EVERYMAN’S LIBRARY - 98 - Poetry - Poems of Our Time - 1900-1942

Sep 28, 2026

Uploaded by McQueen

A curated anthology of English poetry from the first half of the twentieth century, presenting the joys, miseries, love, horror, courage, and despair of the era. The foreword frames song as a mirror of experience and explains the editor’s aim: to redistill what poets have distilled, offering an intense reduction of daily life. Poems are organized into four waves with emotional unity, providing a concentrated history of the time and an informed basis for reader reflection.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryLiterature

FormatPDF

Pages360

Reading Time9 h 14 min

AccessFree to download

Foreword

Purpose and method of the anthology

The four waves and emotional unity

Reader experience: music and historical recognition

Poets as living, developing voices

y么d入3 Everyman,I will go with thee,and be thy guide,In thy most need to go by thy side. # EVERYMAN’S LIBRARY EDITED BY ERNEST RHYS No.98I POETRY POEMS OF OUR TIME:I900-I942 When the world is full of trouble,And is restless in its sleep. W.B.YEATS POEMS OF OUR TIMEI900—I942 Y 4么 Chosen byRichard Church and M.M.Bozman LONDON:J.M.DENT &SONS,LTD. All rigbts reservedMade in Great Britainby Hazell,Watson心Viney Ltd.London and Aylesbrryfor J.M.Dent Sons Ltd.Aldine House,Bedford St.,LondonFirst publisbed I945 Tbis book is produced in com-plete conformity with theautborized ecomomy standards # FOREWORD THE poems in this book are the voice of the English peopleduring the first half,or almost the first half,of the twentiethcentury.They are the purest expression of the joys,miseries,love,horror,courage,and despair which have sweptover us,as the weather sweeps over our island,during atime when history has been a tale of storm and uprootedinstitutions.War,revolution,social and moral upheavals,new comforts and new embarrassments,all these experienceshave contributed to our growth;and as they have affectedus singly,as identifiable men and women,the more articulateof us have been driven to the antidote of song.And song,like prayer,is a mirror of experience.Wisdom,and theskill of practice,know how to curve that mirror so that whatit reflects is concentrated and diminished to an exquisiteproportion and set as it were in a frame. The aim of the anthologist is to continue that wisdom andthat skill by redistilling what the poets have already distilled,so that he may present to the reader,or the browser,anintense reduction of daily life;a poetry of poetry.If,inthe present book,this reduction has been rightly done,thenhere is a concentrated history of our time,an inspired equa-tion of events,upon which the reader may ponder withoutconfusion,or the distraction of fashions,feuds,or the smokeof battle. Such has been the aim of the anthologists here.We havetherefore not been content merely to accept the accidents ofchronology and to rank the poets according to their birth-days.That method has no meaning,and is a waste of thesignificances of the time-spirit.For time is an artist and acritic too.Time loves to make a pattern of the universeand of the fate of men.Why not,therefore,seek time's aidin such a purpose as the undertaking of this book?Theforty years of human affairs over which we range surely meansomething in themselves,and have played what might be Forevord vi called an exterior part,an overall authority,in our comingsand goings.Maybe they are the only observer of ourhuman traffic as a whole. In this belief we have tried to follow that detached observa-tion,and in our two years'task to collect the poems and thenleisurely to arrange them so that their own vitality and beautyare enhanced by what they take from and give to each other.In the course of this work we found that the forty years,atleast from the aesthetic point of view,roughly dividedthemselves into four waves,and we have accordingly sodivided the book.Each of those waves has an organicunity,moving through an emotional pattern so markedlythat it has drawn the whole gamut of events into an almost-meaningful shape.And after the event comes the commentaryor song. It would not be modest to push the matter further.Thereader's secondary pleasure,after the instant delight fromany one poem,will be to trace his own recognition of apattern or tendency in the course of the four parts of thisbook,and to add to the pleasure of the music a satisfactionin the historical basis.The wedding of thesetwo experiencesmakes for wisdom and a full humanity. It may be,too,that the poets represented here will benefitby our method.Each of them,instead of having his worklumped at the beginning,the middle,or the end of thecollection,is shown as a living and developing creature ofthe century,an integral part of it,and according to hiscapacity a voice of it,strengthening h

FAQs

What does the foreword say is the purpose of the anthology?

It aims to continue the poets’ distilled wisdom and skill by redistilling their work into an intense reduction of daily life, forming a concentrated history of the time.

How are the poems organized in the book?

The anthology is divided into four waves, each with organic unity and an emotional pattern that shapes the events into an almost meaningful form.

How does the foreword describe the relationship between song and experience?

Song is described as a mirror of experience; wisdom and practical skill curve that mirror so what it reflects becomes concentrated, diminished, and framed.

Sep 28, 2026

Uploaded by McQueen