Abse, Dannie (Vol. 7) | Abse, Dannie 1923–
Abse, Dannie 1923–
A Welsh poet, dramatist, novelist, and physician, Abse considers himself a poet who happens to practice medicine. (See also Contemporary Authors, Vols. 53-56.)
The characteristic poet of the last 10 years has been a sensitive who rarely topples over into gaucheness or sentimentality, and a craftsman whose skill is unobtrusive rather than accomplished or exciting. He is uneasily domesticated, with predictable angsts about the rival claims of his creative gift and his family responsibilities. He is primarily urban, but suffers enough incursions from the persistent world of nature (all those spiders, dead birds, stoats and pike) to doubt his urban security. His blurbs speak of his awareness of 'the wider problems of the age', but these function as temporary guilts, not rousing causes, and are easily sublimated into a sensitive, unimpassioned response to history and myth. He is sane and reasonable, a slightly melancholy...
[The entire page is 1798 words long]
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