Nicholas Moore

Nicholas Moore ( born November 16, 1918 in Cambridge, † 26 January 1986) was an English poet who was counted in the group of the so-called "new apocalyptic " and in the late 1940s was eliminated by a series of misfortunes from the literary industry.

Life

Training

Moore, whose father was the philosopher George Edward Moore, was born in Cambridge / England. He completed his schooling at the Dragon School in Oxford and Leighton Park School in Reading. Later he attended the University of St. Andrews in Scotland and the Trinitiy College, Cambridge.

Career as a poet

Moore wrote already at school poetry. In 1937 a first poem of his was published in an anthology of poetry and prose from English schools. In addition to his own work Moore joined early on as editor in appearance. So he published in Cambridge - first with John Goodland, later alone - the literary magazine "Seven" ( 1938-1940 ). With the beginning of the 1940s, Moore was also active in the literary scene of London. He worked mainly for Tambimuttus "Poetry London ", a poetry publishing house with associated magazine. Moore's first independent collections of poems that were published in 1941, also appeared in Poetry London. The four books of poetry published in 1941 Moores were an expression of his enormous productivity. Selbige crack in the following years is not starting, and Moore published - for various publishers - a number of other books of poetry. One of them, who in 1944 published band Glass Tower, was illustrated by Lucian Freud. In the U.S., Moore's poems were published in the 1940s, for example, in Poetry ( Chicago).

Decline as a poet

Moore, who was expected in the 1940s (incorrectly) to the New Apokalpytikern, had increasingly around 1950 problems getting published his poems, as his previous publishers were gone bankrupt or had left the UK. Moreover, it was the poetry of the new apocalyptic - and with it, the Moores - regarded by critics from the late 1940s as obsolete. In addition to these literary reasons Moore had to cope with a variety of personal defeats. His wife Priscilla, whom he had devoted a vast number of his poems, left him along with their daughter in 1948. A second marriage was also unhappy. Moore's wife was mentally ill, their daughter died young and the son was given to the orphanage. Moore himself had meanwhile taken a job in a nursery, but it was constantly with his health from the 1950s downhill. As a result of gangrene of his legs had to be removed, and Moore was confined to a wheelchair from the 1960s. Although he also wrote poems continue, but they were no longer printed. Only a gardening book about the High Bartsch value lily appeared at that time (1956).

31 versions of Baudelaire's Spleen

In 1968, the Sunday Times initiated under the auspices of the literary critic George Steiner has a translation contest for Baudelaire's poem " Spleen " ( " Je suis comme le roi "). Moore handed over several weeks a total of 31 - a translation of the poem, in which he used a variety of pseudonyms - some very free. Although Moore did not win the competition, but its 31 versions were published in 1973 in book form. It should be Moore's last book of poetry during his lifetime.

Small Renaissance

In the 1980s, the British poet and essayist Peter Riley became aware of Nicholas Moore. He found the poet in a small, run-down apartment in London, Moore had the respect after his separation from Priscilla in 1948. Riley sifted through the extensive material - a total of some 3,000 poems - and published some of them to Moore's death.

Reception in Germany

To date (August 2012) was published only one of Moore's poems in German. It is to the poem " sunlit tree ", which appeared in the translation from Klara Blum 1945 in the last issue of the Journal of International Literature. Scientific work on Moore does not exist in the German-speaking countries so far. However, the writer Francis Nenik published in 2012 an essay in which Moore's life is described in detail and linked to the very similar fate of the Czech poet Ivan Blatný.

Works

A Wish in Season ( 1941)
The Iceland and the Cattle (1941 )
A Book for Priscilla (1941 )
Buzzing around with a Bee (1941 )
The Cabaret, the Dancer, the Gentlemen ( 1942)
The Glass Tower (1944 )
( Published anonymously, 1944) Thirty-Five Anonymous Odes
The War of the Little Jersey Cows (published under the pseudonym " Guy Kelly", 1945)
The Anonymous Elegies and other poems ( published anonymously, 1945)
Recollections of the Gala: Selected Poems 1943-48 (1950 )
The Tall Bearded Iris ( 1956)
Anxious To Please (1968 ) (published under the pseudonym ( anagram ) " Romeo Anschilo ", 1995 / Oasis Books)
Identity (1969)
Resolution and Identity (1970 )
Spleen. Thirty-one versions of Baudelaire 's " Je suis comme le roi ". ( 1973 / Blacksuede Boat Press and Menard Press)
Lacrimae Rerum (1988 )
Longings of the Acrobats: Selected Poems (1990 )