The Oxford Handbook of British and Irish War Poetry by Tim Kendall

Abstract

838 Reviews theonly grand comparison on Gaskell's behalf. Elisabeth JayseesMargaret Hale as a 'Homeric wanderer' (vii, p. ix)who is also like theNightingale sisters, Florence and Parthenope, occupying their timewith household chores when they long tobe doing something more socially meaningful, though as she notes the novel itself is strangely silent about the Crimean War despite its interest in themixed ethics of violence. Several editors notice other unexpected silences inGaskell's ethical position: forex ample, the lack of any direct naming ofUnitarianism, though 'dissenters' appear in her novels. As Jay notes, Gaskell is vague about the precise religious allegiance of theThorntons or Bessy Higgins, and is reluctant topush her husband's and her own professed faith into any prominent or proselytizing position in thenovels. JaneCarlyle may have shrunk from a certain earnestness inGaskell, mixed with a tendency toover-dramatize, but toview all herwriting piled high in tenvolumes is to appreciate just how wide-ranging shewas; how willing to tryher hand at anything especially anything controversial-from a Salem witchcraft story ('Lois the Witch') to thebiography ofCharlotte Bronte. In tracking her development, her editors have chased obscure allusions, updated ever-increasing bibliographical data, noted textual variants, and provided freshcritical insights inan already overcrowded field.This isof course an expensive library set,unlikely to replace the friendly,dog-eared, personally annotated paperback favoured by seminar tutors; nor will ithave the lastword on Gaskell's achievement as a novelist; but itdoes provide an enduring testimony toher importance, and should outlast thecentury, as those of Ward and Shorter did before it. UNIVERSITY OF HULL VALERIE SANDERS The Oxford Handbook ofBritish and IrishWar Poetry. Ed. by TIM KENDALL. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2007. xvi+754PP. ?85s. ISBN 978-O-I9-928266-I. Tim Kendall's rich and wide-ranging edited collection assembles original essays by an impressive range of contributors, including Jon Stallworthy, Edna Longley, Mar jorie Perloff, and Stan Smith. Equally importantly, it allows a new generation of scholars to be heard, including Sarah Cole and Cornelia D. J.Pearsall, whose essays on 'The Poetry of Pain' and 'TheWar Remains ofKeith Douglas and Ted Hughes', respectively, are striking fortheir suggestive invocation of current theoretical insights and sensitive handling of archival material. It isdifficult,of course, to do justice to a field as complex, broad, and (regrettably) expanding as 'War Poetry'. Kendall wisely structures the book in sixmain chro nological parts-a strategywhich allows the development of clear and historically specific concerns without hindering either the emergence of cross-period issues or the kinds of detailed focuswhich the poetry demands. Within this framework, con textual chapters such as Hugh Haughton's 'AnthologizingWar' sit alongside close readings of individual poets and texts,e.g. Perloff on Yeats's 'Easter, I91 6'. Matthew Bevis's opening essay on 'VictorianWar Poetry' identifies theBoer War as an important starting-point while recognizing the debt that theVictorians owed to earlier literary traditions (the argument is expanded in John Lee's later essay on 'Shakespeare and theGreat War'). He also establishes the importance of technological change for theproduction and reception of poetry and, crucially, the construction of a popular audience. Santanu Das opens Part ii of the book with a persuasive new reading of iconicmaterial. His essay on Owen and Rosenberg argues for thepowerful transmutation in the best war poetry of sense experience into a finely imagined lyric 'at once rich and strange' (p. 77). Stacy Gillis, like several other contributors (e.g. Simon Featherstone and Helen Goethals), notes the importance of class and gen der difference in theperception ofwhat constitutes war poetry. Goethals proposes a MLR, Io3.3, 2oo8 839 reversal of the conventional view of poetry and patriotism as antitheses and a broad ening of the canon such that disparate responses towar might be admitted. David Goldie's 'Was There a Scottish War Literature?' examines thework of Scottish First World War poets in terms of a number of uneasy formal and cultural alliances. In a later section, Roderick Watson asks how class and national allegiances mingle with the exigencies ofwar in thework of Scottish poets of the Second World War. Peter McDonald's essay on Louis MacNeice brings to the foreconcerns about nationality and responsibility and about public...