese are but some of the ideas and motifs, wrote Stanley Greenfield, that Old English literature shares with the works of later writers lik e Donne, Arnold, Tennyson, and Milton. The English poets he calls to the witness stand undeniably deploy the motifs he lists, but those motifs, singly or in combination, are characteristic of any Germanic literatureindeed, of almost any literature we might care to name. Old English poetry was already remote in time and temperament from Chaucer and Gower, who are six centuries closer to it than we are. Its affinities with Langland and the work of the Gawain poet, and with the alliterative verse of Richard Rolle of Hampole and surviving shreds of popular verse are, apart from the alliterative tic, remote in tone and manner.