Read, Herbert | Read, Herbert 1893–1968
Read, Herbert 1893–1968
Read, an English poet and critic of literature and art, was a lifelong friend of T. S. Eliot. (See also Contemporary Authors, Vols. 25-28.)
In many ways, his war-poems are Read's most amazing productions. They have an infinite compassion, pathos and horror, an utter lack of violence (one of his most marked characteristics), and above all a detachment almost unbelievable in one so physically and mentally implicated in the job of war. (Here I almost wrote 'in the job of killing', until I remembered Read's words in Annals of Innocence and Experience: 'During the whole war I never deliberately or consciously killed an individual man …')
Observe the horror and the pity of such poems as The Execution of Cornelius Vane, the heart-breaking compassion of My Company; but observe also the restraint with which the poet shows you what has moved him so deeply, as in … The Refugees….
...[The entire page is 7494 words long]
Navigate
