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35 JOHN FREEMAN» AN ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY OF WRITINGS ABOUT HIM By Janet M. Irvin (Arizona State University) The poetry of John Freeman (I880-I929) displays many of the characteristic qualities and defects of the later Georgian poets with whom he is associated. The author of fourteen volumes of verse and four books of literary criticism, John Freeman was by career an eminently successful insurance agent and businessman. Yet he took his artistic avocations seriously, and his verse may generally be commended for its technical qualities and lyricism. In I920 he was awarded the Hawthornden Prize for Poems New and Old. His chief defects are verbosity, didacticism, and a lack of thorough thematic development in some of his more ambitious works. The expansiveness and lack of sensual appeal in his verse did not contribute to great popular success, and most reviewers, even when favorable, agreed with Richard Le Gallienne's assessment that "unselected, unwinnowed , he is apt to go unread." Freeman's verse, despite its wide variety of subject matter, falls into several basic categories. His war poems generally give a sentimental view of war, in contrast to the stark realism of such earlier Georgians as Isaac Rosenberg and Siegfried Sassoon. More typical of his work are his nature and love poems, by which he was most widely known among his contemporaries. More interesting, at least to a modern audience, are Freeman's descriptive and narrative poems, which often delve into the psychology of the human soul and are less remote and flaccid than his shorter lyrics» Although he is always serious both in subject matter and diction, Freeman expresses his moral views most explicitly in his religious or philosophical verse, which is often highly introspective. Again his sincerity is evident, although didacticism frequently blunts the impact of the artistry. In addition to writing literary reviews and critical articles for such periodicals as the LONDON MERCURY, BOOKMAN (Lond), and the QUARTERLY REVIEW, Freeman published two books of critical essays and two critical biographies. The, Moderns (I9I6) includes essays on G. B. Shaw, H, G. Wells,Thomas Hardy, Maurice Maeterlinck Henry James, Joseph Conrad, Coventry Patmore, Francis Thompson, and Robert Bridges. English Portraits and Essays (1924) deals with G. K, Chesterton, Robert Louis Stevenson, William Cobbett, Walter De la Mare, Maurice Hewlett, Edmund Gosse, Coventry Patmore, and Compton Mackenzie. Both A Portrait of Ge orge Moore in a Study of His Work (1922) and HermanHâelvîTle (1926) attempt Έο" provide cr itical analyse s of literary works within the context of the personal lives of the authors. Included among the following abstracts are references in critical studies, articles dealing with John Freeman's life and work, and a sufficient sampling of early reviews to provide an overview of 36 his immediate reception. Reserved for the appendix are those reviews which seem merely to duplicate the abstracted material without offering any new insights. I have not listed as secondary sources the imaginatively reconstructed "dialogues" by George Moore that include John Freeman as a participant, such as those that appear in CONVERSATIONS IN EBURY STREET or the "Introduction" to PURE POETRY. Armstrong, Martin. "A Critical Egotist," BOOKMAN (Lond), LXVI (July 1924), 208-10. In English Portraits and Essays JF glories in his role of subjective critic, his scheme being "poetic rather than scientific," One of the most delightful essays is on Chesterton, and the portrait of Cobbett is "graphic and vivid in every detail." JF's prose is pleasant to read; his criticism is mature, "a distillation rather than the ebullience of the moment." ........ "George Moore," BOOKMAN (Lond), LXIII (Jan 1923), 204-5. A Portrait Qf George Moore is interesting and skillful , critical and objective, with a view sufficiently different from that supplied by Moore's own autobiographical works to justify the writing. Batho, Edith C, and Bonamy Dobrle. THE VICTORIANS AND AFTER, 1830-1914 (Lond: Cresset P, 1938), pp. 221, 256, 276, 317. 334. [Slight. Contains a bibliography of JF'Îμ poetry and criticism.] Benêt, William Rose. "Among the New Books," YALE REVIEW, ns XI (Oct 1921), 178. Reading Poems New and Old is "A burden harsh and sorry"» although some of his poetry is good, it is generally "too faint and diluted...

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