Neglected Irish Poet

ELT 38: 1 1995 without and that no serious cultural historian or student of the period should f aU to consult before descending to the basement of a library and pulling down one of those dusty volumes. Clinton K. Krauss Montpelier, Vermont Neglected Irish Poet Mark Samuels Lasner. Willmm Allingham: A Bibliographical Study. Philadelphia: Holmes Publishing, 1993. 88 pp. $50.00 WILLIAM ALLINGHAM (1823-1889), an almost forgotten Anglo -Irish poet, native of BaUyshannon, County Donegal, was largely self-educated. His formal education ended at fourteen when he entered the employ of the bank which his father managed, but Ui his spare tüne he avidly read the classics and English literature, taught himsetf French and German and started writing poetry. At twenty-two, like so many Victorian authors (Anthony Trollope, Austin Dobson and Edmund Gosse for example), he turned to government service, working as a customs officer until 1870, when he settled permanently Ui England. At an early age he started journeying to England, where as an aspiring poet he graduaUy became acquainted with many of the major figures of the Victorian literary scene, becoming a friend of Browning, Tennyson, Carlyle, Patmore, as well as Dante Gabriel Rossetti and other members of the Pre-Raphaelite circle. He was sub-editor from 1870 to 1874 and then for the next five years editor of the prestigious Fraser's Magazine, to which he had frequently contributed, and m this influential position he was even more Ultimately associated with the literary IUe of England. His diary, published Ui 1907, with its perceptive comments and first-hand information about bis more renowned literary friends has been consistently quoted by their biographers. A few commentators are convinced that AUuigham's total work, including his criticism, ballad scholarship and plays, merits greater recognition. Although he has not been totally neglected, generaUy he has been described, as he was Ui his obituary, as "an agreeable poet." WUUam Butler Yeats, who called him "my master in Irish verse," wrote of his poetry hi his introduction to A Book of Irish Verse (1895) and noted Ui his Journal, "In Allingham I find the entire emotion for the place one grew up Ui." Joseph Hone, Yeats's biographer, reported that the young poet "formed the modest ambition of doing for Sligo what Allingham had done for BaUyshannon." AUuigham's works, specifically 142 BOOK REVIEWS his poetry, have been cited as the beginning of the Irish Literary Revival and that his place Ui it "is as a poet who sensed the genius locus rather than as a nationalist." His long poem, Laurence Bloomfield in IreL·nd (1864), described in the Dictionary of National Biography as "the epic of Irish philanthropic landlordism" and his Irish Songs and Poems (1887) show his affection for his native land and sympathy for the Irish peasants. A few years ago a critic wrote that Allingham "as a poet, specifically an Irish poet,... deserves to be remembered." He remains, however, a strictly minor figure, with only a few of his books Ui print and barely mentioned, except as an auxUiary figure, in books devoted to middle and late Victorian literature. Conceivably the new biography by Simon Gatrell being readied for publication and this brief resume of bis works wül again draw attention to this more or less overlooked figure. The scant previous scholarship, including several bibliographical studies, is acknowledged by Samuels Lasner Ui the introduction to this book, an emended version of the same material published Ui the Summer and Autumn 1990 issues of The Book Collector Ui its "Uncollected Authors" series. The author points out that perhaps "miscollected" rather than "uncollected" is the term that should be used to describe Allingham's books, as they generally have been collected not for their text, but for their Ulustrations by D. G. Rossetti, Arthur Hughes, John Everett MuÃ-ais, and Kate Greenway among others , as well as wood engravings by the brothers Dalziel, all commanding "bookseUers' respect and high prices at auction." AUuigham's placid and unspectacular ltfe, here described as being "Ui some respects more successful than his work," is concisely summarized, particularly Ui relation to his books, Ui the introduction where the author admits...