Remarks by Francis Ledwidge | V2Melody Quotations

“Though I love music I cannot write within earshot of any instrument.”

An intriguing distinction between his love of music and the silence required for writing · Autobiographical letter to Lewis Chase, 6 June 1917

“Georgian Poetry, with my three excluded, contains, I think, the best poems of the century.”

Offers both generous praise of his contemporaries and a modest aside about himself · Autobiographical letter to Lewis Chase, 6 June 1917

“I burned many copybooks which contained fugitive pieces of my own because I thought it were better for them to die young and be happy than live to be reviled.”

A witty description of ruthless self-editing and dissatisfaction with early work · Autobiographical letter to Lewis Chase, 6 June 1917

“For a long time I did little but criticise and rearrange my books, separating, as it were, the sheep from the goats.”

Reading critically became part of his education as a writer · Autobiographical letter to Lewis Chase, 6 June 1917

“Shelley was innocent of such sins and poor Keats never heard of them.”

His criticism gives way to warm admiration for Shelley and Keats · Autobiographical letter to Lewis Chase, 6 June 1917

“Tennyson was too conventional for my taste and nearly always spoiled his work with a prologue or an epilogue full of loud bombast or conceit.”

A strikingly forthright judgement on one of the major Victorian poets · Autobiographical letter to Lewis Chase, 6 June 1917

“The poems of the former which had erstwhile pleased me seemed too full of colour, too full of metaphor and often too disconnected.”

Shows Ledwidge developing definite ideas about poetic restraint and coherence · Autobiographical letter to Lewis Chase, 6 June 1917

“I began to pick faults with Longfellow and Tennyson.”

Marks the transition from youthful admiration to independent critical judgement · Autobiographical letter to Lewis Chase, 6 June 1917

“But the poems of Keats and his sad life appealed to me most.”

Identifies Keats as the poet whose work and fate affected him most deeply · Autobiographical letter to Lewis Chase, 6 June 1917

“I longed to see the Italy of Shelley and the Greece of Byron.”

Literary admiration transformed distant countries into places of imaginative pilgrimage · Autobiographical letter to Lewis Chase, 6 June 1917

“I thirsted for travel and adventure.”

A simple expression of the wanderlust that accompanied his attachment to home · Autobiographical letter to Lewis Chase, 6 June 1917

“I turned especially to the Elizabethans and the ballads that came before the great Renaissance.”

Identifies traditions that particularly attracted him as a developing poet · Autobiographical letter to Lewis Chase, 6 June 1917

“I read and studied the poets of England from the age of Chaucer to Swinburne.”

Describes the breadth of his self-directed literary education · Autobiographical letter to Lewis Chase, 6 June 1917

“I read books on logic and astronomy and could point out the planets and discuss on the nebulae of the Milky Way.”

His intellectual curiosity ranged far beyond literature · Autobiographical letter to Lewis Chase, 6 June 1917

“I took a certificate of one hundred and twenty words a minute at Pitman's shorthand and soon knew Euclid as well as a man of Trinity College.”

Combines pride in self-education with characteristic confidence · Autobiographical letter to Lewis Chase, 6 June 1917

“I set myself certain studies and these I pursued at night when I should be resting from a laborious day.”

Shows the discipline behind his largely self-directed education · Autobiographical letter to Lewis Chase, 6 June 1917

“I determined never to leave home again so I took up any old job at all with the local farmers and was happy.”

Values familiar surroundings and contentment above occupational status · Autobiographical letter to Lewis Chase, 6 June 1917

“I arrived home at six A.M., dusty and hungry after a weary thirty mile walk.”

A vivid measure of how urgently he wanted to return home · Autobiographical letter to Lewis Chase, 6 June 1917

“Scarcely was the last line written when I stole out through a back door and set my face for home.”

Writing crystallised his homesickness into immediate action · Autobiographical letter to Lewis Chase, 6 June 1917

“My mother apprenticed me to a Dublin grocer and sent me off one Spring morning with many tears and blessings and nothing of anything else.”

Recalls leaving home with affection but almost no material resources · Autobiographical letter to Lewis Chase, 6 June 1917

“I wrote wander songs for the cuckoos and winter songs for the robin.”

A concise description of how closely his early writing followed the natural world · Autobiographical letter to Lewis Chase, 6 June 1917

“I read of Troy and Nineveh and the nomads of the East and the mystery of Sahara.”

Books opened distant histories and landscapes to his childhood imagination · Autobiographical letter to Lewis Chase, 6 June 1917

“Indeed I left many an exercise unfinished hurrying over some thought that shaped itself into rhyme.”

Poetic impulses repeatedly displaced ordinary schoolwork · Autobiographical letter to Lewis Chase, 6 June 1917

“While I was still at school many silly verses left my pen, written either for my own amusement or the amusement of my companions.”

Recalls poetry first as play rather than literary ambition · Autobiographical letter to Lewis Chase, 6 June 1917

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