Divisiveness in Recent English Poetry

Abstract

It is tempting to explain away the difficulties an American reader has with recent English poetry by way of Donald Davie's claim that, in direct contrast to the barbarous energy of its American counterpart, English poetry, even at its best, is decadently subtle.1 One could extend the division Davie makes into a basic opposition between an English conception of existence that is empirical and realist, based upon an acceptance of a historical and geographical scene or situation as unquestionably given, and an American conception that is idealist and activist, inherently questioning, active rather than scenic. The English poetry, moreover, which springs out of its world view would prove to be reflective rather than creative, a poetry of intelligent observation instead of intuitive insight. The danger, however, in drawing out such a division is that it will turn out to be applicable only to mediocre verse. Instead of responding to what is finest in the subject matter, one may be succumbing to the critical need for rendering a subject simple and manageable. For all authentic poetry, English as well as American, is both barbaric and refined, primitive and civilized, energetic and subtle. This is as true of the poetry of Thom Gunn, Geoffrey Hill, Philip Larkin, Jon Silkin, and Charles Tomlinson as it is of the poetry of T.S. Eliot.