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Woodslane Online Catalogues

Selected Poems and Essays

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'A nightingale and loneliest of fire-flies Palpitate in the darkness light and strain, Tho' thine own stars be stifled in soft skies, And thine own music mute, for any pain.' Alice Meynell was a major British author of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This is the first anthology of her verse and prose to be published for over seventy-five years. Meynell was highly regarded both as a poet and as a writer of essays and, on two occasions, was seriously proposed for the laureateship. G.K. Chesterton said of her that she 'never wrote a line, or even a word, that does not stand like the rib of a strong intellectual structure; a thing with the bones of thought in it'. The present selection includes the early romantic poems of yearning, full of poignant surprises, and the terser, less personal poems of her maturity. Also included is a broad sample of Meynell's literary essays, in each case a careful work of art. They include reflections on literature, culture and the natural world, nuanced observations on childhood, and moving defences (both specific and general) of women against trespasses on their dignity. Running through her work is a commitment to accurate observation, fairness, justice and responsibility, and a lifelong concern with the conflicts between passion and will, between 'wildness' and restraint. A foreword is also offered by the renowned feminist critic and theorist Laura Mulvey, who is Alice Meynell's great-granddaughter.
Alice Meynell was a prolific and highly respected essayist, especially in the 1890s when her work began to be collected into books. The republication in that decade of her early poems, with some more recent ones, raised her reputation, and in later life she returned to writing memorable poetry. Her books of essays and poetry were often reprinted and she was celebrated as a columnist and reviewer. She died in 1922 at the age of 75.
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