Product Description

Poems of religious doubt and closely-observed uncertainties, expressing the wants and feelings of man and women everywhere.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #393913 in Books
• Published on: 1998-04-20
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 128 pages

Customer Reviews

Clough: the most underrated of Victorian poets
Arthur Hugh Clough had the misfortune to be one of the closest friends of Matthew Arnold. Arnold's consistently sceptical view of his friend's output has coloured critical judgement ever since his first poem was published in 1848. People are all too willing to suggest that Clough was a man of great potential, who never managed to realise that which he promised. However, his poetry reveals a consistently vibrant appreciation of the world around him. He wanted to find a new way of addressing a world that was changing around him - as religious certainties decayed, and the social hierarchies were challenged. The classical modes of though were no longer adequate, and as the various ways of dealing with the world began to appear more and more inappropraite, this great but troubled mind produced some incredible poetic triumphs. He lifts himself above the self-conscious concern with poetic niceties that so preoccupied many of his contemporaries, and by challenging form within its own confines, really did find some way of dealing with a fragmentalised world; not by trying to unify it under false pretences, but by trying to deal with the multifaceted world that the modernist era has taught us to take for granted. Some incredible poems, that both challenge and inspire. A well chosen selection, but I recommend a full edition to anyone with the time.