Louis MacNiece
(1907–1963)

Four members of the "Auden group" at Oxford went on to achieve an honored place in English literature: Auden himself, C. Day Lewis, Stephan Spender, and Louis MacNiece. Of these, MacNiece was generally regarded as the junior member, not because of his age but rather because he lacked the artistic certainty and the political commitment of the others. A lyric and reflective poet of distinction, he was always modest about the aims of poetry, doubting that poetry could truly change the world. MacNiece's reputation has risen steadily over the years, and today many consider him second only to Auden among the poets of his generation.

MacNiece, the son of a Protestant clergyman, was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Surrounded by books as a child, he began to write poetry at the age of seven. By the time he went to Merton College, Oxford, he was familiar with the works of T. S. Eliot and other modern poets. MacNiece's first collection of poems, Blind Fireworks, appeared in 1929, while he was still an undergraduate. Poems, the collection that established his reputation, came out six years later.

MacNiece lectured in Classics at the University of Birmingham from 1930 to 1936 and in Greek at Bedford College for Women from 1936 to 1940. As a writer, he tried his hand at various genres, including drama, but his lasting achievements are in poetry. One of his notable books from the late 1930s, Letter from Iceland (1937), co-authored by W.H. Auden, is an unusual travel book in which the poetry outweighs the prose.

In 1941, MacNiece joined the British Broadcasting Company as a feature writer and producer. Among his radio credits are two powerful BBC plays, Christopher Columbus (1944) and The Dark Tower (1947). He wrote The Poetry of W. B. Yeats (1941), a critical summary of the author's work, and produced a number of excellent translations, including Aeschylus' Agememnon and Goethe's Faust. MacNiece died in London in 1963 while he was working on his autobiography.

MacNiece's poetry, usually dealing with contemporary life, is restrained and precise, with overtones of melancholy. It is the poetry of a man who, as the poet Edwin Muir put it, "is never swept off his feet."

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