Criticism > Poetry > Abse, Dannie - Nicholas Wroe (essay date 2001)

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Nicholas Wroe (essay date 2001)

SOURCE: Wroe, Nicholas. “Is There a Poet in the House?” Guardian (29 September 2001): 13.

[In the following essay, Wroe discusses Abse's combination of medicine and literature.]

The Abse brothers of Cardiff have proved to be one of the most remarkable groups of 20th-century Welsh siblings. Wilfred was an acclaimed psychiatrist, and Leo a longstanding Labour MP who was instrumental in reforming laws on homosexuality and divorce. Dannie, the youngest, not only became one of the country's leading poets, but did so while maintaining a career as a doctor in a London chest clinic.

Next month Dannie, now 78, publishes an updated version of his acclaimed 1974 autobiography, Goodbye, Twentieth Century, and a collection of verse celebrating his relationship with Wales, Welsh Retrospective. Although there were a few poetry anthologies in the house when he was a child, Abse never felt any...

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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