Faber & Faber

Letters of Louis MacNeice: Louis MacNeice

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Synopsis:

This comprehensive selection of the letters of Louis MacNeice is a vital resource for readers of the poetry, and for an understanding of the intellectual culture of the mid-twentieth century. As well as a poet, playwright and translator, MacNeice was a travel writer and globetrotting BBC producer, the medley of whose cultural influences seems exemplary in its modernity. He kept up a significant correspondence with E. R. Dodds, Anthony Blunt and T. S. Eliot, among other prominent figures. During his time at the BBC he witnessed significant historical events at first-hand, including the partition of India in 1947 and the independence of the Gold Coast from Britain in 1957, recorded in long epistolary sequences to his wife, the singer Hedli Anderson.

MacNeice’s complex relationship to Ireland and to his varied Irish heritage speaks resonantly to contemporary debates about Irish and Northern Irish cultural identity. The Letters do much to deepen our understanding of MacNeice’s Irish self, and they enlarge our sense of a vivid and often enigmatic personality, whose adventurous life and individual charisma have often resisted explanation. Jonathan Allison’s annotated edition is remarkable for its detail and inclusiveness, not least the presence of a substantial number of letters written during the poet’s schooldays and adolescence.

Increasingly recognised as one of the major poets of the twentieth century, Louis MacNeice’s work has been a defining influence on a generation of poets that includes Derek Mahon, Michael Longley and Paul Muldoon. The Letters of Louis MacNeice is a companion volume to the recent newly edited Collected Poems (2007).

Tags:

Categorised as:

Non-fiction

Sub-categories:

Biography & Memoir

Genres & Themes:

Journalism; Letters; Nationality; Writers