Hamilton, Ian - James Fenton (review date 12 January 1973)

James Fenton (review date 12 January 1973)

SOURCE: Fenton, James. “Against the Tide.” New Statesman 85 (12 January 1973): 59-60.

[In the following review of A Poetry Chronicle, Fenton asserts that, while Hamilton's criticism may be severe, it offers a fresh perspective on the received literary masters.]

One often hears Ian Hamilton's poetry criticism referred to as ‘severe’ or ‘stern’, and among certain circles there is a vague suspicion that Hamilton, at heart, really doesn't much like poetry at all. This is typical of our times—the opposite of severe being in this case ‘indulgent’: it sometimes seems that poets are engaged in a sort of Dig for Victory campaign in which every little bit helps and its unfair or unpatriotic (or anti-American) to raise a voice of even modest doubt. Considerable and modest talents, to adapt Auden's phrase, are ruining their fine tenor voices with effects that bring down the house. In...

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