Poems And Songs - Shakspere - Wordsworth And After

Poems and Songs – Shakspere – Wordsworth and After (1928) by John Hawke – Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton

ISBN: None
Condition: Good
Published: 1928
Offered by: Crappy Old Books

There was a time when poetry was considered an essential ingredient of civilisation, rather than something inflicted upon reluctant schoolchildren shortly before an examination. People actually bought books of verse, read them voluntarily, and occasionally committed entire poems to memory without receiving a certificate, a qualification or even a government-funded incentive.

Published in 1928 by Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Poems and Songs – Shakspere – Wordsworth and After by John Hawke belongs to that vanished literary world, when the written word was treated with a degree of reverence now more commonly reserved for mobile telephones and celebrity chefs.

The title itself is a splendid declaration of literary ambition. Shakespeare, or Shakspere as the author prefers to have him, is summoned from the Elizabethan age; Wordsworth emerges from his contemplations of daffodils, mountains and the general magnificence of nature; and then comes that wonderfully expansive phrase, "and After", which rather neatly accommodates several centuries of subsequent poetic endeavour without troubling the printer with further particulars.

One can almost imagine the author surveying the entire history of English verse and deciding that a modest volume of poems and songs would be an entirely reasonable contribution to the proceedings.

There is something particularly appealing about poetry published in the late 1920s. The Victorian age had finally departed, the Great War had shattered countless assumptions, and modernism was busily informing the literary establishment that poetry need no longer rhyme, scan or make immediate sense. Nevertheless, the older traditions remained alive, offering readers rhythm, sentiment, reflection and the occasional opportunity to contemplate the human condition without resorting to psychoanalysis.

Hawke’s volume is an intriguing survivor of this transitional literary world, its very title suggesting an affectionate engagement with the long tradition of English poetry.

And, of course, there is the delightful matter of its age. Published in 1928, this book has survived the Great Depression, another world war, the invention of television, the internet and the near-total disappearance of the habit of writing poetry without immediately posting it on social media.

Condition: Good. A respectable antiquarian copy showing the natural evidence of its considerable years. It has enjoyed nearly a century of existence, which is rather more than can be said for most contemporary literary fashions.

No ISBN, naturally. The international book-numbering system had not yet arrived, and booksellers were somehow expected to identify publications using such primitive instruments as titles, authors and basic literacy.

Offered by Crappy Old Books, where elderly literary survivors are treated with appropriate respect, even when their publishers have long since vanished into bibliographical obscurity.

A charming addition to a collection of vintage poetry, literary curiosities or interwar publications, and a reminder of an age when Shakespeare and Wordsworth could still command a book’s title without the assistance of a marketing department.

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