The New Apocalyptics were a poetry grouping in the UK in the 1940s, taking their name from the anthology

Anthology

An anthology is a collection of literary works chosen by the compiler. It may be a collection of poems, short stories, plays, songs, or excerpts...

 The New Apocalypse (1939

1939 in poetry

— W. H. Auden, from "September 1, 1939"Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature .-Events:*Last issue of The Criterion is published....

), which was edited by J. F. Hendry

J. F. Hendry

James Findlay Hendry was a Scottish poet known also as an editor and writer. He was born in Glasgow, and read Modern Languages at the University of Glasgow. During World War II he served in the Royal Artillery and the Intelligence Corps. After the war he worked as a translator for international...

 (1912–1986) and Henry Treece

Henry Treece

Henry Treece was a British poet and writer, who worked also as a teacher, and editor. He is perhaps best remembered now as a historical novelist, particularly as a children's historical novelist, although he also wrote some adult historical novels.-Life and work:Treece was born in Wednesbury,...

. There followed the further anthologies The White Horseman (1941

1941 in poetry

Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature .-Events:*September 3 — 19-year-old John Gillespie Magee, Jr., American poet and aviator, flew a high-altitude test flight in a Spitfire V and afterwards wrote "High Flight" about the experience, on...

) and Crown and Sickle (1944

1944 in poetry

Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature .-Events:* The first and second lines of Paul Verlaine's 1866 poem Chanson d'automne were broadcast by the Allies over Radio Londres this year as a message in code to the...

).

The Scottish connection

Others closely associated were the Scottish (as Hendry was) poets G. S. Fraser

G. S. Fraser

George Sutherland Fraser was a Scottish poet, literary critic and academic. He was born in Glasgow, later moving with his family to Aberdeen. He went to the University of St. Andrews....

 and Norman MacCaig

Norman MacCaig

Norman MacCaig was a Scottish poet. His poetry, in modern English, is known for its humour, simplicity of language and great popularity.-Life:...

. There was quite an overlap, in fact with the Scottish Renaissance

Scottish Renaissance

The Scottish Renaissance was a mainly literary movement of the early to mid 20th century that can be seen as the Scottish version of modernism. It is sometimes referred to as the Scottish literary renaissance, although its influence went beyond literature into music, visual arts, and politics...

group of writers, though not necessarily by publication in London.

Others sometimes mentioned in this connection include Ruthven Todd

Ruthven Todd

Ruthven Campbell Todd was a Scottish poet, artist and novelist, best known as an editor of the works of William Blake. He wrote also under the pseudonym R. T. Campbell.-Background:...

, Tom Scott

Tom Scott (poet)

Tom Scott was a Scottish poet, editor, and prose writer. His writing is closely tied to the New Apocalypse, the New Romantics, and the Scottish Renaissance.- Bibliography :...

, Hamish Henderson

Hamish Henderson

Hamish Scott Henderson, was a Scottish poet, songwriter, soldier, and intellectual....

, Edwin Morgan, Burns Singer

Burns Singer

Burns Singer , born James Hyman Singer in New York and an American citizen all his life, was a poet usually identified as Scottish. He was brought up in Scotland from a young age, and educated in Glasgow. He had Polish, Jewish and Irish ancestry, and showed considerable interest in Polish poetry...

, and William Montgomerie. This grouping was fairly represented in Modern Scottish Poetry

Modern Scottish Poetry (Faber)

Modern Scottish Poetry: An Anthology of the Scottish Renaissance 1920-1945 was a poetry anthology edited by Maurice Lindsay, and published in 1946 by Faber and Faber.It covered the Scottish Renaissance literary movement in Scotland....

(1946

1946 in poetry

Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature .-Events:* W. H. Auden becomes a U.S. citizen...

). Welsh and Irish poets were also prominent.

Others

The other poets in the three anthologies were Ian Bancroft, Alex Comfort

Alex Comfort

Alexander Comfort, MB BChir, PhD, DSc was a medical professional, gerontologist, anarchist, pacifist, conscientious objector and writer, best known for The Joy of Sex, which played a part in what is often called the sexual revolution...

, Dorian Cooke

Dorian Cooke

Dorian Cooke was a poet, MI6 operative, and head of the Yugoslav section at the BBC.-References:* The Times obituary, 11 October 2005* P. N. Review No. 168, March-April 2006...

, John Gallen, Wrey Gardiner

Wrey Gardiner

Charles Wrey Gardiner was an English writer and poet, editor and publisher, born in Plymouth.Gardiner was a noted and well-connected literary figure, particularly in London in the years around Second World War, though very much in the tradition of the literary amateur...

, Robert Greacen

Robert Greacen

Robert Greacen was an Irish poet and member of Aosdána. Born in Derry, Ireland, on 24 October 1920, he was educated at Methodist College Belfast and Trinity College Dublin...

, Robert Herring

Robert Herring (poet)

Robert Herring was a Scottish writer and poet, remembered as an early film critic and editor of the significant literary magazine, Life and Letters Today....

, Seán Jennett

Seán Jennett

Seán Jennett , now known as an author of many travel books, was a typographer for Faber and Faber, who published his The Making of Books . He is also a published poet...

, Maurice Lindsay

Maurice Lindsay

Maurice Lindsay CBE was a Scottish broadcaster, writer and poet. He was born in Glasgow.After serving in World War II he became a radio broadcaster, also editing the 1946 anthology Modern Scottish Poetry, and writing music criticism. He later was Programme Controller at Border Television.His...

, Nicholas Moore

Nicholas Moore

Nicholas Moore was an English poet, associated with the New Apocalyptics in the 1940s, who later dropped out of the literary world.Moore was born in Cambridge, England; his father was the philosopher G. E. Moore...

, Philip O'Connor

Philip O'Connor

Philip O'Connor was a British writer and surrealist poet, who also painted. He was one of the 'Wheatsheaf writers' of 1930s Fitzrovia...

, Leslie Phillips

Leslie Phillips

Leslie Samuel Phillips, CBE is an English actor with a highly recognisable upper class accent. Originally known for his work as a comedy actor, Phillips subsequently made the transition to character roles.-Early life:...

, Tom Scott

Tom Scott (poet)

Tom Scott was a Scottish poet, editor, and prose writer. His writing is closely tied to the New Apocalypse, the New Romantics, and the Scottish Renaissance.- Bibliography :...

, Gervase Stewart, Dylan Thomas

Dylan Thomas

Dylan Marlais Thomas was a Welsh poet and writer, Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 11 January 2008. who wrote exclusively in English. In addition to poetry, he wrote short stories and scripts for film and radio, which he often performed himself...

, Vernon Watkins

Vernon Watkins

Vernon Phillips Watkins , was a British poet, and a translator and painter. He was a close friend of Dylan Thomas, who described him as "the most profound and greatly accomplished Welshman writing poems in English"....

, and Peter Wells.

New Romantics?

A broader movement of New Romantics has been postulated, to cover many of the British poets between the 'Auden group' of the 1930s and The Movement

The Movement

- Music :* The Movement , an American rock/reggae band* The Movement , the house music act* The Movement , a Danish/German mod revival punk band* The Movement , 2003...

. This is much more debatable; it may be something of a flag of convenience for those such as the followers of Dylan Thomas

Dylan Thomas

Dylan Marlais Thomas was a Welsh poet and writer, Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 11 January 2008. who wrote exclusively in English. In addition to poetry, he wrote short stories and scripts for film and radio, which he often performed himself...

 and George Barker

George Barker (poet)

George Granville Barker was an English poet and author.-Life and work:Barker was born in Loughton, near Epping Forest in Essex, England, elder brother of Kit Barker [painter] George Barker was raised by his Irish mother and English father in Battersea, London. He was educated at an L.C.C. school...

 whose style clearly marked them off, or on the other hand a tag for those addressed polemically and retrospectively by the Robert Conquest

Robert Conquest

George Robert Ackworth Conquest CMG is a British historian who became a well-known writer and researcher on the Soviet Union with the publication in 1968 of The Great Terror, an account of Stalin's purges of the 1930s...

 introduction to the New Lines anthology. The phrase New Romantics was used at the time, though, for example by Henry Treece

Henry Treece

Henry Treece was a British poet and writer, who worked also as a teacher, and editor. He is perhaps best remembered now as a historical novelist, particularly as a children's historical novelist, although he also wrote some adult historical novels.-Life and work:Treece was born in Wednesbury,...

; it is usually attributed to Cyril Connolly

Cyril Connolly

Cyril Vernon Connolly was an English intellectual, literary critic and writer. He was the editor of the influential literary magazine Horizon and wrote Enemies of Promise , which combined literary criticism with an autobiographical exploration of why he failed to become the successful author of...

.

The effects of the times

Wartime conditions had posed great editorial difficulties, and the London operations of the publishers such as Tambimuttu, Grey Walls Press and Fortune Press had been stopgaps (and mostly disconnected from the Cairo poets

Cairo poets

The British Army presence in Egypt in World War II had, as a side effect, the concentration of a group of Cairo poets. There had in fact been a noticeable literary group in Cairo before the war in North Africa broke out, including university academics. Possibly as a reflection of that, there were...

).

Kenneth Rexroth

Kenneth Rexroth

Kenneth Rexroth was an American poet, translator and critical essayist. He is regarded as a central figure in the San Francisco Renaissance, and paved the groundwork for the movement...

 produced a post-war anthology covering the period, but it had little circulation in the UK. Another view was that from John Lehmann

John Lehmann

Rudolf John Frederick Lehmann was an English poet and man of letters, and one of the foremost literary editors of the twentieth century, founding the periodicals New Writing and The London Magazine.The fourth child of journalist Rudolph Lehmann, and brother of Helen Lehmann, novelist Rosamond...

's New Writing.

Retrospect from the 1950s

By 1953 John Heath-Stubbs

John Heath-Stubbs

John Francis Alexander Heath-Stubbs OBE was an English poet and translator, known for his verse influenced by classical myths, and the long Arthurian poem Artorius .- Biography :...

 could write of the New Romantics as a movement of the past, though acutely singling out W. S. Graham

W. S. Graham

William Sydney Graham was a Scottish poet who is often associated with Dylan Thomas and the neo-romantic group of poets. Graham's poetry was mostly overlooked in his lifetime but, partly due to the support of Harold Pinter, his work has enjoyed a revival in recent years...

 under the heading of in it, though not of it. This was in the introduction to an anthology Images of Tomorrow, which also points out that the debate over the 'romanticism' was also a fissure within the Christian poets over style — indeed harking back to the religious and psychological depths of 'apocalypse

Apocalypse

An Apocalypse is a disclosure of something hidden from the majority of mankind in an era dominated by falsehood and misconception, i.e. the veil to be lifted. The Apocalypse of John is the Book of Revelation, the last book of the New Testament...

'.

External links

• Andrew Duncan's notes on 1940s British poets