Author: Michael Hurd
Publisher: Faber & Faber
ISBN: 0571281052
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 216
Get Book Here
Book Description
First published in 1978 The Ordeal of Ivor Gurney is a moving and extraordinary account of a tragic genius penned by the composer Michael Hurd. Born in Gloucester in 1890 Ivor Gurney began writing songs and poems in his teens, taking his inspiration from the Severn Valley countryside where he grew up. Sent to the Western Front during the First World War Gurney experienced desolation and horror that made a profound impression on him. He ended his days in an asylum, but at his death in 1937 he was beginning to be acknowledged as one of England's finest composers. Still, it took several more decades for his work as a war poet to be fully appreciated. 'Hurd compresses into a taut, sympathetic outline the initial optimism and later torment of Gurney's ill-starred life... distinguished by its crisp use of poetic extracts.' PN Review
Author: Michael Hurd
Publisher: Faber & Faber
ISBN: 9780571242016
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 256
Get Book Here
Book Description
First published in 1978 The Ordeal of Ivor Gurney is a moving and extraordinary account of a tragic genius penned by the composer Michael Hurd. Born in Gloucester in 1890 Ivor Gurney began writing songs and poems in his teens, taking his inspiration from the Severn Valley countryside where he grew up. Sent to the Western Front during the First World War Gurney experienced desolation and horror that made a profound impression on him. He ended his days in an asylum, but at his death in 1937 he was beginning to be acknowledged as one of England's finest composers. Still, it took several more decades for his work as a war poet to be fully appreciated. 'Hurd compresses into a taut, sympathetic outline the initial optimism and later torment of Gurney's ill-starred life... distinguished by its crisp use of poetic extracts.' PN Review
Author: Kate Kennedy
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691212783
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 512
Get Book Here
Book Description
"Originally a student of music, [Gurney] took up poetry in the trenches of the First World War, and was working on what would be his first volume of verse when, in 1917, he suffered wounds to the shoulder; and it was just before publication of this volume, Severn & Somme, that he was gassed at Passchendaele. After his return to Britain he resumed his musical studies, ... and quickly found outlets for his compositions. There is some debate about whether or not his subsequent mental illness was a consequence of the horrors and sufferings of the war; but mental illness marked the rest of his life, and indeed from about 1922 until his death he was institutionalised ... He nevertheless continued to produce poems and musical compositions in prolific fashion, and his works in both areas are read and performed, respectively, to this day"--
Author: John Lucas
Publisher: Liverpool University Press
ISBN: 0746308876
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 129
Get Book Here
Book Description
Drawing on biographical information, letters, reminiscences and anecdotes, John Lucas pieces together the troubled life of Ivor Gurney, a key 20th century poet.
Author: Pamela Blevins
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer Ltd
ISBN: 1843834219
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 354
Get Book Here
Book Description
Insightful account of the life and works of two of the most important figures in twentieth-century British cultural life.
Author: Ivor Gurney
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : English poetry
Languages : en
Pages : 184
Get Book Here
Book Description
Best Poems consists of fair copies Gurney made, with few alterations. The Book of Five Makings is more a working draft, with recastings of the same poems, revealing the process by which he brought his art to completion. Of the 116 poems in this double volume, fewer than a quarter are previously collected. In his introduction R.K.R. Thornton, Professor of English at the University of Birmingham and editor of Gurney's poems and collected letters, sets the books in context. Annotations give readers a clear picture of the books as Gurney wanted them to be.
Author: Peter Barham
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 9780300125115
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 480
Get Book Here
Book Description
This is a poignant, sometimes ribald, history of the rank-and-file servicemen who were psychiatric casualties of World War One.
Author: Alfred Edward Housman
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Cities and towns
Languages : en
Pages : 168
Get Book Here
Book Description
Author: Robert Edric
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 0552774189
Category : Biographical fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 370
Get Book Here
Book Description
It is December 1922. Ex-soldier, poet and composer, Ivor Gurney, suffering from increasingly frequent and deepening bouts of paranoid schizophrenia is transferred to the City of London Mental Hospital, Dartford. Neglected by the military and his own family, and abandoned by all but a notable handful of his friends, Gurney begins a descent into the madness and oblivion which he believes has long been waiting to claim him. Yet following his arrival at Dartford, there are still those who continue to believe in Gurney’s capabilities. It seems that he might find some calm and ease in his life, and thus achieve the status so many consider him capable of achieving..
Author: Ronald Carter
Publisher: Psychology Press
ISBN: 9780415243179
Category : English language
Languages : en
Pages : 598
Get Book Here
Book Description
This is a guide to the main developments in the history of British and Irish literature, charting some of the main features of literary language development and highlighting key language topics.
