"In 1960, Spender was renowned as a figure from the past — a poet of the nineteen-thirties — and his work was deeply out of fashion... Most of us had been told in school that of all the thirties poets Spender was the one whose reputation had been most inflated. He lacked the complexity of Auden, the erudition of Louis MacNeice, the cunning of Cecil Day-Lewis. He was the one who had believed the slogans — "Oh young men oh young comrades" — and, after the war, the one who had recanted most shamefacedly. He was the fairest of fair game..."
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LGBT peopleNovelists from EnglandEssayists from EnglandPoets from EnglandAcademics from the United Kingdom
Original Language: English
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"Spender's Lives" by Ian Hamilton in The New Yorker, (28 February 1994)
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Stephen_Spender
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Stephen Spender
Stephen Spender (February 28, 1909 – July 16, 1995) was an English poet and essayist who focused on themes of social injustice and the class struggle in his work.
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