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Lookup NU author(s): Professor Bill Herbert
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Barry MacSweeney's last books, especially The Book of Demons (Bloodaxe 1997), offers a final uneasy reconciliation of the conflict between influences which had raged throughout his career. This essay argues that a conflict between poetic voices and personae is the defining characteristic of MacSweeney's work. After the populist period of the 1960s, and the extreme experimentation of the 1970s, MacSweeney began in the 1980s to engage specifically with the influence of Basil Bunting. These very diverse influences produced in the late work a unique fusion of experimental and more mainstream aspects. It concludes that this work, at once fractured and transcending its origins, constitutes his most distinctive contribution to modern British poetry.
Author(s): Herbert WN
Editor(s): Batchelor, Paul
Publication type: Book Chapter
Publication status: In Press
Book Title: Reading Barry MacSweeney
Year: 2013
Publisher: Bloodaxe
URL: http://www.bloodaxebooks.com/titlepage.asp?isbn=1852249889
Library holdings: Search Newcastle University Library for this item
ISBN: 9781852249885
