Movement (literature) Guide, Meaning , Facts, Information and Description
- This article is about a specific literary movement - for other literary movements see Art movement
Although the name was essentially a publicists' concoction, it is used still as a shorthand for these and a few others, including Thom Gunn and John Holloway.
The Movement produced two anthologies: Poets of the 1950s (1955) (editor D. J. Enright, published in Japan) and New Lines (1956). Their tone is anti-romantic and rational. Conquest, who edited the New Lines anthology, described the connection between the poets as 'little more than a negative determination to avoid bad principles.' These 'bad principles' are usually described as excess, both in terms of theme and stylistic devices. The polemic introduction to New Lines targeted in particular the 1940s poets, the generation of Dylan Thomas and George Barker — though not by name. A second New Lines anthology appeared in 1963, by which time The Movement was a spent force, in terms of fashion; the 'underground' in the shape of The Group, and the more American-influenced style of the Al Alvarez anthology The New Poetry having come to the fore. Apart from Larkin, it was hard at that point to identify a Movement poet by 'voice'.
Kingsley Amis, Robert Conquest, Donald Davie, D. J. Enright, Thom Gunn, John Holloway, Elizabeth Jennings, Philip Larkin, John Wain.
All of the above, excepting John Holloway, together with:
Thomas Blackburn, Edwin Brock, Hilary Corke, John Fuller, Francis Hope, Ted Hughes, Richard Kell, Thomas Kinsella, Laurence Lerner, Edward Lucie-Smith, George MacBeth, James Michie, Jonathan Price, Vernon Scannell, Anthony Thwaite, Hugo Williams. This is an Article on Movement (literature). Page Contains Information, Facts Details or Explanation Guide About Movement (literature) Poets in the New Lines (1956) anthology
Poets in the New Lines 2 (1963) anthology
