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Some light on the letters

Irish poet-critic David Wheatley has written well and long on the Letters of Louis MacNeice - long a key link between the poetries of the Auden England and the later Muldoon Ireland - his influence as talky-yet-lyrical common man of the time with a wounded heart and a stained sleeve has made him a dour-if-erotic Anglo-Irish version of Frank O'Hara (his journals and letters ways of doing this and that with poems, instead of journalism); and he connects so many strands and styles, not least the pre and post war ones, that he can't be left out of anyone's core anthology of the last century; and a few of his lyrics are as good as anyone else's.  It is good to hear he wrote well and long himself, in the letter form.
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Sheenagh Pugh said…
"a few of his lyrics are as good as anyone else's"

God, that's faint praise if ever I heard any! Personally I think MacNeice has worn better than Auden in many ways. The older I get, the more he grows on me; his technical skill, his ability to lose self in something wider, his subtle musicality.
Thu Jul 15, 08:26:00 am 2010
EYEWEAR said…
Well, Sheenagh, it isn't really faint praise, when you consider that the "anyone else" includes Shakespeare, Milton, Wordsworth, and Dickinson, let alone Frost, Lowell, Larkin, or Plath, or even Heaney. MacNeice is firmly in the canon, and a few of his poems are as good as any other poem ever written in English - one or two among the very best. High praise? Meant to be. As for wearing better than Auden? To my mind: uh, no. Auden continually impresses me with his verbal and intellectual vastness.
Thu Jul 15, 09:11:00 am 2010
Peter Eustace said…
What I find to be the hallmark of MacNiece is his endless experimentation, always trying something new... which he doesn't always pull off. It does mean you always find something startling, though.
Thu Jul 15, 02:29:00 pm 2010
Ms Baroque said…
Well, Auden was vast in some ways, and certainly ploughed up some new soil. But he's limited in others. MacNeice has an expansive heart. And that subtlety. Allusiveness. Yes, the willingness to try something and maybe fail. And he wasn't UP himself: I say this in a poetic sense, too. (Not that I don't have half a shelf of Auden, one way and another, mind.)
Sun Jul 18, 09:21:00 pm 2010
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