“The poet, I consider, is both critic and entertainer (and his criticism…” — Louis MacNeice

“The poet, I consider, is both critic and entertainer (and his criticism will cut no ice unless he entertains).”

Poetry must hold an audience if its judgement is to matter · Preface, Modern Poetry: A Personal Essay (1938)

About Louis MacNeice

12 September 1907–3 September 1963

Louis MacNeice was born on 12 September 1907 in Belfast, the youngest child of John Frederick MacNeice and Elizabeth Margaret Clesham. His father was a Church of Ireland clergyman who would later become a bishop, and the family moved shortly after Louis's birth to Carrickfergus, on the northern shore of Belfast Lough…

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