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Children of The New Poetry

William Wootten

in The Alvarez Generation: Thom Gunn, Geoffrey Hill, Ted Hughes, Sylvia Plath, and Peter Porter

This chapter argues that the offsprings of The New Poetry have neither the nerve nor nous to have both the fierce partiality and the representativeness of Alvarez. Its Penguin successor, Blake ... More

This chapter argues that the offsprings of The New Poetry have neither the nerve nor nous to have both the fierce partiality and the representativeness of Alvarez. Its Penguin successor, Blake Morrison and Andrew Motion's Penguin Book of Contemporary British Verse, was ultimately a consolidation of a dominant taste more than an argument for a fresh one. The oft-stated complaint about the younger poets championed in their book is that their work was merely a continuation of the Movement by flashier device, but in truth a number of them are better seen as children of The New Poetry. Bloodaxe, a specialist poetry house, has for the last two decades taken upon itself to publish generation-defining anthologies. Its own The New Poetry borrowed Alvarez's title, if not his sense of purpose, but drew heavily on the format and ethos of Edward Lucie-Smith, if not his evaluative sense. The editors assembled work which often showed the influence of Paul Muldoon as well as the New York Poets, whose sense of play, even of fun, is much more clearly at odds with the spirits of Alvarez and of Conquest than are the influences of the Motion/Morison book.Less

Discrimination and the Popular Arts

Christopher Hilliard

in English as a Vocation: The 'Scrutiny' Movement

Chapter 6 examines two major efforts to apply the approaches of Scrutiny's cultural criticism to the post-war scene, which now included commercial television and more complex popular art forms aimed ... More

Chapter 6 examines two major efforts to apply the approaches of Scrutiny's cultural criticism to the post-war scene, which now included commercial television and more complex popular art forms aimed at young people. The Penguin volume Discrimination and Popular Culture, which was dominated by Leavis's pupils, grew out of a 1960 teachers’ conference on ‘Popular Culture and Personal Responsibility’. So too did Stuart Hall and Paddy Whannel's The Popular Arts, which adapted Scrutiny ideas and Scrutiny rhetoric to defend certain kinds of film and music as genuinely ‘popular’ and creative, distinguishing them from the rest of ‘mass civilization’. The Popular Arts was consistent with the programme of ‘cultural studies’ that Richard Hoggart outlined for the new centre at the University of Birmingham, but sociology and western Marxism quickly supplanted this ‘left-Leavisite’ version of cultural studies.Less

Minority Culture and the Penguin Public

Christopher Hilliard

in English as a Vocation: The 'Scrutiny' Movement

This chapter examines the engagement of Scrutiny contributors and F. R. Leavis's pupils with wider publics. F. R. Leavis's idea of ‘minority culture’ was not simply ‘elitist’ but envisioned a chain ... More

This chapter examines the engagement of Scrutiny contributors and F. R. Leavis's pupils with wider publics. F. R. Leavis's idea of ‘minority culture’ was not simply ‘elitist’ but envisioned a chain of ever larger ‘publics’ that could be guided indirectly by a critical minority. The chapter discusses his own public interventions during the 1960s and 1970s, and contrasts them with those of his followers, who went in for the sorts of popularizing usually practised by British intellectuals in the twentieth century. The focus is on the seven-volume Pelican Guide to English Literature edited by Boris Ford, which projected Scrutiny interpretations to a mass audience. Working from the Penguin archives, the chapter charts the series's publishing history, and explores the ways the context of a survey text affected critical judgements in the Scrutiny mode.Less

Anthology-Making

William Wootten

in The Alvarez Generation: Thom Gunn, Geoffrey Hill, Ted Hughes, Sylvia Plath, and Peter Porter

This chapter focuses on poetry anthologies published in the 1950s and 1960s. Robert Conquest's 1956 Macmillan anthology New Lines was responsible for consolidating the arguments and personnel of the ... More

This chapter focuses on poetry anthologies published in the 1950s and 1960s. Robert Conquest's 1956 Macmillan anthology New Lines was responsible for consolidating the arguments and personnel of the Movement in the public mind. This was achieved through his clear taste and agenda, New Lines' limited personnel of just nine poets, and the generous selections from the poets' work it contained. Another anthology published in the same year was G. S. Fraser's Poetry Now, where no less than 74 poets are represented. The contents list reveals that Fraser was acquainted with the work of many poets from all sides of the poetry world, while the introduction reveals him to be well informed on recent poetic trends. Penguin, the biggest British publisher at that time, also drew up a scheme for new poetry anthologies: a new edition of Kenneth Allott's Contemporary Verse; Poetry since the War, a book suggested by [C. B.] Cox and [A. E.] Dyson of the Critical Quarterly; and An Anthology of Twentieth Century Lyrics with an emphasis on the Georgian style and its inheritors to be edited by one John Smith.Less

Introductory Overview

Raymond C. Smith

in Climate Variability and Ecosystem Response in Long-Term Ecological Research Sites

The El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is a coupled ocean–atmosphere phenomena that has a worldwide impact on climate. An aperiodic phenomena that ... More

The El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is a coupled ocean–atmosphere phenomena that has a worldwide impact on climate. An aperiodic phenomena that reoccurs every 2 to 7 years, the ENSO is second only to seasonal variability in driving worldwide weather patterns. As Greenland notes in chapter 6, the term “quasi-quintennial” is chosen to recognize that climatic events other than ENSO-related events might occur at this timescale, although it is widely recognized that ENSO contributes the lion’s share of the higher frequency variability in paleorecords of the past several thousand years. In this section, we consider variability with cycles of 2 to 7 years and the resulting ecological response. Although we emphasize the ENSO timescale in this section, there is growing evidence that this phenomena is neither spatially nor temporally stable over longer time periods. Indeed, Allan (2000) suggests the ENSO climatic variability must be viewed within the context of climate fluctuations at decadal to interdecadal timescales, which often modulate the higher frequency ENSO variability. As a consequence, results in this and the next section often display overlapping patterns of variability, and their separation is not sharply defined. An important theme in this section is the worldwide influence of ENSO-related climate variability. Greenland (chapter 6) provides an LTER network overview with an analysis of ENSO-related variability of temperature and precipitation records for many LTER sites from the Arctic to the Antarctic. He discusses the general nature of ENSO and its climatic effects, summarizes previous climate-related work in the LTER network, and provides a cross-site analysis of the correlations between the Southern Oscillation Index (SOI) and temperature and precipitation at LTER sites. His results are consistent with the expected patterns of the geography of ENSO effects on the climate. Greenland’s cross-site analysis provides the basis for studying climate variability and ecosystem response within the context of the series of framework questions that form an underlying theme for this volume. Brazel and Ellis (chapter 7) provide an excellent analysis of climate-related parameters within the context of ENSO indices. Reporting on the Central Arizona and Phoenix (CAP) LTER urban-rural ecosystem, these authors provide a comprehensive analysis linking water-related parameters to climate forcing, as indicated by these indexes. Their studies show a strong connection between ENSO and winter moisture in Arizona, perhaps making it possible to forecast impending conditions. Less

An LTER Network Overview and Introduction to El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) Climatic Signal and Response

David Greenland

in Climate Variability and Ecosystem Response in Long-Term Ecological Research Sites

Part II of this book deals with the quasi-quintennial timescale that is dominated by the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) phenomenon. During the last 50 ... More

Part II of this book deals with the quasi-quintennial timescale that is dominated by the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) phenomenon. During the last 50 years, ENSO has operated with a recurrence interval between peak values of 2–7 years. The term quasi-quintennial is chosen to recognize that climatic events other than ENSO-related ones might occur at this timescale. The general significance of the ENSO phenomenon lies in its influence on natural and human ecosystems. It has been estimated that severe El Niño–related flooding and droughts in Africa, Latin America, North America, and Southeast Asia resulted in more than 22,000 lives lost and more than $36 billion in damages during 1997– 1998 (Buizer et al. 2000). The specific significance of ENSO within the context of this book is that it provides fairly well-bounded climatic events for which specific ecological responses may be identified. In the other chapters in part II, we first look at the U.S. Southwest. The Southwest is home to an urban LTER site, the Central Arizona-Phoenix (CAP) site. Tony Brazel and Andrew Ellis describe the clear ENSO climatic signal at this site and identify surprising responses that cascade into the human/economic system. Ray Smith, Bill Fraser, and Sharon Stammerjohn provide more details of the fascinating ecological responses of the Palmer Antarctic ecosystem to ENSO. World maps of ENSO climatic signals do not usually show the Antarctic, and the LTER program provides some groundbreaking results at this location, with Smith and coworkers (see the Synthesis at the end of this part) providing such maps (figures S.1 and S.2). Kathy Welch and her colleagues present equally new discoveries related to freshwater aquatic ecosystems from the other Antarctic LTER site at the McMurdo Dry Valleys. This chapter gives a general introduction to ENSO and its climatic effects. How ever, these general patterns may mask the detailed responses that occur at individual locations. This is one reason for presenting the principal results of previous findings related to El Niños and LTER sites and one particular analysis focused on LTER sites. This analysis for the period 1957–1990 investigates the response of monthly mean temperature and monthly total precipitation standardized anomaly values to El Niño and La Niña events as indicated by the Southern Oscillation Index (SOI) (Greenland 1999). Less

Climate Variability and Ecological Response of the Marine Ecosystem in the Western Antarctic Peninsula (WAP) Region

Raymond C. Smith and William R. Fraser

in Climate Variability and Ecosystem Response in Long-Term Ecological Research Sites

The Antarctic Peninsula, a relatively long, narrow extension of the Antarctic continent, defines a strong climatic gradient between the cold, dry ... More

The Antarctic Peninsula, a relatively long, narrow extension of the Antarctic continent, defines a strong climatic gradient between the cold, dry continental regime to its south and the warm, moist maritime regime to its north. The potential for these contrasting climate regimes to shift in dominance from season to season and year to year creates a highly variable environment that is sensitive to climate perturbation. Consequently, long-term studies in the western Antarctic Peninsula (WAP) region, which is the location of the Palmer LTER (figure 9.1), provide the opportunity to observe how climate-driven variability in the physical environment is related to changes in the marine ecosystem (Ross et al. 1996; Smith et al. 1996; Smith et al. 1999). This is a sea ice–dominated ecosystem where the annual advance and retreat of the sea ice is a major physical determinant of spatial and temporal change in its structure and function, from total annual primary production to the breeding success and survival of seabirds. Mounting evidence suggests that the earth is experiencing a period of rapid climate change, and air temperature records from the last half century confirm a statistically significant warming trend within the WAP during the past half century (King 1994; King and Harangozo 1998; Marshall and King 1998; Ross et al. 1996; Sansom 1989; Smith et al. 1996; Stark 1994; van den Broeke 1998; Weatherly et al. 1991). Air temperature–sea ice linkages appear to be very strong in the WAP region (Jacka 1990; Jacka and Budd 1991; King 1994; Smith et al. 1996; Weatherly et al. 1991), and a statistically significant anticorrelation between air temperatures and sea ice extent has been observed for this region. Consistent with this strong coupling, sea ice extent in the WAP area has trended down during this period of satellite observations, and the sea ice season has shortened. In addition, both air temperature and sea ice have been shown to be significantly correlated with the Southern Oscillation Index (SOI), which suggests possible linkages among sea ice, cyclonic activity, and global teleconnections. Less

The Quasi-Quintennial Timescale—Synthesis

Raymond C. Smith and Xiaojun Yuan

in Climate Variability and Ecosystem Response in Long-Term Ecological Research Sites

The El Nino–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is one of the most important contributors to interannual variability on Earth (Diaz and Markgraf 2000). It is an ... More

The El Nino–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is one of the most important contributors to interannual variability on Earth (Diaz and Markgraf 2000). It is an aperiodic phenomenon that tends to reoccur within the range of 2 to 7 years, and it is manifest by the alternation of extreme warm (El Niño) and cold (La Niña) events. There is also evidence (Allen 2000) that the aperiodic ENSO phenomenon must be considered in conjunction with climate fluctuations at decadal to multidecadal time frames that may modulate ENSO’s lower frequency variability. Numerous studies show global climatic impacts associated with the ENSO phenomenon. Further, there is considerable evidence to indicate that ENSO impacts the climate of both middle and high latitudes, and a recent analysis (figure S.1, discussed below) provides a global picture of warm versus cold ENSO conditions. Consequently, it is not surprising that many LTER sites, from the Arctic to Antarctic, show evidence of ENSO-related fluctuations in environmental variables. The quasi-quintennial timescale of variability is second only to seasonal variability in driving worldwide weather patterns. Consequently, an important theme in part II is the worldwide influence of ENSO-related climate variability and the teleconnected spatial patterns of this variability. Also, a common theme for several ecosystems discussed in this section is their high sensitivity to small climatic changes that are subsequently amplified and cascaded through the system. For example, the narrow temperature threshold for an ice-to-water phase change may create a pronounced nonlinear ecosystem response to what is a relatively small temperature shift (as demonstrated for the McMurdo Dry Valleys). Or alternatively, this narrow temperature threshold may shift a sea ice–dominated ecosystem (Palmer LTER) to a more oceanic marine ecosystem by reducing the seasonality and magnitude of the sea ice habitat. Such nonlinear amplifications of small climatic changes can increase the ecological response and make it more detectable within the natural background of variability. We explore these themes here. To illustrate the global footprint of ENSO variability, composites of yearly averaged El Niño and La Niña conditions for surface air temperature (SAT) and sea surface temperature (SST, Reynolds and Smith 1994) were generated. Less

People and Places

Robert Brustein

in Millennial Stages: Essays and Reviews 2001-2005

This chapter begins with a book by Patricia Bosworth on the subject of Marlon Brando. Its inclusion in the list of Penguin titles has raised many eyebrows. The reason is not because Penguin is ... More

This chapter begins with a book by Patricia Bosworth on the subject of Marlon Brando. Its inclusion in the list of Penguin titles has raised many eyebrows. The reason is not because Penguin is devoted to high cultural figures. A book on Crazy Horse is included, and so is a projected work on Elvis Presley. If Brando seems misplaced in this company, it is because, though unquestionably an acting genius, he has so often cheapened and abused his prodigious talent. Profoundly scornful of his profession, indifferent toward his artistry, repelled by his own character, he is, in fact, so uninterested in his public self that he refused to be interviewed for this book. For Brando, acting has always triggered his deepest contempt. The reasons for this have something to do with the man and something to do with the Hollywood culture that spawned and exploited him. Bosworth's most valuable contributions to a large Brando biography industry are her speculations about the social and psychological conditions that sparked his apparent self-loathing.Less

Rivals

Michele K. Troy

in Strange Bird: The Albatross Press and the Third Reich

This chapter focuses on the emergence of rival publishers and how Albatross Press responded to the challenge. After the Germans bombarded his London office, John Holroyd-Reece took up his defense of ... More

This chapter focuses on the emergence of rival publishers and how Albatross Press responded to the challenge. After the Germans bombarded his London office, John Holroyd-Reece took up his defense of Albatross from a new location: 13 New Square. The continental market for English books was open to competition, and Holroyd-Reece saw rivals rising up over the horizon. One of them, the Swedish publisher Albert Bonnier, opened a New York office in an attempt to win American rights for his own continental English edition: Clipper Books. As war dragged on, publishers became bolder about challenging Albatross and Bernhard Tauchnitz. On July 30, 1935, Allen Lane launched his Penguin Books into the British market. One of Lane's chief American allies was Kurt Enoch.Less

The Persistence of the Movement Orthodoxy in the 1980s and 1990s

in The Poetry of Saying: British Poetry and its Discontents, 1950-2000

This chapter discusses how the The Penguin Book of Contemporary British Poetry represents a development of the Movement Orthodoxy. The arrival of the second anthology entitled The New Poetry in 1993 ... More

This chapter discusses how the The Penguin Book of Contemporary British Poetry represents a development of the Movement Orthodoxy. The arrival of the second anthology entitled The New Poetry in 1993 could be regarded either as an unimaginative or an opportunistic confirmation of the ‘negative feedback’ paradigm of Alvarez because it annexed the title and showed similar claims to novelty as its predecessor. The anthology also claimed to show the ‘beginning of the end of British poetry's tribal divisions and isolation, and a new cohesiveness’. The Movement's characteristic ironical strategies are just as often substituted by a less defensive postmodernism and a more playful ‘scepticism’ than the ludic metaphoric tinges of the The Penguin Book of Contemporary British Poetry and the 1980s.Less

UNESCO, the United Kingdom, and Cultural Diversity after the Millennium

Asha Rogers

in State Sponsored Literature: Britain and Cultural Diversity after 1945

This final diachronic chapter steps back from the question of literature’s publicly funded status to consider how cultural diversity became an important site of negotiation in the United Kingdom’s ... More

This final diachronic chapter steps back from the question of literature’s publicly funded status to consider how cultural diversity became an important site of negotiation in the United Kingdom’s dealings with UNESCO. It suggests that cultural diversity was not only a competency developed through post-war state funding but an expansive discourse appropriated by competing geopolitical alliances within UNESCO. The 2005 UNESCO Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions staged the larger tensions between the national and supra-national debates of cultural diversity. For all its flaws, and the United Kingdom’s ongoing ambivalence about UNESCO, the Convention promised to institute a more equitable public culture in ways that the controversy over the 2017 Jhalak Prize for Black Asian and Minority Ethnic writers suggests were sorely needed.Less

Of Public Libraries and Paperbacks: The Sexual Geographies of Reading

Richard Hornsey

in The Spiv and the Architect: Unruly Life in Postwar London

This chapter talks about the environmental factors and prescriptive geographies that surrounded the public life of books during postwar London. It discusses the popularity of the “vulgar” paperback ... More

This chapter talks about the environmental factors and prescriptive geographies that surrounded the public life of books during postwar London. It discusses the popularity of the “vulgar” paperback in London, and how flamboyant book covers challenge the physical relationship of the book on display to the mind and body of prospective consumers. The chapter concludes with an account of the failed prosecution of Penguin Books Ltd. for its publication of D. H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover and the conviction of queer lovers John Orton and Kenneth Halliwell, which demonstrates the sexual orderings that governed the postwar visibility of books.Less

Scholarly Mythopoesis: Robert Graves’s The Greek Myths

Vanda Zajko

in Robert Graves and the Classical Tradition

This chapter presents a fresh perspective on Graves’s The Greek Myths, which in its presentation of Greek myth aims to serve as both a work of reference and literature. This ambiguity, coupled with ... More

This chapter presents a fresh perspective on Graves’s The Greek Myths, which in its presentation of Greek myth aims to serve as both a work of reference and literature. This ambiguity, coupled with inconsistencies in his use of sources and his creative imagination, created a tense relationship between the academy and Graves. Graves’s methodology combined compilation, organization, and interpretation to produce a corrective to previous scholarship. He wanted to establish a historical and archaeological basis of Greek mythology and reorient it at the centre of the study of early European history. The White Goddess conveys Graves’s idea of a ‘universal pre-history of humankind’, and takes an anthropological approach where myths are evidence of historical events which can be demonstrated once they are interpreted. Myths were puzzles to be solved which required linguistic skills to unlock the ‘prehistoric mentalité’, and he believed in iconotropy, where mythographers’ misinterpretations distorted matters—it would be Graves who would correct these distortions.Less

The Golden Ass and the Golden Warrior

Sonia Sabnis

in Robert Graves and the Classical Tradition

This chapter examines the reception of Robert Graves’s translation of Apuleius’s Golden Ass and its relation to his friendship with T. E. Lawrence. A claim in its American publication—that Lawrence ... More

This chapter examines the reception of Robert Graves’s translation of Apuleius’s Golden Ass and its relation to his friendship with T. E. Lawrence. A claim in its American publication—that Lawrence carried the Golden Ass with him in Arabia and later introduced it to Graves—turns out to be false, but nevertheless opens up a comparison between Lawrence and Graves as readers of Apuleius. Despite the limited success of Graves’s translation in academic circles, Lawrence’s and Graves’s respective approaches to the novel exemplify two major trends in its among English-speaking audiences since the appearance of Graves’s translation in 1950.Less

Lewis and the Mechanisms of Mass Culture

Stephanie L. Derrick

in The Fame of C. S. Lewis: A Controversialist's Reception in Britain and America

Lewis remained a figure of significance in the decades after his death despite dramatic social change in the second half of the twentieth century. The reasons for this continued visibility involve ... More

Lewis remained a figure of significance in the decades after his death despite dramatic social change in the second half of the twentieth century. The reasons for this continued visibility involve circumstances particular to Lewis and larger social changes, especially in communications and media technologies, education, and culture. Innovation in communications media—radio, the paperback, television, and film—meant that incrementally greater numbers of people became familiar with the name of C. S. Lewis. Dramatic expansions in education also contributed to the canonization of his books. This period also saw a bifurcation in Lewis’s platform between the more commercially successful author of the Narnia books and the Christian apologist intensely admired in America. Lewis’s enduring visibility is to be credited to a myriad of circumstances particular to him and to the profound social changes affecting the religious, cultural, and intellectual life of twentieth-century Britain and America.Less