Autumn Journal

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In as much as it is half- way towards a didactic poem I trust that it contains some 'criticism of life' or implies some standards which are not merely personal. And Pindar sang the garland of wild olive And Alcibiades lived from hand to mouth Double-crossing Athens, Persia, Sparta, And many died in the city of plague, and many of drouth In Sicilian quarries, and many by the spear and arrow And many more who told their lies too late Caught in the eternal factions and reactions Of the city state. As summer fades and Christmas draws closer, he reflects on his disconnection from Ireland; and on fear, apathy and the longing for purpose. October 2020: "I see the future glinting with your presence / Like moon on a slate roof, / And my spirits rise again.

Colin Morgan reads Louis MacNeice's poetic testament of life in 1938, written against the turbulent backdrop of the Munich Agreement, the fall of Barcelona and Britain's preparations for an inevitable war. Critics tend to classify Autumn Journal as either an autobiographical or a biographical document, either as central for understanding Louis MacNeice's [→page 188] oeuvre or as central for grasping the reality of life in the thirties. These defining personal possessions and their forms of containment not only organize his archive but also determine the principles by which he patterns life experiences.

The Sequel came during a slack period in MacNeice’s poetic development and was judged to "lack either the historical or the poetic interest of the earlier poem".

Its appearance on an excellent recent edition of the Backlisted podcast gave me the impetus to get on with it.This form (a) gives the whole poem a formal unity but (b) saves it from monotony by allowing it a great range of appropriate variations. I liked the intimate tone of the verses (it's a diary, duh), the crucial historical moment it was set in (and was a bit unnerved by how relevant most of the political/social commentary still is), the everyday description and little snapshots of London life. I have certain beliefs which, I hope, emerge in the course of it but which I have refused to abstract from their context . Keep in mind that anyone can view public collections - they may also appear in recommendations and other places.