Criticism > Poetry > Abse, Dannie - Michael O'Neill (review date 1987)

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Michael O'Neill (review date 1987)

SOURCE: O'Neill, Michael. “A Nostalgia for Belief.” Times Literary Supplement no. 4373 (23 January 1987): 92.

[In the following review, O'Neill comments on the mysterious quality of Ask the Bloody Horse.]

Both the charm and the limitations of Ask the Bloody Horse are highlighted by the fact that its poems are never so cheerfully wise or conversationally at ease as when they display their obsessive interest in the mysterious. In “Quests” Dannie Abse presents desire for “the other world” with a detachment which shades into regret in the last tercet: “Who knows? Not me. Secular, I'll never hear / the spheres, their perfect orchestra, or below, / with joy, old Triton playing out of tune.” Asserting the poet's secular stance, the lines half-humorously betray a nostalgia for belief. Though the shoulder-shrugging ruefulness (signalled by the nod at Wordsworth in the last line) is...

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1. Introduction
2. Principal Works
3. Criticism
   1. Roland Mathias (essay date 1967)
   2. Michael Mott (review date 1971)
   3. Times Literary Supplement (review date 1973)
   4. Dannie Abse and Mark Boada (interview date 1975)
   5. John Mole (review date 1977)
   6. Joseph Cohen (essay date 1983)
   7. Gigliol´ Sacerdoti Mariani (essay date 1983)
   8. Vernon Scannell (essay date 1983)
   9. Choice (review date 1984)
   10. Michael O'Neill (review date 1987)
   11. Genevieve Stuttaford (review date 1991)
   12. Publishers Weekly (review date 1993)
   13. Clara Gyorgyey (review date 1998)
   14. Ray Olson (review date 2000)
   15. Nicholas Wroe (essay date 2001)
4. Further Reading
5. Copyright

1. How to Analyze a Poem
2. Poetry