A Literary Pilgrim in England [Paperback]

Edward Thomas (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 2005

1917. Edward Thomas's guide to the places special to some of Britain's greatest writers including William Blake, Keats, Shelley, Thomas Hardy; Hilaire Belloc; Coleridge, Cowper, Tennyson, Swinburne, Wordsworth and Robert Louis Stevenson. Each chapter is a miniature biography of the writer, their work and environment. Thomas' special feel for both poetry and the English landscape informs every word.

Product Details

• Paperback: 316 pages
• Publisher: Kessinger Publishing (June 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0766197409
• ISBN-13: 978-0766197404
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #8,852,745 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Local Habitations, March 21, 2010

By 

Daniel Myers (Greenville, SC USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Literary Pilgrim in England (Hardcover)

The title of this book is a misnomer. Thomas is anything but a literary pilgrim. He makes no journeys himself. He tells us little or nothing of how these writers - mainly poets - affect him - his thoughts or emotions - and the entire book has the distant feel of reportage, accompanied by a rather affected Yoda-like prose: "Tasted England he has deeply..." etc.

The sole, reductionist point of this book is to tie down - or endeavour to do so - a host of English (and Scottish, in the last chapter) writers to specific landscapes, very specific landscapes. For instance, he is very dismissive of Thomas Hardy because - Quelle Horreur! - in his novels set in the west of England, he uses very thinly disguised place names rather than the actual places. This literal-mindedness takes geographical accuracy to the point of silliness. It all has some very odd results: Shelley, for example, a poet whom Thomas clearly admires, is remarked upon for his mostly juvenile verse written during his short time in England. But Shelley wrote all his great verse in Italy, of course, where Thomas will not follow him. Thus, the chapter to the great poet has a very odd, truncated feel, as do many of the others.

But the book is not without merit, especially on poets who wrote their best verse in England, such as Clare and Wordsworth. But, even here, the author's selections are very odd indeed to a lover of poets and poetry. Any poem, regardless of how great it may be, is discarded if Thomas is unable to attach it to a particular spot of English earth. Thus, Cowper's "The Castaway" is left out, as are all Clare's asylum poems, some of his best, as well as Wordsworth's "Intimations of Immortality." Anything, in other words, that is purely psychological and deals with the poet's state of mind not directly influenced by a particular glebe is, ahem, cast away. Thus, we have Matthew Arnold without his "Dover Beach" even mentioned, presumably because it is not ABOUT Dover Beach, per se, but about deeper matters.

The best chapter, for whatever reason, is the chapter on Swinburne and his love of the sea. Here, Thomas lets himself drift from the shore and quotes at length some of Swinburne's most beautiful lyrics. Also, there are some delightful places where he lets himself slip the surly bonds of English earth, as when he quotes a letter from George Meredith, explaining to a reader who inquired why he calls Venus "the dark-winged planet" in his "Hymn To Colour":

"If you observe the planet Venus at the hour when the dawn does no more than give an intimation, she is full of silver, and darkness surrounds her. So she seems to me to fly on dark wings."

Thomas and this book have been taken up by the literary scrum of "psychogeographers" for whom landscape is all, particularly Will Self, who introduces his novel "The Book of Dave" with a quote from Thomas.

Sorry lads, and Thomas, without poetry's untethered heights, all you have is an enclosed and arid wasteland of prose that does not fly.