It seemed a good plan to turn to another of Eland’s Poetry of Place anthologies. This time, it’s England’s turn, compiled by A. N. Wilson.
He gets the balance just right: he provides a perfect selection of the idyllic and nostalgic, the reveries of a bye-gone age with which English poets are all too familiar. But the anthology doesn’t allow us to revel in them indefinitely; it is combined with laments over the waste laid by human progress and the realities and pleasures of the ‘ordinary’. I would love to have read nearly all of them, but that is sadly well beyond the scope of this project!
Following Up:
- Alexander Pope on Wiki
- the text of Windsor Forest
- Henry Charles Beeching on Wiki
- the text of Going Downhill on a Bicycle
- William Wordsworth on Wiki
- the text of England/London 1802
- John Betjeman on Wiki
- the text of Executive
- the text of Harvest Hymn
Works of Art used:
- Dahl, Michael – Portrait of Alexander Pope (1727)
- Boccioni, Umberto – Dynamism of a Cyclist (1913 – Gianni Mattioli Collection loaned from Peggy Guggenheim Collection)
- Giles, James (1801-70) – A View in Windsor Great Park (1857)
