Englands of the mind1 and john wain’s restrained romanticism

Abstract EN

This pape r aims, first, to crystallize the différence between English and American poetry in the post-World War II period, and, second, to investigate John Wa in’s formai roots in the English tradition, and especially in Wordsworthian Romande realism.

The paper shows that in the modem period, though many writers were interested in thinking of ar period States that whereas American poets hâve built on the achievements of the modemists and moved into a postmodem period, the English hâve retreated into a pre- modemist position.

Thus, American poetry, which continues to experiment and which maintains an international perspective, has becom e vastly superior to English poetry.

Wliile American poetry' praises the présent and emphasizes originality, British poetry tends to be layered with the past and tradition.

These fundamental différences between the two “poetries” hâve ultimately resulted in the neglect of the American readers to British poetry.

The paper then introduces John Wain (1925-1994) as one of the literature in international ternis, in the post-World War II period, this international perspective dissolved— at least in England.

Post-War English poetry has been accused of Little Englandism, provincialism, regionalism , snobbery, and insularity.

A fairly common view of the post- yperbole and anacoluthon” but he removed himself from any close- knit relationship with one particular group of society” (58).

Likewise, Wain praises that Robert Graves’s solid commitment to his values in his writing.

He observes in the New York Times Magazine: “[Graves] has faith in his own vision and his own way of doing things .

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and when he has arrived at them, he cares nothing for majority opinion.

He has never been in the least daunted by the discovery that everybodv else was out of step.

Whatever is the issue .

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Graves has reached his own conclusions and never worried if no one agreed with him” (470).

Wain concludes his essay by emphasizing Grave’s literary significance: “He is not an easy writer.

He does not make concessions.

He has achieved a large readership and a great famé because of the ricliness of what he has to offer—its human depth, its nge, its compelling imaginative power—rather than by fancy packaging or deep-freeze convenience” (472).

Similarly, Elizabeth Hatziolou States that the poetry of Graves “influenced Wain and most of the poets of the Movement” (223).

(13) Ail textual references to Wordsworth’s Préfacé to Lyrical Bailads and poems are to The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth: Poems Founded on the Affections, Poems on the naming of Places, Poems of the Fancy, Poems of the Imagination.

Textual references to the Préfacé are indicated by page numbers and to the poems by the title of the poem and the line numbers.