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Poems (Paperback)
Arthur Hugh Clough
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R530
Discovery Miles 5 300
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Ships in 12 - 17 working days
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Amours de Voyage (1849) is a novel in verse and is arranged in five
cantos, or chapters, as a sequence of letters. It is about a group
of English travellers in Italy: Claude, and the Trevellyn family,
are caught up in the 1849 political turmoil. The poem mixes the
political ('Sweet it may be, and decorous, perhaps, for the country
to die; but,/On the whole, we conclude the Romans won't do it, and
I sha'n't') and the personal ('After all, do I know that I really
cared so about her?/Do whatever I will, I cannot call up her
image'). The political is important - hence the Persephone edition
reproduces nine London Illustrated News drawings of the battlefront
- but the personal dilemmas are the crucial ones. Claude, about to
declare himself, retreats, then regrets his failure to speak. It is
this retreat, his scruples and fastidiousness, that, like a
conventional novel, is the core of Amours de Voyage. The poem thus
contributed something important to the modern sensibility; it is a
portrait of an anti-hero; it is about love and marriage (the
difficulties of); and it is about Italy. Clough wrote to his
mother: 'St Peter's disappoints me: the stone of which it is made
is a poor plastery material; and indeed, Rome in general might be
called a rubbishy place - The weather has not been very brilliant.'
As Julian Barnes points out in his new Persephone Preface: 'If you
want a one-word introduction to the tone, sensibility and modernity
of Arthur Hugh Clough, you have it in that single, italicised (by
him, not me) word: rubbishy.' Clough was unimpressed by Rome and so
is his hero, Claude, 'a very unGrand Tourist'. 'What his friend
Arnold perceived to be the weaknesses of Clough's poetry,'
continues Julian Barnes, 'are precisely what over time have come to
seem its strengths - a prosey colloquiality which at times verges
on awkwardness, a preference for honesty and sarcasm over suavity
and tact, a direct criticism of modern life, a naming of things as
themselves. It is absolutely contemporary...It is also a highly
contemplative and argumentative poem, about history, civilisation
and the individual's duty to act. And it is, as the title tells us,
a love story - or, this being Clough, a sort of modern, near-miss,
almost-but-not-quite love story ( I am in love you say; I do not
think so, exactlyA") with mismatching, misunderstanding, tortuous
self- searching, and a mad, hopeful, hopeless pursuit leading us to
a kind of ending.'
This volume represents a selection of some of the best poetry by
Arthur Hugh Clough (1810-61). Detailed annotation provides the
modern reader with the intellectual, cultural and historical
information necessary for a full appreciation of the poet's work.
The poems selected span Clough's entire career, with the main focus
on his two most important poems, Amours de Voyage and Dipsychus and
the Spirit. These poems are discussed at length in the critical
introduction and are prefaced by substantial headnotes elucidating
their historical background and literary antecedents. Providing a
wealth of information about the poet and the context of his work,
this volume represents a substantial contribution to the subject in
its own right, as well as being essential reading for all students
of nineteenth-century literature.
This volume represents a selection of some of the best poetry by
Arthur Hugh Clough (1810-61). Detailed annotation provides the
modern reader with the intellectual, cultural and historical
information necessary for a full appreciation of the poet's work.
The poems selected span Clough's entire career, with the main focus
on his two most important poems, Amours de Voyage and Dipsychus and
the Spirit. These poems are discussed at length in the critical
introduction and are prefaced by substantial headnotes elucidating
their historical background and literary antecedents. Providing a
wealth of information about the poet and the context of his work,
this volume represents a substantial contribution to the subject in
its own right, as well as being essential reading for all students
of nineteenth-century literature.
Asked what problems most perplexed "young men at present" Arthur
Hugh Clough (1819-1861) replied "a growing sense of discrepancy".
His wry and wise poetry explores the tensions of a time of radical
changes in the religious, political and literary landscape. He had
a sharp eye for absurdity. Clough was a writer of wide interests
and liberal sympathies, vividly idiomatic and sensuous, delighting
in the detail and variety of everyday life. His technical dexterity
is a delight: the poems encompass satire and lyric, dialogue, plot
and contemporary reference. His narrative poem "The Bothie of
Tober-Na-Vuolich" and the epistolary "Amours de Voyage" have the
momentum and social precision of novels, capturing a precise image
of the Victorian world of the 1840s. This volume includes a
selection of the full range of Clough's poetry, with a detailed
introduction and annotations by Shirley Chew.
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