De la Mare, Walter. (1873 - 1956).
W o r k
I m a g i n a t i o n :
(a) childlike imagination: intuitive and inductive > visionary poetry
(b) boylike imagination: logical and deductive > intellectual poetry
- prefers the childlike type of imagination himself
C h i l d r e n :
Pecacock Pie (1913), Tom Tiddler's Ground (1932), and This Year: Next Year (1937):
- collections of children's poetry
- in a direct and fluent songlike manner
The Three Mulla-Mulgars (1910):
- a children's novel
A d u l t s :
"The Listeners" (1912):
- his most famous narrative poem
- a stranger comes to a house to deliver a message and fulfil a promise x but: finds the house empty
- "the listeners" = the probably only imaginary hearers of the stranger's knocking and calling
Memoirs of a Midget (1921):
- a novel
The Walter de la Mare Omnibus (1933):
- a collection of short stories
Quote
"'Tell them I came, and no one answered, / That I kept my word,' he said. / Never the least stir made the listeners, / Though every word he spake / Fell echoing through the shadowiness of the still house / From the one man left awake."
From "The Listeners" (1912).
Basics
(Photo: Famous Poets & Poems com).
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Author
Walter John de la Mare. (1873 - 1956). British. -
Work
Poet. Novelist. Short story writer. Author of children's poetry. -
Genres
Georgian period. Poetry and fiction. Children's writing.
Literature
Abrams, Meyer Howard, ed. The Norton Anthology of English Literature. New York: W. W. Norton, 1993.
Barnard, Robert. Stručné dějiny anglické literatury. Praha: Brána, 1997.
Baugh, Albert C. ed. A Literary History of England. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1967.
Coote, Stephen. The Penguin Short History of English Literature. London: Penguin, 1993.
Sampson, George. The Concise Cambridge History of English Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1946.
Sanders, Andrew. The Short Oxford History of English Literature. New York: Clarendon Press, 1994.